“He’s probably not thinking so much. Sometimes you can over-think. What he’s doing now is instinctive and he’s got back to doing what he does best.”
THAT was Brendan Rodgers talking about Simon Mignolet. It could easily describe Rodgers himself.
Until the game at Manchester United everything was disjointed and haphazard: team selections, rotations, system changes; it was mayhem.
Did the manager work enough – or well enough – on strategy and formation during pre-season for the players to adapt to the ins and outs? Did he select the right shape and tactics to work on during downtime before the big kick off? Did he know his best XI, or how to get the best out of them? The results suggested not.
After the game at Old Trafford, despite the result, it all calmed down. Rodgers got back to doing what he does best.
Before the 1-0 defeat against Aston Villa at Anfield in September, Rodgers said: “It’s very important to be able to rotate, but also to maintain the consistency from the team and I think the best sides are able to do that.
“We’ve planned the teams out for the next five games all the way through to Everton, but of course you have to allow for injuries and such.”
If you look back it was only really Real Madrid away and League Cup games where he did rotate heavily — the quotes don’t really match what he then went and did. Was he overthinking it? Did the extra games, the extra players, and of course the injury to Daniel Sturridge cloud his thinking?
The Madrid game was mad, absolutely bonkers. But fair play to Brendan, I don’t know how he’s pulled that off. Going into that game he had senior players desperate to play in that fixture, all who had decent recovery time in front of them before the game against Chelsea. Then he’s parked Steven Gerrard, Raheem Sterling, Jordan Henderson and Philippe Coutinho on the bench in the Bernabéu.
He probably explained it by dangling a carrot to Kolo Toure, Lucas and Markovic, telling them that if you come in and perform well you can’t harm your first team chances. But the Chelsea team went against that and he was back to using what are seen as his ‘favourites’.
If he had dropped players for the Chelsea game it would have been a very aggressive move to make from a man-management perspective so he put himself in an impossible situation and I can’t understand how he managed to keep the dressing room together.
From that point it could have gone really wrong. And as Liverpool lost to Chelsea and Crystal Palace, and failed to get the required points against Ludogorets and Basel to progress from the Champions League, it was hard not to think back to the last seasons of Gerard Houllier, Rafa Benitez and Kenny Dalglish in his second spell as manager.
In every one of those seasons we ended up as underdogs for a top four spot and it looked as the seasons wore on that at least some of the players lost belief in their respective managers.
I don’t think any of those three managers took any great risks once they found themselves in that situation. They possibly became a bit fearful. Rafa seemed to go more defensive, Houllier too, while Dalglish just carried on doing what he had been doing before.
There was an air of inevitability how it would end with all three and it was starting to feel like that with Rodgers. He must have feared it – no one could really put their finger on what Liverpool were about just a few months ago. You can bet the players felt the same way.
I think what has saved Rodgers is his man management and getting back to what he does best – in the main playing attacking football.
Despite everything that had come before he still had two carrots to dangle – the system change and the impending return of Daniel Sturridge.
Before Manchester United at Old Trafford it seems like Brendan said to himself: “I’m not having this.”
You could imagine him saying to the squad: “This is the solution. We’ve got Daniel Sturridge coming back, we’re going to play 3-4-2-1, we’re going to get Lallana, Coutinho and Sterling into these areas. We’re going to have pace, we’re going to have penetration and that’s going to correct this.”
I’ve seen it with teams I’ve managed. A formation that works, that the lads really enjoy, can put a spring back into their step. They see it as a solution. It lifts them and for players on the edge of the first team it might mean they see it as an opportunity, too.
After the performance at Old Trafford and the win at Bournemouth, it will have been like that at Liverpool. Training will suddenly feel different. Team meetings will seem fresh. And then Brendan can say to them: “And we’ve got Sturridge to come back, too.”
Jose Mourinho is on record during his time at Porto as saying that 4-3-3 is a very easy formation to coach. He was worried his team could go stale and he changed to a diamond. They won the European Cup.
The formation change was the solution for Brendan and the dressing room. It says to the players that he is taking responsibility for what went wrong. You don’t need to give players excuses, they are absolute experts at finding them. Ask them and they are never to blame, whoever it is, through all levels of football.
You can say Brendan got lucky in that he had a run of winnable fixtures at the right time but equally he was unfortunate with injuries earlier in the season.
He solved the problem as the stats show — after 15 games Liverpool were ninth with 21 points; they have climbed to sixth after taking 24 points from 11 games — but now he faces fresh challenges in terms of rotation again.
