POOR old Brendan Rodgers. He’s gone from being within two points of winning Liverpool their first title in over 20 years one season, to having some fans call for his head with at least eight games still to play the next. It’s not just season on season that fans change their point of view either. Three games ago the Northern Irishman was being widely heralded for having turned Liverpool’s season around after a poor start, with a Champions League place very much on the cards.
Losses against Manchester United and Arsenal have halted all the praise, though, and left Liverpool seven points adrift of their rivals in the race for a top four spot. Never has the cliché of a manager’s “stock” rising and falling been more appropriate. Supporters loyalties can no longer be taken for granted, with opinions changing as fast as the markets on Wall Street.
So what can Brendan Rodgers do to win over his critics? In some cases, absolutely nothing. There’s a part of the support base that doesn’t like him. It’s as simple as that. He talks too much. He thinks he’s Bill Shankly born again. He’s got new teeth and a weird tan.
Equally, there are some who will forgive him a myriad of sins for the fun he gave them last season. His brand of football had Anfield absolutely bouncing, with people lining the streets to welcome in ‘the Champions Elect’ for every home game.
The truth, perhaps, lies somewhere in the middle. Rodgers is an intelligent, forward-thinking manager who wants to do the best he can and think outside the box. His plan B isn’t lumping it up to a big man, but inverting the pyramid, twisting the rhombus, flattening the square. At the same time, he’s probably a little too keen to talk, to tell people how brilliant he is, and is often a little stubborn.
That’s why he needs to win the FA Cup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pad0rFKZja8
In recent years the cool kids have decided that the FA Cup doesn’t matter. That it’s not as important as finishing in the top four. They laugh at the notion that Liverpool Football Club “exists to win trophies” and would rather see them “do an Arsenal” and finish in the top four year in, year out.
Over the last 10 years Arsenal have finished fourth, fourth, third, fourth, third, fourth, third, fourth, third, fourth, fourth and second. They’ve won the FA Cup twice and lost two League Cup finals.
Liverpool, meanwhile, have finished second, seventh, eighth, sixth, seventh, second fourth, third, third and fifth. We’ve narrowly missed out on the title twice, made two Champions League finals — winning one with the greatest comeback of all time — won the League Cup and the FA Cup and made an FA Cup final.
Trophies aren’t for everyone. But if you offered me the highs of our last 10 years on the understanding that I also had to put up with the lows — or the steady ship — of Arsenal, I know which one I’d prefer.
Maybe winning the FA Cup won’t get the Brendan Rodgers doubters onside. But it will hopefully convince people that this season isn’t the write-off they seem convinced that it is.
Here are some stats from Andrew Beasley, or @BassTunedToRed if you prefer talking in Twitter handles. Liverpool currently have 54 points after 31 games. The club average in the previous 22 SEASONS is 53.6. We’ve had more than 54 points after 31 games just seven times in the last 17 seasons, or 10 times in the last 22.
Liverpool have 54 points after 31 games.
Club average at this point in the previous 22 seasons: 53.6 #par— Andrew Beasley (@BassTunedToRed) April 6, 2015
Perhaps the highs of our unexpected title challenge last season have made this season feel like a particularly disappointing low, but the reality is that Liverpool FC is currently performing to the club average. People might want to make you believe that Rodgers has lost the plot and that it’s time for him to go, but he’s performing no worse than other managers over the past 22 seasons, and last year his managerial record was up there with the very best of them.
So what would winning the FA Cup do? Why is the FA Cup still important? Because Brendan Rodgers needs to show the team, as well as the fans, that he knows how to win when it matters.
Rodgers took his Swansea team to Wembley and faced a demon in the shape of his old club Reading. They won 4-2. So it’s fair to say that Brendan Rodgers knows how to get his team to the final of a competition and lift the trophy.
But doing so with Swansea, when the pressure is limited, and doing it with Liverpool — who are expected to compete for trophies every year — are vastly different propositions.
To take Liverpool to the FA Cup final and win would be a real feather in the cap for the gaffer, and it would give him a chance to at least silence his doubters for a length of time.
