Assessing Richard Hughes’s near six-month tenure as Liverpool’s sporting director
Before Richard Hughes had been even issued with his lanyard and new starter pack at Liverpool, there were three unread messages sitting in the inbox of his brand new email account.
Of course, having had his confirmation as the next sporting director made public as early as March, the unresolved futures of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah were not exactly bolts from the blue for Hughes when he officially arrived from Bournemouth on June 1.
Before he began his tenure as the club’s first permanent sporting director since Julian Ward departed the previous year, Hughes was said to have already been contacting the representatives of certain players within the Reds’ squad as a gentle introduction.
READ MORE: What Federico Chiesa was doing at AXA Training Centre as Alisson Becker hands Liverpool boostREAD MORE: ‘Cheap violence’ – Alexis Mac Allister forced off as Liverpool star suffers ‘tremendous kick’
With Alexander-Arnold, Van Dijk and Salah’s importance to the cause and contract status, it wouldn’t require a huge leap of faith to suggest that the agents of that trio in particular were reached out to before Hughes really got to work on Merseyside. But nearly six months on, those same impasses remain without the sense that a resolution is imminent.
The club skipper, vice-captain and top scorer are all now barely a month away from being able to speak to clubs outside of England about a pre-contract agreement and supporters, unsurprisingly, are started to become agitated at the prospect of other teams making legal overtures for three players who have been integral to a side who sit atop of both the Premier League and Champions League in the November international break.
If the progress on the field under Arne Slot – with 15 from 17 wins to make it, officially, the best-ever start of any Reds boss in history – has been evident, steps forward from the sporting director half of the new two-man power axis at Anfield have been less evident.
In full fairness to Hughes, the squad that was bequeathed to Slot by outgoing manager Jurgen Klopp was an impressive one and the fact that Liverpool have been able to rise to the top of the table of both the Premier League and Champions League without significant help from their sole summer signing, Federico Chiesa, is testament to just how good the collection of players at Anfield is.
But while Slot has no doubt benefitted from such a stellar group – a point he has made repeatedly himself since taking charge – it’s accurate to suggest Hughes was not handed a similarly impressive set-up in the sporting director department.
The origins of how Liverpool find themselves in what can now be fairly described as a mess of a situation with regards to the contract talks with their best defender, creative fulcrum and top marksman can be traced back two years to when it emerged that Fenway Sports Group were kicking the tyres on their ownership of the club itself.
Uncertainty permeated through the entire club at the time before it was later quietly claimed that FSG had in fact never planned to sell the club, despite admitting the search for external investment was ongoing and a glossy sales brochure had been produced alongside two major US banks being instructed to explore the market.
The lack of a real sporting director across the summer of 2023 following the short-term appointment of Jorg Schmadtke, who has since freely admitted he was merely a facilitator for what Klopp wanted to do in the transfer window, only added to the difficulties to take hold of the negotiations.
The need to restructure at executive level after Klopp’s late-January announcement that he would be leaving at the end of last season kicked the collective contract problem down the road further. The appointments of Michael Edwards, in a returning role as FSG’s CEO of football, and then Hughes before Slot was headhunted from Feyenoord only saw further time on the deals of Salah, Van Dijk and Alexander-Arnold elapse without serious talks getting underway.
So it would be hugely unfair to lay the lion’s share of blame at Hughes’s door, but if Slot is having his adaptation discussed and dissected on a game-by-game basis since he succeeded Klopp, it’s also worthwhile assessing the sporting director’s performance to date, even if the metrics to judge are not as easily available.
The addition of Chiesa has yet to yield results. Hughes’s extensive knowledge of the region and his Serie A contact books helped the Reds bring the Italy international in from Juventus for around £10m rising to £12m in August, but suggestions that the club had got themselves a bargain have quietened since. Chiesa has struggled to maintain his fitness and his efforts to get up to full speed remain ongoing.
“I would not use the word concern but it is far from ideal for him and us,” Slot said before the international break over Chiesa’s inability to get fit so far. “Because with the injury of Dioga (Jota) we have four attackers available, so this could have been a great moment for him to get more playing time.
“It is difficult for a player who missed out on pre-season and playing pre-season games and training sessions. You have to give a player more time to get to the intensity levels.”
The failure to sign Martin Zubimendi from Real Sociedad was also a nuanced situation. The Spain international had appeared as though he was ready to pay his buyout clause of around £51m only to perform something of a dramatic U-turn after his boyhood club had performed a charm offensive. Whatever the specifics around that particular deal, however, the fact remains that Slot was unable to add an international midfielder to his ranks.
One major tick in the Hughes box has been the performance of Slot, whose ascent to the top of the league with the Reds has led to a redrawing of expectations and hopes for many in recent weeks. A sustained title challenge is now being predicted after a stunning opening few months.
Another big plus point was getting Jarell Quansah tied down to a new, long-term contract. Liverpool view the centre-back as mainstay of the England defence and are determined to keep his improvements at the level they have been at in the last 12 months.
But while there are few problems to grumble about on the pitch at present, not too many rocks needs looking under to discover the ongoing concerns around the contract issues as we head ever closer towards New Year’s Day, when interested clubs will swoop and the agents of Van Dijk, Alexander-Arnold and Salah will be inundated with phone calls and contract offers.
These problems have not been of Hughes’s making but they are complications that must be dealt with far more emphatically than they apparently have been during the first six months of his Anfield tenure. The clock is ticking, louder than ever.
