IT is the question being asked everywhere. From the stands to the pubs, from the offices to the bus stops, from the forums to the bloke who lives at the end of my street who doesn’t even like football and asks me to leave him alone but I shout my opinions through his letterbox anyway. Should Brendan Rodgers remain as Liverpool manager?
Three years ago I didn’t want him. The wounds were still fresh from the unceremonious, albeit probably justified, dismissal of Kenny Dalglish. Who could follow such an icon as leader of this great ship? The big names couldn’t wait to say they didn’t fancy it, including one Jurgen Klopp. All of a sudden, John Henry was seen walking and talking with Roberto Martinez, then the name of Rodgers came up. A managerial rookie who impressively got Swansea promoted and settled in the Premier League, but he had one year of top-flight experience.
It had gotten to the point where I was shouting at whomever I thought was listening that Andre Villas Boas was the man for the job. Even Paul Lambert seemed to have something about him, it might have just been the glasses. Alas, it was Rodgers. Ah poo.
Mere days later and I was all turned around. I had turned a corner, if you will. The press conference to unveil the Northern Irishman blew me away. He said all the right things, carried himself with what the kids call ‘swag’, and looked every bit a Liverpool manager. “Philosophy,” he would say, and I would lap it up. “Philosophy,” he chirped, and I was hooked. “Philosophy,” I would say, with no context, and my friends asked me if I was feeling okay.
The philosophy we saw at Swansea, as far as I could tell, was shite players not being shite — passing, moving, pressing, winning. Danny Graham scored 14 goals in that season. Mark Gower was a major part of a dynamic Premier League midfield under him. Mark Gower? Do you know where he is now? Neither does he! The philosophy was coming to Anfield, and so were Fabio Borini and Joe Allen for a combined £26m. “That’s… err… really? They’ll help with the philosophy? Okay, I’m on board.”
It’s three years later, so now I would say is a fair time to evaluate the job that Rodgers has done in his time at Anfield. According to reports, Rodgers will have to convince FSG that he is still the right man to lead the club in his end-of-year review in Boston. Apparently dismissal isn’t under consideration, though it must be remembered that very similar things were reported about Kenny’s position before the trigger was pulled.
I said earlier this season that regardless of what happened, Rodgers should get until the end of the campaign. Even when things were at their bleakest in December, I maintained that he should get the whole campaign as a show of faith following last season’s achievements. Dismissing a manager part-way through a season should be Hodge’s honour and Hodge’s only. It should be named after him. “Are we gonna Hodge this one?” “Nah, don’t Hodge him.”
I read the comments section on here, on Twitter and on Facebook from time to time (cos I’m dead nosey like that) and have seen a few people accusing TAW contributors of being part of the ‘pro-Rodgers brigade’. Why are groups of football folk who share the same opinion always measured in ‘brigades’?
The best way of doing this is in the form of pros and cons because I have fallen on both sides of the Rodgers fence in recent times. Also this way, people can’t try and read into some underlying bias or agenda. The pros will be positive, the cons will be negative (unless one of the cons is that he’s too handsome, in which case you can probably stop reading). So here goes. You might want to go get a cup of tea or coffee/a cold beer for this, it could take a while.
Why Brendan Rodgers should continue as Liverpool manager
Why Brendan Rodgers should continue as Liverpool managerLast season: There’s no way of getting into the pros without bursting into song about last season. I have been a Red since the early nineties (whadya mean ‘sucks to be me’?) and there have been some highs. Not many, but they’ve been there. Obviously Istanbul is unparalleled, but in terms of an extended period of time, last season was the best I’ve ever had. *lays back and lights up a cigarette*.
Last season was an outrageous journey not just for how close we came to an unbelievably unlikely title, but for how we got there, playing football the way everyone wants it played, how the game wants it to be played, a style that was no doubt the intention of the game’s inventors when they started kicking balls.
