“Half of transfers fail.”
A bleak statement, but one that is accurate in the world of football according to Dr Ian Graham, Liverpool’s director of research.
The clamour for new signings has never been greater. Winning the transfer window is as important as winning a major piece of silverware in the eyes of many supporters.
It is a hollow and materialistic reality that has consumed even the game’s biggest institutions, but Liverpool continue to resist such external pressure.
READ MORE: Liverpool director of research explains how transfer strategy really works
During the most recent summer window, the Reds acquired just one player in Ibrahima Konate for a what now appears to be a modest £35m fee while rival clubs showcased their financial might by sanctioning record-breaking captures.
Supporters, ex-players and pundits alike encouraged the Merseyside club to conduct more business in order to compete, but no further incomings arrived.
Refusing to strengthen beyond Konate was deemed as a risk, but the decision stemmed from Liverpool’s deep-rooted relationship with analytics.
Graham is central to the very nature of how Liverpool allow data to shape their judgement, having worked alongside Michael Edwards - the club’s sporting director - for the best part of a decade.
Speaking at this year’s StatsBomb conference at Stamford Bridge, Graham stressed that transfers tend to fail due to a series of different reasons which can be grouped into seven generic boxes.
Those boxes include: a current player is better than the new player, the player is not as good as first thought, the player doesn’t fit the style of the team, the player is played out of position, the manager doesn’t rate the player, the player has fitness issues, and the player has personal issues.
Analytics has significant power in assisting with the first three of those areas, said Graham, with his team of scientists able to ensure that Liverpool are adequately informed and insured before investing in the services of new talent.
Even once gaining confidence across each of those boxes, the risk attached to whether a new player will be a hit remains incredibly high.
"If we're 90% sure the player has no fitness issues, and 90% sure the player has no personal issues, the chance that he's fine across both of those boxes is 81%," said Graham.
"Then if you add in playing out of position, the manager doesn't rate the player, the player isn't as good as we thought, we've already got a player who is as good and so on, the overall chance of success goes down to 48%."
His comments offer a degree of insight into why the Reds have largely opted against adding to their squad since establishing their status as Champions League winners some years ago.
A total of six windows have passed since the summer of 2018, yet the core of Liverpool’s squad remains intact. Just three players who could be labelled as starters have made the switch to Anfield over that period in Konate, Thiago Alcantara and Diogo Jota.
With an accomplished group already constructed and players such as Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott emerging from the youth ranks, how much of Liverpool’s reduced transfer activity derives from the wisdom that current players at the club are simply better than the large majority of potential arrivals?
Finding ways to bolster Jurgen Klopp’s starting line-up is an eternal mission for Graham and Edwards but as Liverpool have gradually improved, the pool of players who possess enough quality to make a worthwhile difference has shrunk.
"Replacing a 30th-percentile player in your squad with a 70th-percentile player gains you roughly 0.08 goal difference per game, and that equates to roughly 2 points per season," said Graham.
As Liverpool's squad has improved with each passing window under Klopp, identifying potential signings who would have enough of an impact on the team's goal difference and points total has become increasingly difficult.
“Recruitment is the most important application of analytics,” was Graham’s core message during his talk. “It is where the action is at in terms of performance,” he said.
The Reds demand numerous green lights before chasing players. It is a lengthy and microscopic process, but one that ensures that their success rate in the transfer market stays above 50%.