On top of that, people love to trot out the cliché that the business end of the season is “10 cup finals”. It would certainly help if the manager and the players had gone and won a cup final.
No one will ever know if Liverpool would have won the league last season if they’d previously won a cup under Rodgers. But having previously come out on top when the pressure was mounting, you might just have felt that the lads would have had the nous when it mattered.
Next season Liverpool may be back up at the top end of the table, competing for the title once more, or they might not. But when it comes to the crunch they’ll have a significantly better chance of lifting some silverware if they know what it feels like in their hands.
Whether you think they FA Cup is important or not probably depends on your outlook on life. I’ve seen some people on Twitter saying that if LFC miss out on the Champions League this season then that’s the competition boxed off for the near future; they believe that the new TV money, combined with Liverpool’s inability to attract top stars, will see us doomed to a future of mediocrity. For them the FA Cup is an unfortunate distraction, something they’d happily sacrifice for a few more meals at the top table of European football.
Me? I’m a glass half full type of guy. I’m not yet convinced that the top four is gone for Liverpool this season, let alone for the rest of time. Right now, if you offered me a top 4 finish or lifting the FA Cup, I’d choose the latter. Because as much as players want to compete with the best in the world, they mostly want to lift trophies. And when they’ve lifted one they want another one. Then another one etc etc ad infinitum.
The FA Cup is very much still magic. Winning it would give Rodgers and the players some magic dust to sprinkle on their self-belief next season, so that when we’re faced with 10 cup finals we’ll know exactly what it takes to win one.
READ: Enemy Lines: The Blackburn Rovers view of tonight’s FA Cup clash at Ewood Park
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda
The apologists already beginning their job. Obviously winning the FA Cup would be great but it isn’t Rodgers’ mandate. His mandate was to qualify for top 4 this season and qualify from the CL group stages. He’s failed on the latter and the former looks extremely difficult at the moment.
FSG have set precedent in sacking a manager who delivered domestic cup success reaching one final and lifting another cup but not qualifying for the top 4. The FA Cup may have some magic but the money to pay that stadium debt and expand while meeting FFP is in the Champions League.
well said. The thing is-most fans don’t call for the managers head after a couple losses-the internet makes it feel that way but one must remember the Internet often represents the lowest common denominator. The detractors make a lot of noise but they are just a loud (and obnoxious) minority.
Cheers
Liverpool’s current owners set this trend before PSG had arab money to squander by letting a club legend go and replacing him with the Brendan Rogers.
I am not a fan of Brendan et al but I don’t think he’s done a bad job at all. He does, however make mistakes and can be very easy to predict si he’s human, just like the rest of us (new teeth excepted)
Liverpool FC need to take the fans to Anfield South as often as possible.. The cups are important to me, as I don’t wan to speak for anyone else, but a Wembley day out is boss!
I’d love to think that we are good enough to compete with the best in Europe like we did back in the glory days but bottom line is that we haven’t proved that for 10 years…
If effort and resource has to be focused on something, then it has to be to invest in talent at the academy and focus funds in 3-4 top drawer internationals brought in to bolster the team.
Bringing in kids from other teams rather than rearing them locally is already showing signs of cracks as they are already journeymen as kids… Player loyalty comes from their belief that their club will look after them followed by being looked after properly by their club.. When this is done we retain our quality youth and don’t need to import it from outside..
The Southampton journeymen cost our club the equivalent of a Luis Suarez.. Who’s to say that we can’t produce players of that quality ourselves (Southampton seem to do well at that) as if we can, we can afford a few world class journeymen to make a great team.. YNWA
I think he’ll keep his job if the side manages to pull a strong finish together, even if it falls short of 4th. If the season fizzles out, with players not looking arsed, I wouldn’t be slightly surprised if FSG show him the door. It’ll be 3 seasons in and not showing progress considering the amount spent, with players ruling the roost – still.
But fuck that for now, let’s take the cup seriously and overcome Blackburn tonight!
I really was hoping TAW would have a good look at Rodgers reign, the ups and downs, the reasons why a sizeable portion of the support don’t like him, a good unbiased view from both sides. However we got this, which is well written but what does it say barring ” Leave Brendan alone because we might be able to win the FA Cup and our points are on average for the last number of years, so stop yer moanin”
Maybe next time?.
