00:00 Well, let's start with Liverpool and big news coming out, obviously.
00:07 Richard Hughes joining as the Sports Director from Bournemouth.
00:10 What's the latest you can tell us?
00:11 And how has this sort of spiralled up to this point?
00:15 Because there's a lot of things that are going on behind the scenes in the back room at Liverpool at the moment.
00:21 Yes, obviously, Liverpool have brought Richard Hughes in now from Bournemouth,
00:25 and Liverpool need a little bit of stability in that back room because Michael Edwards left
00:31 and then Julian Ward spent a year in the role and then Jörg Schmadker held the reins from the summer until January.
00:38 And obviously Michael Edwards coming back was a big shock,
00:41 and it may be a position that Liverpool fans didn't expect to have.
00:45 The obviously new Sports Director will come back in,
00:48 and I think FSG tried to get Michael Edwards back in his old role,
00:52 and it didn't really say to him he wanted something that he could get his teeth into a little bit more.
00:58 So they've given him this role as CEO of Football for FSG,
01:02 which means helping expand their portfolio in football because they have been doing so much so in other sports.
01:10 And Richard Hughes comes in now with a good reputation at Bournemouth,
01:14 signed the likes of Nathan Ache when he was there, Calum Wilson, Lloyd Kelly, among others.
01:21 He's got a good reputation, Hughes, and it's interesting that he's worked with Michael Edwards.
01:26 He's known Michael Edwards for 20 years plus when Michael Edwards was part of the Pro Zones,
01:31 at Portsmouth when Portsmouth were closed to the Premier League.
01:34 So quite clearly there's a rapport there.
01:38 And Richard Hughes has got a good reputation in the game, it seems.
01:42 It seems that he's got a lot of contacts, and ultimately I think that's what has been so successful for Liverpool
01:50 and Michael Edwards in the past, is having contacts and having agents, really.
01:54 It's maybe not necessarily being able to spot a player, for example,
01:58 because there's so much technology now and so many ways to watch games that you don't really get players.
02:05 You think, 'Wow, who is that?' or whatever.
02:08 Maybe to us fans, like Butaro Endo when he came in,
02:11 but usually scouts, recruitment teams know quite a majority of players,
02:18 but it's being able to get those deals in first, for example, say,
02:21 when Liverpool got winds of Lewis Dias, who was going to be on the move to Tottenham,
02:27 and Liverpool, because of the relationship, managed to move ahead there and get in.
02:31 A good structure in place with Richard Hughes and with Michael Edwards,
02:36 and now that Pearl can very much so start looking for who will be replacing Klopp.
02:42 I mean, Sheffield are obviously the front-runner, and I think that Pearl,
02:45 they have to be respectful, don't they, with any manager who's still in a job,
02:50 never mind a manager who's trying to guide the club for first Bundesliga title.
02:56 But I'm sure things will start to be ramped up now.
02:59 now.
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