Liverpool and O’Neill the perfect match

Last summer at a sports conference in Liverpool’s John Moores University, Chelsea’s director of football operations, Mike Forde, recounted a conversation he had with Billy Beane of Moneyball fame.

Forde was Stateside on a fact-finding mission, and while meeting the Oakland A’s now celebrated general manager, he told Beane he’d also be visiting the Boston Red Sox.

Beane could only smile. He had once sat down with the Red Sox too, a meeting now immortalised in the Moneyball film, when Beane, played by Brad Pitt, talks to the Red Soxs’ owner, one John Henry, now owner of Liverpool FC.