Liverpool's transfer plan is coming to fruition

Since it was formed in the summer of 2012, shortly after Brendan Rodgers had arrived at Anfield, it has been frequently been seized upon as the key reason for Liverpool for failing to meet the expectations of their demanding public.

Home form is patchy? Blame the transfer committee. A big player, regarded to be a target, goes somewhere else? Blame the transfer committee. Someone comes in and fails to settle straight away? Blame the transfer committee.

Four figures have been constant since its inception: Michael Edwards, is the influential technical director; Barry Hunter is the chief scout, Dave Fallows is head of recruitment and chief executive Ian Ayre, who deals with negotiations. The fifth member of the committee is the manager.

When Rodgers was at Liverpool, particularly towards the end of his reign, the belief began to grow in some quarters that the other four were deciding who should be bought and telling Rodgers to get on with making things work.

That perception grew after he did not get his wish to sign players such as Ashley Williams, Ryan Bertrand and Clint Dempsey and Liverpool recruited, to name but three, Luis Alberto, Iago Aspas and Alberto Moreno.

Then Jurgen Klopp arrived to take Rodgers’ place and it was immediately assumed that he would lay down the law, that Edwards, Hunter and Fallows would find themselves marginalised as Klopp ran the show from top to bottom.

Both schools of thought are wrong: from the time of Rodgers to this Klopp’s reign, nothing has changed in terms of how things are done behind the scenes in terms of how players are recruited – what is changing is the consistency of performance.

Take Divock Origi, the star of the show in this EFL Cup collision with Tottenham. The committee had trailed him for a number of years when he was in France, doing their homework and ensuring they had an £8million deal in place with Lille before the 2014 World Cup.

Liverpool were prepared to take a hit and let him spend a season on-loan at Lille to ensure they would get him and now that decision looks inspired. Origi has been a standout player for Klopp in 2016, a striker who looks capable of becoming one of the best in Europe.

How much would he cost if they wanted to sign him now? Michy Batashuayi, one of his peers in the Belgium squad, moved to Chelsea from Marseille in the summer for £33million. Origi, on this jet-propelled performance, would be of a similar value.

Then there is Marko Grujic. He will go into the record books as Klopp’s first signing, with the deal to bring him from Red Star Belgrade completed in January. It would have been easy to deduce that Klopp had been following him in Dortmund. Not so.

"When I came here, our scouts showed me some footage of a very skilled player from Red Star Belgrade," Klopp said on the day the deal was completed. "We watched, we spoke to him… We are very pleased he decided to come here. He is a big talent and we have seen him a lot of times."

Grujic is still a work in progress but he has shown enough in his brief appearances to date, including a stunning header in a showpiece friendly against Barcelona at Wembley in August, to show that he will be around this squad for a number of years.

His persistence and shot in the ninth minute created the opening for Daniel Sturridge to convert from close range; while Georginio Wijnaldum – another player who had been on Liverpool’s radar when he was with Feyenoord before he went to Newcastle – created Sturridge’s decisive second.

What speaks volumes, though, is that Klopp was able to make 11 changes from the team that had beaten West Brom on Saturday in the Barclays Premier League but the momentum Liverpool have built up was not checked.

Was this the greatest performance Liverpool have produced under Klopp? No. But was it significant? Absolutely. It was a sign that, at last, they have options running through their squad; that players have settled and are capable of making contributions.

It also worth noting that the transfer committee has hardly been discussed during the period Liverpool have accumulated 20 Premier League points and moved into the League Cup quarter-final. And that has to be a sign that it is now running smoothly.

Source: MailOnline

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