I’d expect to see two or three changes regularly now. There’s a big risk of dropping points and picking up injuries when you play Thursday-Sunday and that was why when Rafa won the UEFA Cup he virtually played two different teams in each competition. It’s something Alex Ferguson did, too, when dealing with the twin demands of Europe and the Premier League.
Rodgers now has to turn to Steven Gerrard, to Daniel Sturridge, to Philippe Coutinho and tell them they’re not playing every game. Players want to play every game. It’s the manager’s job to be the parent and say ‘no’.
After a Thursday game, Friday should be a recovery session and technically Saturday the day off for the lads who started the match. But then how do you prepare them for the Sunday game?
If you bring them in they’re not having that mental rest from a day off. Rodgers touched on this earlier in the season. After losing at West Ham following the midweek Champions League game with Ludogorets, he said: “You’ve got a lot less time working with the team; if you play on the Saturday, you’ve got Sunday/Monday for recovering, you’ve got the Tuesday game, and then the players who play are recovering Wednesday/Thursday.
“So you’re doing your first tactical preparation on the Friday, and then you’re travelling straight down to the game.”
If Brendan thinks the target that saves his job is to qualify for the Champions League then it’s a tough one with the Europa League carrying qualification for the winner.
I think he often uses the games to keep players fit but then the argument is what intensity are the players reaching if they are training less? It might be 80 or 90 per cent instead of 100. If you keep playing the same team you’re not able to get any conditioning into your players.
I would pick my Sunday team first. Your goalie and defenders can probably stay in for both games but the wingbacks are going to be doing an enormous amount of work. Jordon Ibe is out of the FA Cup cup-tied and Markovic banned in Europe. So keep switching them. Emre Can can move into midfield if need be but the main players to worry about are Sturridge, Sterling and Coutinho. They can play Sunday but I’d be tempted to leave them out completely for Thursdays if we progress this week.
You could go Balotelli and Borini up front, Lallana in behind. I would then have Sturridge, Sterling and Coutinho doing conditioning work during the week and get them spot on for the weekend. If Sturridge gets injured again what would that do to the group?
Coutinho looked out on his feet against Everton and Tottenham and I was surprised he played against Besiktas. Would you rather he played 35 amazing games or 50 average games? I’d go for amazing. He dug out a superb goal at Southampton but how much longer can he keep going?
Balotelli has shown quite a bit more lately and deserves a chance; clever passes, great technique. The more he contributes, the more he will feel part of it and the harder he will work.
It will be interesting to see how Brendan approaches the next few weeks. Let’s hope he keeps on solving problems.
Sean is manager of Mold Alexandra FC in the Cymru Alliance Division and holds a Uefa B licence. You can follow him on Twitter at @Sean_Rogers
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Rodgers problem was mainly down to the World Cup which made doing deals difficult enough, and then Suarez had one of his I’m feeling hungry spells which sealed his fate as far as FSG was concerned. Rodgers was then left trying to replace the worlds best striker when there was nobody to replace him with when he got peanuts for him. So along comes Balotelli on the cheap which sums up his standard of play so far, OK he could manage as he had Sturridge and he and Balotelli could eventually form a partnership. Then along comes the Manager he replaced who out of spite allowed Sturridge to get injured in a meaningless game.
Brendan then had to find a way of playing without his 2 front line strikers and a team of new kids not used to the Premiership hence the chopping and changing. I don’t think even Jose could cope with that scenario, in fact it wouldn’t happen as all the player Rodgers tried to buy only wanted to go to London (god knows why).
maybe Brendan was part of the reason big players turn us down. In a world setting, who is he? What has he done? Maybe that played at least as big a role as the London thing. They’re choosing Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho over Brendan Rodgers rather than London over Liverpool
Well when City decide to change their manager i think you’ll find they’ll be knocking on his door, & perhaps Barcelona too. that’s who he is. That’s the problem with most so called liverpoolfans at the monent, they don’t seen to realise just how good Rodgers is.
He has one spectacular season under his belt, powered chiefly by Luis Suarez’s phenomenal, out-of-this world form. He still has a long way to go before Barcelona would come knocking down his door.
He has received the kind of financial support that none of our managers have received since the days of Dalglish in the late 80s. If Rodgers can’t achieve a top four place with this kind of budget, then he is simply not good enough.
Rodgers may turn out to be as good as you say, but based on his poor transfer record, over reliance on certain players, and frankly, naive attacking mentality, it doesn’t bode well. I would love to be proven wrong though.
Every time I lose my bookmarks I forget to come here for decent articles about LFC.
