Ex-Liverpool head of research 'begged' the club's owners NOT to sign one player who left after one season

Liverpool’s former director of research, Ian Graham has revealed he ‘begged’ the club not to sign one player.

Over the years, Liverpool have been famed for their transfer businesses after bringing in the likes of Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk, Alisson Becker while unearthing gems like Andy Robertson, Roberto Fimino and Philippe Coutinho.

However, some transfers did not go to plan. For example, Naby Keita and Mario Balotelli are two players who endured a tough time at Anfield.

Speaking during an interview with The Athletic, former head of research Graham revealed that he begged the club’s owners not to sign Christian Benteke.

At the time, Brendan Rodgers was the Liverpool manager and it was claimed that Benteke was an ‘obsession’ for the Northern Irishman.

Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group ended up paying £32.5 million to bring the Belgian to Anfield.

The report stated: “Graham claims he “begged” the owners not to sign Aston Villa’s Christian Benteke in the summer of 2015 as he felt he was a poor fit for Liverpool’s style, but signing the Belgian striker was an “obsession” for Rodgers and FSG paid the £32.5million release clause.”

In the end, Benteke left the club after just one season having scored just 10 goals in 42 appearances.

The striker went to Crystal Palace before moving to MLS side DC United in 2022.

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Graham also spoke about the difference between Rodgers and his successor, Jurgen Klopp.

He said: “The difference was Jurgen’s open-mindedness. The data gradually became more sophisticated and the models improved, but there wasn’t a step-change in the quality of our analysis when Brendan left and Jurgen arrived. It was the same processes and the same people.

“Jurgen saw players in the same way as Michael Edwards, whereas Brendan didn’t. Jurgen didn’t have any experience of data analysis in football before he came to Liverpool. We were asked questions occasionally by Jurgen and the coaching staff, but it wasn’t part of our weekly work to sit down and go through next week’s tactics or last week’s performance with Jurgen.”

Graham added: “The difference was it was accepted that this is one of the ways Liverpool works. Jurgen believed in experts and that they can make a difference. He knew that data informed our recruitment process and the feedback he got after games from our video analysis department and he was receptive to that.”