R
RedZeppelin III
Guest
TWO days after he was sacked by Liverpool, Damien Comolli boarded a plane to the South of France. The timing of the flight was significant.
“I made sure I took off when Liverpool kicked off in the FA Cup semi-final versus Everton. I couldn’t watch that,” he said. “I landed in Nice, saw the texts that they had won. I saw Andy [Carroll] had scored the winner.
“It’s not one game, good or bad, that would let me think we were right or wrong. You have to look over the length of their career.”
In his role as director of football, Comolli oversaw an estimated £110million spending spree as Liverpool aggressively pursued Champions League football. Buying time for himself – and others – proved elusive. It is eight months since he left the club, soon to be followed by former manager Kenny Dalglish. Carroll has been loaned out, Charlie Adam and Craig Bellamy have departed, Stewart Downing will leave if a buyer can be found in January, and Jose Enrique, Jordan Henderson and Sebastian Coates have had doubts raised against them.
Uruguay striker Luis Suarez, recruited for a reputed £18m from Ajax, remains the shimmering central figure of a revolution that simply failed to revolutionise. The exodus does not reflect well on the Comolli-Dalglish era and the Frenchman is under-standably defensive. He is speaking publicly for the first time since winning an employment tribunal against the club for unfair dismissal, a case he says he did not want to bring. “First of all, you need to look at the big picture,” he said.
“We did 26 deals and to think we wouldn’t make any mistakes in such a huge number of deals in and out would be totally unrealistic.
“I do not think we made any mistakes on the players going out and whether we made mistakes on the players who came in, time will tell. I am very uncomfortable for players to be judged after six, eight or even 12 months. Sometimes it takes two or three years.
“In two or three years you can say, ‘Damien and Kenny, you were wrong’. Or you can say, ‘They just needed time’.”
Comolli supports his argument with the example of Gareth Bale, signed while he was director of football at Tottenham and for whom it took 24 games spread over three seasons before he was part of a winning side for the club. The difficulties Luka Modric initially endured at Spurs [he subsequently left for Real Madrid with his status and value drastically enhanced] are another example.
There is also the improvement both Enrique and Henderson have shown of late to consider. Yet the British-record £35m deal for Carroll remains the transfer cited to exemplify financial excesses under owner John W Henry’s Fenway Sports Group.
“If you want to talk about the Carroll deal, the situation was quite clear,” says Comolli, whose work at Arsenal under Arsene Wenger and then Spurs attracted him to Liverpool’s owners.
“The way we looked at it, we were selling two players – Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel – and we were bringing two in – Suarez and Carroll – and we were making a profit and the wage bill was coming down considerably as well. It was a four-player deal.
“Chelsea kept bidding higher and higher for Torres. The difference between their first and final bid is double. They [FSG] asked me what the risks were and I said if things don’t go well you’ll lose something on Andy, but it is difficult to measure whether you will make money if things go well because Liverpool aren’t a selling club and he could be here for the next 10 years.”
Plenty of mud has been slung, but Comolli maintains progress was made during the 18 months he spent on Merseyside.
“The big turning point was the game against Arsenal the week after we won the Carling Cup,” he said. “We thought that if we could win, anything would be possible. We missed a penalty and lost in injury time. That was a summary of our season. But you were still looking at progress. Look at the academy. We signed fantastic young players, the owners said it was exactly what they wanted, but I kept saying it was a five-year plan.
“Getting a trophy in year one; getting to the final of the FA Cup; financially we were in a very good position – we managed to lower the wage bill a lot. The owners were delighted with that.”
But a remedy for the lack of goals that undermined the club’s prospects was being sought. Comolli will not divulge the names but what he says supports the informed speculation that linked the likes of Demba Ba, Olivier Giroud and Shinji Kagawa with Liverpool at the time.
The plans would remain in cold storage, however. Before he left, it was obvious to Comolli there was disquiet over Dalglish, who was eventually sacked in May.
“I went to Florida in March to stay at John Henry’s house for three days,” he said. “They weren’t happy about the fact we were not scoring enough goals. They thought we were not playing enough positive football. Tom Werner [chairman] said, ‘Do you think Kenny is the right person?’ I said, ‘Definitely’. John Henry agreed with me at the time.”
That Liverpool is in the past still grates, though Comolli is keen to pursue a fresh adventure. He has been linked with replacing Dan Ashworth at West Brom, but keeps his counsel.
“I still struggle a lot to watch Liverpool. I’m frustrated and annoyed because I feel there is unfinished business,” he said.
“When you look at the economic situation that the leagues in Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Holland are in, it is very tough.
“With their new TV rights deal the Premier League is going to absolutely take off and leave everyone else behind, except maybe Germany. The future is very much here.”
fuck me , we can't even sack this usless git properly!
