Liverpool have made some serious moves in the transfer market so far this season, but the biggest change that has happened at the club this summer has undoubtedly been behind-the-scenes.
Indeed, Michael Edwards has stepped down as the club’s Sporting Director, and he’s been replaced by Julian Ward.
This key role at Anfield oversees all of the major footballing decisions at the club, new signings, player sales, and pertinently, contract negotiations.
Michael Edwards was absolutely fantastic at his job. There are no two ways about it, he built a Champions League and Premier League winning squad, and he made some of the best signings in modern Premier League history for Liverpool.
However, there is one area where Edwards fell somewhat short – contract negotiations.
Indeed, if there was to be one criticism of Edwards it’s that he wasn’t always the best when it came to convincing important players to stay at Liverpool.
Just last summer we saw Georginio Wijnaldum depart on a free transfer, while Emre Can before him ran down his contract and left on a Bosman.
Those are two very expensive footballers that Liverpool lost for a sum of £0, and heading into this summer, there was a danger that the same again would happen with Mohamed Salah.
The Egyptian was heading into the final year of his contract, and after months and months of negotiations under Edwards’ tenure, no deal had been agreed between Liverpool and the player.
The Reds were staring down the barrel of a repeat of the Wijnaldum situation with Salah, but Ward has now, somehow, convinced him to sign a new deal until 2025.
For all of the great work Edwards did at Liverpool, he never quite pulled off such a high-pressure contract negotiation with an existing Reds player, and, in our view, Ward has already outdone his predecessor in this one key area.
Ward getting Salah to put pen to paper, quite simply, outranks any contract negotiation Edwards ever played a part in.
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