Why Adam Smith lead Liverpool to buy Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing for £55m.

Adam Smith, the 18th century economist, who still turns out for Bournemouth at full back occasionally, is famed for his work on the division of labour. The idea that efficiency is improved if we assign different tasks to different people.

This has applications from manufacturing to football.

The thing I most enjoy about football is there is no set formula on how that work is divided. You can have defenders that attack and attackers that defend. Midfielders who sit deep and pass the ball forwards and midfielders who surge forwards with the ball.

The overall efficiency of that football determines the balance of chances created and chances allowed.

So that must mean we don't want jack of all trades, we want masters and specialists. Or do we?

Last week I wrote a 5 part epic on Everton and how I felt their current midfield set up was hindering the control they have over the game. I felt the balance of tasks was wrong. There are too reliant on Gana for tackling, too reliant on Gomes for ball progression and Sigurdsson for shot/chance generation.

All 3 players are good at those tasks 'masters', but relatively poor at others.

When you have this type of opponent you can work tactically on forcing them into the skills they aren't confident in using. Force Gana into penetrative passing, or Sigurdsson into a midfield battle and you blunt their effectiveness.

Specialists are great up to a certain level of football, but in the top level you can't have weak areas of your game or they will be exploited.

And with video analysis available for every game you can be sure that as soon as one opponent works out how to disrupt you everybody else will know too.

Whether it is true or not, it is widely believed that when Liverpool first went down the data recruitment line they signed Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing based on having a specialist header and a specialist crosser. Building a team was seen as dividing tasks between specialists.

It didn't work, teams knew the plan and easily disrupted it.

So in building a football team we probably aren't looking for eleven individual specialists, but all rounders who excel in different, but complementary ways.

We also have to be aware that statistical output is simply a reflection of the player's current form, in their current role, in their current system.

This blog on Bielsa at Leeds does a great job of explaining how different systems can change roles of players completely, and thus there statistical output.  

Other areas where the division of labour could probably be better exploited is in how management and coaching roles are divided. This is an area I'm not sure there is a right or wrong answer.

I can see that ultimately there has to be somebody to make decisions on team selection and in game alterations. But I also think that a club has to have institutional knowledge. There seems little point in replacing every coach and revamping the recruitment and fitness department on the whims of a manager who often less than a year. If your manager is unsuccessful they are fired, if they do too well they may be offered a better job.

I've heard the argument that the impact of a manager probably follows normal distribution with a few outliers who are brilliant, a few terrible ones and a mass lump in the middle who range from decent enough to meh.

So I think more clubs should look at a model where they decide the style of play. They then appoint managers and coaches who believe in that style. The coaches do the training sessions, the managers interpersonal relationships and motivation. A collaborative approach all working towards the same aim. Heck, being a liberal, caring, sharing kind of guy I'd even put some players representatives in the mix too.

Next time I'll look at how Smith's work on the invisible hand influenced Diego Maradona and Thierry Henry.