Sean, a well written informed article BTW keep up the good work.
The problem as I see it is the defence and the lack of progress by Lovren.
Let be honest, many fans thought that Lovren would be a great addition and to some extent so did Brendan.
He (wrongly) dropped Sakho to accomodate Lovren and this caused the problems in defence and allowed teams to score so many goals.
Sakho right spat his dummy out and was basically sidelined or out on the naughty step by Brendan.
Sakho was basically saying indirectly I’m a better defender than Lovren but your not giving me the chance to prove it.
Switching to three at the back is a down to the deficiencies we had until Brendan was forced to change systems, in doing so dropping Lovren.
Can was dropped into that three at the back position and the rest is history.
Can is a midfielder and a very good one at that, he can tackle pass and score.
Ideally, he should be taking Allen’s slot in that defensive position, however due to the lack of defensive options beside Skertel, Sakho and the lack lustre Lovren, Can has to play in defence.
Until the right sided defensive position is sorted out we can’t have the defensive midfield we should have.
Namely , Can & Lucas.
Rotating then becomes easier because you can then push Henderson further forward.
We then would have Coutinho, Lallana, Ibe, Markovic,Sturridge & Balotelli.
I think Brendan planned on having Lambert, Borini,Allen as backup players who would play in the Capital Cup, FA cup.
Another great article on the site plus I think that’s spot on from Septimus.
The three at the back looks solid but Can is getting exposed for what he is, namely a midfielder out of position. Sides are starting to realise he can be got at with tricky wingers.
That’s no fault of his, he has done his job manfully and I think we potentially have a Viera-esque midfielder on our books but that right side CB primarily and FB secondarily needs addressing in the Summer.
That is assuming the manager persists with 3 at the back for next season and doesn’t tweak the formation again.
We’ll never know for sure, will we? There’s a school of thought that he’s always trying to get back to what worked at Swansea, patient, controlled possession football, it may be the case that he tried again and tested it to destruction. But I think Septimus and Sean are nearer the mark. Suarez and Sturridge were huge losses, Gerrard a year older and Lovren an unmitigated disaster. My heart sank when he started Lucas and Gerrard in tandem at the start of the season, but the Chelsea game was the nadir for me, not because it was our worst performance, but because it sent such mixed messages out to both the squad and the supporters. It had become blindingly obvious that Johnson, Lovren and Gerrard weren’t up to the task by that stage and Coutinho cut an increasingly frustrated figure, his game patently unsuited to those in front of him: we were a shower, and the manager quite rightly took responsibility for the team’s performances following the Palace game.
I’m sure Sean’s right, the European challenge had clouded Brendan’s judgement, and the likes of Moreno and Markovic took time to settle, but I think Chris Mc and others have a point too. Injuries made the managers’ mind up for him: he’d shown no inclination to drop the under-performers. Let’s remember, the original back three consisted of Johnson, Skrtl and Lovren with Brad Jones behind and Gerrard and Joe Allen in front. Lucas was on the bench and Henderson shunted wide. So whilst the manager deserves enormous credit for turning the team around, we’ll never know what would have happened had Jones, Johnson, Lovren, Gerrard and Joe Allen not picked up injuries. But the manager should be commended for changing the shape and re-inventing Emre Can as a right-sided libero: a genuinely innovative move that has paid off in spades.
Looking forward to next season, I see a few posters assume we’ll be returning to a more conventional shape, as though the back three’s an aberration rather than an innovation. Why is that? And the meme about Can being found out is a little previous isn’t it? Yes, he can be got at, but he’s still our best option in that right-sided role, if anyone has any doubts I’d advise them to watch the Southampton game again. The truth is, good teams will always attack (unless they’re Chelsea) and Can has looked far less vulnerable than Johnson or Lovren in that position. Next season could prove very interesting. If only we could clone Can.
One more thing: I look forward to a day when we’re not all poring critically over the manager’s selections. A few more additions in key areas should do it. Or am I being hopelessly optimistic?
I agree completely. Some of the detail shown in some of the reports above is ones persons thoughts or their opinion
IN BRENDAN WE TRUST
How many more key additions do we need? We have a huge first team now, and yet, we still failed to replace Suarez when he left in the summer. I think everyone and his dog knew that we had to find a proven goalscorer to replace Suarez, but we somehow eventually settled with Lambert, Borini and Mario.
Some will argue that there were no top goalscorers available over the summer. And yet, as desperate as Edison Cavani was to leave PSG, but we didn’t approach him. We dropped out of the race for Alexis Sanchez and Radamel Falcao over salary demands. We didn’t even make a move for Alvaro Morata.