Surely the time to review the season and individual’s performance is the end of the season not now? No doubt TAW will have an end of season review (as will John Henry).
The question here is if we can’t have both would it be better to win the FA Cup or finish 4th? Financially there is no competition. Debatably finishing 4th attracts “better” players (not convinced). But the FA Cup is a trophy and a glorious day out. Take yer pick.
FA Cup for me.
A fair point about the end of season review James, hadnt even thought of that!! :)
Good article. This season is not over.
The fact is we have got fans who dislike the manager, they would still dislike even if we did clinch the title last season.
you hear it all the time ‘we should have got a big name’ it’s funny because there were no sure comments back in March and April last year.
You could see some fans relieved when our good run of results came to an end so they could jump back on the ‘he’s a fraud’ bandwagon.
If we wanted BR to score the average the no of points in the last 10 years, then we should have been perfectly happy with Hodgson/Dalgish. There was no need for Rodgers to go and tell the press that Sterling was being misled by his agent.
All that does is put sterling in a ugly fight between his agent and club with only 1 victor remaining.
FA cup might well look good on the club cv but if you want to attract/keep world class talent then CL is a must .
It’s funny how we don’t hear a peep out of these fans who criticise the manager when we’re on a winning run. As said above, there are simply some who don’t like him for whatever reason which seems important to them – teeth that are too white or too much talking when asked questions in press conferences.
The season is still very much alive and kicking for those of us who don’t harbour some historical sense of entitlement. An FA cup would be fantastic, absolutely wonderful, and maybe the catalyst to bigger things.
Not sure about the dodgy comparison with Arsenal over the last 10 years, 3 trophies to two is hardly overwhelming is it, even if there’s a rather good one in the three?! Let’s not forget that they have at, the same time, funded a great big cash cow of a stadium which they are now beginning to milk.
I’m not a Rodgers hater at all, I want him to have another season in charge but this constant defence of him is getting a little irritating.
He has to be held to account just like everyone else. Last season was exciting and exhilarating but we lost, we came second, again. There’s no prizes for coming second but it’s the fact he got us to second is why he’s still getting so much good will from supports like myself.
Let’s face it though, this season has been a monumental fuck up from the summer transfer window until now. Yes we had a coupla good months winning regularly but that doesn’t make up for the rest of the fuck ups.
I apportion a large part of our failures to our transfer policy which is implemented by FSG which Rodgers has to work under but they are not to blame for formations, players picked, players cast aside, players played out opposition, players bought etc etc etc.
This average points for last 22 seasons thing is not a good point to bring up. We havnt won the league in over 22 yrs so clearly it’s not been good enough. Let’s not use that to measure ourselves by then!!!
The absolute minimum we have to be doing is finishing top 4 (and that’s just to make sure we have the finances and ability to attract the right calibre of player) but I’ll not be truely happy until we are consistently challenging for top honours. Anything less is accepting mediocrity!
The average points metric is there to remind everyone of what sort of club we are these days, and have been for the last 22 years. I agree that we should never *accept mediocrity*, but that doesn’t mean you completely lose your grasp of reality. If finishing top 4 “is your absolute minimum”, then short of our club being bought by a bored Arab you had better get used to changing your manager for most of the next 22 years.
Ignoring the complete outlier that is Andy Carroll (who cost minus 15mill per Kenny), LFC have only ever bought 3 players costing more than 20mill:
Suarez
Torres
Lallana
Utd did that last summer alone, and all three cost more than the most we’ve ever paid for a player (again excluding Carroll). Utd bought their first 30mill player 13 years ago – Rio Ferdinand. And this is the club that lags behind Chelsea and City in gross spending power.
In the past two seasons Arsenal have spunked 32 mill on Sanchez and 42mill on Ozil.
LFC are, according to Forbes, the 10th richest club on the planet. Which is great, although ahead of us are 4 other English clubs – the 4 who virtually monopolise the CL positions year in, year out.
Finishing 5th is as good as any LFC fan can reasonably expect. Throw in a cup and that’s a good season. It many not feel like it, and you may not want to accept it, but the facts and logic dictate that it is. Against this backdrop, for LFC to breach the top 4 is nothing short of remarkable. It basically shouldn’t happen, ought not to be possible with what is stacked against us. But we did it as recently as last season. I think the manager who guided us to 2nd in a league where we have no right to finish above 5th deserves more slack than he is being cut this season just because he’s unable to repeat this trick.
The more I think of it, Rodgers’ second place finish in 2013-14 is looking more like John Barnes’ goal in the Maracana with every day that passes.
“Hey lid, fuck off with all that miraculous bollocks unless you’re going to do it every game/week/season.”
I wonder if Roger Bannister copped shit every time he ran a mile in more than 4minutes?
Yes you’re right we havnt often spent massively on individual players.
What we’ve been great at is spending massively on numerous mediocre players and then frequently barely playing them. How much collectively has Aspas, Alberto, Borini, Assaidi, Lambert, Lovren, Balotelli, Coates, Enrique etc etc etc cost and that’s just in recent years?? How much use have we got outta them??
When you pay 40mill for a player, you don’t only get a better player. The odds of that player delivering increase. Or to put it another way, if you buy 10 players at 40mill a pop, more will be successful than 10 bought at 15mill each.
(this is not the same as value for money. If you get 10mill of value out of the 15mill player, you’re actually getting better value for money than if you get 25mill value from a 40mill player. But that doesn’t translate into who is seen as being the more successful acquisition. Chances are, the guy delivering 25mill value will be considered to be more successful.)
In other words, you should expect to see more transfer failures at the Spurs, LFC, Everton, Newcastle levels. Players commanding fees of 10-20 mill these days are always going to be a gamble. Do you not think Spurs fans could reel off a list of flops as long as yours?
This is mental. You know one of the main reasons we have fallen behind our rivals domestically is because Anfield isn’t bug enough. The last I checked Utd make £2m more per home match than we do. That is a staggering amount every season.
Highbury wasn’t big enough. AFC knew if they wanted to consistently compete for the league and champions league, the only competitions that matter for big clubs and big players the world over, they needed to move. So Arsenal went about building a new stadium while keeping finances under control. They achieved this. How? By winning the FA Cup? No. By always finishing top 4.
This is were we are at now. The idea that winning the FA Cup is prefarable to finishing top 4 in the modern game is ludicrous. As a fan Im only interested in LFC getting back to competing for the EPL & UCL as quick as possible. Winning at Wembley in May has absolutely nothing to do with this. Qualifying for the champions league, with the money and draw for potential players, does.
Arsenal’s finances are sound even after building a super big stadium. And now they’re beginning to spend big. I want that to be us. We achieve it by coming top 4, not winning the FA Cup.
“Finishing 5th is as good as any Liverpool fan can expect”
Eh>>> Tottenham have a lower income that us and lower wages yet have finished above us for 4 of the last 5 years.
We really should wait until the end of the season to assess where we are. There seems to be a belief for some that the FA Cup win is practically in the bag; it really isn’t.
If we win the FA cup and have a half decent run until the end of the season then it’s not a bad season for us (certainly not great though). But if we don’t win the FA cup it’s got to be seen as a bit of a disaster: missing out on top 4, abysmal European campaigns, poor home form (lack of goals scored against weaker sides) and probably losing Sterling in the summer.
Even if it’s the latter outcome I don’t automatically think we should sack BR. Changing managers constantly is a dangerous road. He’s not as dreadful as some say but let’s also stop finding excuses for him as well – this season has seen him make more wrong decisions than good ones and it’s a habit he’d do well to break soon.
The FA cup would be very important in my eyes. Rodgers needs to prove he can be a winner when the pressure is on. He’ll probably have to beat Arsenal to win it, so to pass that test would deserve respect and more patience with him.
However his failure thus far to step up against real quality – 5 wins in 27 against top 4 teams and feeble attempts in Europe against Madrid – should set any objective fan’s alarm bell ringing about his ceiling.
“Truth lies somewhere in the middle…” …of the league table.