I disagree with the comment about being tempted to completely leave Phil, Studge and Sterling out on Thursdays so that we can concentrate on fourth. We’re Liverpool, not bloody Arsenal. I think we should focus on winning the Europa League and play our best players in that competition as much as we can. I do appreciate they can’t play every game though. It’s a balancing act of course but if we got to the last eight/four there is no way you would leave them out.
If we fail to make top four, we’ll have a better go at it next season. These things take time. We have a promising young squad that will be challenging for first place in two years time.
Rodgers seems to have a tendency to throw new players in straight away without giving them time to settle or get used to new team mates/style/league/country.
And I don’t mean just 1 or 2, I mean all of them at once which massively disrupts the team and rhythm. Start of this season it wouldn’t have been unusual for us to have 4/5/6 new players all on the pitch at the same time which doesn’t help those individuals or the team.
I can understand that sometimes you’re forced into these decisions due to injuries etc but surely it’s better to ease new guys into the philosophy of the team, to let them find their feet and the style of the team through sub appearances here and there?? Especially young guys from foreign leagues and styles of play.
Rodgers seems to throw guys in immediately in a “sink or swim” manner. If you flounder you’re out for several weeks and then may get a chance to come back in.
Not entirely fair, Michael. The fans were calling for Can to play for ages. We haven’t seen much of Luis Alberto or Tiago Ilori either!
Paul, Can was injured for a coupla months at the start of the season so he couldn’t have been involved that much. It wasn’t unusual to see Manquillo, Moreno, Lovren, Markovic and Balotelli all on the pitch at the same time at the start of the season.
As I say, I can understand some of these were injury enforced but others weren’t.
Very hard to have much of an opinion on Alberto or Ilori as we’ve seen so little of them but Alberto looked ok anything we did see of him. Ilori was billed as a very fast, technically adept centreback; I’ve wondered in the past could he not have been tried at rightback to ease him into the team. As I say, very hard to have an opinion on them considering.
I know but we were all whining when he didn’t play after the Chelsea game: he wasn’t injured then. Lazar was in and out of the team, I don’t think it’s fair to say that he was rushed in.
I liked the look of Alberto but he might be too slow for the PL. I’d like to see Ilori too!
Really enjoyed your coach’s perspective. Great article. Hope you continue to write and feature on the pod when time allows.
Thanks.
Gerrard not play every match? He shiuldn’t play at all! Not even close to good enough now. We are amazing without him.
*shouldn’t
Shame on you. Steven Gerrard would still get a place in any premier league side.
Sean Rogers doing articles now? Boss.
Coutinho looked out of his feet?.. Didn’t quite agree with that part. And what do u mean by. ” how much longer he can carry that on”… He’s a talent.. And he can definitely sustain it..
Great points made there Sean, interesting dilemmas Rodgers has and he has to take a lot of credit for the way he is turning things around. If we can make top 4 then not only can we be in the market for elite players but we can continue to develop the younger ones…Ibe, Sterling, Can, Markovic and to a degree Lallana and no better person to do that than Rodgers. Long may this turnaround continue!!!
I think there were (at least) two reasons why Rodgers took time to find a formula he was happy with this season.
First – The sheer number of new, primarily young, signings into the squad. When Kenny came in, the options he often had on the bench, let alone the pitch, were dire. When Rodgers came in, his clear remit was, over the time of his initial contract, to get rid of a lot of players he considered not to be good enough – and this was a long list.
This summer, with Suarez gone, he and the committee had an opportunity to flesh out the squad with true potential (Can, Markovic, Moreno, Lallana) instead of hopeful potential (Alberto, Aspas, Teixeira etc..). He did that. Many of the lads he signed last summer have played lots of games this season – but in a foreshortened pre season, and one where the opposition were a joke, he had literally no time to integrate these lads into a cohesive unit from the very start – Luckily he had Danny Sturridge, who would be there to see us through the first two months of the season while these new players bedded in.
Which brings us to the obvious second point – He didn’t have Danny Sturridge for long, and Balotelli and Lambert, bought primarily as partner of Dan and substitute for Dan/Balotelli couldn’t play on their own, couldn’t play together, couldn’t play without Danny and couldn’t move particularly well.
So, in a team built for movement, it was always going to take time to find a solution that worked. I think it’s to the managers credit that he did – Of course we’d have preferred he did so sooner, but he really did find a great solution, not just a good one.
I have more faith in him now than 8/9 months ago, and that says a lot, IMO.