The clamour to claim that Luis Suarez was the sole reason for last season has grown immeasurably in recent weeks, but I still don’t buy it. Suarez is good, he’s amazing, but to have single-handedly taken a team that should have finished outside the top four and gotten them to second and within a whisker of a Premier League title should have not only gotten him the Balon d’Or, but the keys to Cristiano Ronaldo’s house and girlfriend.
That wasn’t possible, especially considering how much less of a player Suarez had been before Rodgers arrived. He was still brilliant, but not ‘as many goals as I can fit into their goal’ brilliant. Rodgers managed the team to second last season, and it was brilliant. He was brilliant. Brilliant.
Ability to develop young players: Rodgers gives youngsters a chance. The likes of Jonjo Shelvey, Andre Wisdom and Raheem Sterling were all regulars in his first season, while Suso made a few appearances. Jon Flanagan came in last year and this season the likes of Sheyi Ojo, Cameron Brannagan, Danny Ward and Jerome Sinclair have all been making the bench, with the latter starting to make cameo appearances.
There are plenty of rivals who wouldn’t dream of doing the same unless the title is already won (who on earth could he be referring to? The Loftus-Cheek of it) and youth is very much a direction that the club needs to be making the most out of given its inability to compete financially with the very top clubs.
Bad luck with injuries: Losing Suarez was inevitable, but it was okay because we still had Daniel Sturridge. One half of the SAS was still about at Anfield, and as long as he was here, we still stood a chance of… oh he’s injured. Well that’s okay, we’ll manage for a few games, oh I mean a few weeks, oh I mean a few months. Okay he’s back, and he’s scoring, now we mean bus… oh he’s injured again.
On top of that, key players such as Lucas, Sakho and Lallana have also missed large chunks of the season, and given how much better the team looks when all of these players are available, you can’t underestimate the effect their absences have had.
He’s media friendly: Some see this as a negative, but I love it. I was sick and tired of reading nonsense about Rafa Benitez just because he rubbed some journalists up the wrong way, and Kenny’s dismissal of the media was both hilarious and uncomfortable in equal measure. The media quite like Rodgers, and so it’s rare that we have been subjected to hatchet jobs like the kind we saw under the previous two managers (Hodge not included).
He gets it: In spite of what some people say, Rodgers gets what it means to be Liverpool manager. While people fixate on the ‘par’ comments and the other soundbites designed to dampen high expectations, let us not forget the countless times that he has said that he is manager of one of the biggest clubs in the world, how it is a privilege for him to be here and that every player in the world should want to come here. If you still have doubts, just watch his first press conference again (above).
Ability to adapt and find solutions: One of the most ridiculous criticisms I’ve heard of Rodgers is that he’s stubborn. That’s like saying Rafa Benitez was a big cuddly teddy bear (I wish he was). He changes things if they need changing. The Reds weren’t efficient enough in front of goal, he changed it. They weren’t getting the most out of the strikers, he changed it. The defence was conceding too many, he changed it.
There is of course the argument that he changes things too much (which I may get to later), but the worst thing a manager can do is continue to do something that clearly isn’t working. Rodgers is a doer.
For all the poor play and results in the first half of the campaign, Rodgers went for the back three solution and it worked, it worked very well. We went from a team that couldn’t string three passes together to one that went three months unbeaten. That was a phenomenal achievement for a squad that had shown little else before (or after) then.
Stability: He’s been manager for three years. Any new manager would start at year zero, maybe want to move numerous players on, change all the backroom staff, implement a new style, perhaps even change the nets back to white. By sticking with the same manager you should, in theory, avoid rocking the boat. The last thing this club needs is any more instability.
Semi-finals suggest trophy is getting closer: This may not be a popular one, but two semi-finals is a good sign. Losing them wasn’t, but getting to them shows that going all the way isn’t that far off. Every cup game is a one off (unless you draw or its two legs of course) and so a cup run is reliant on never having an off day. This Liverpool will always throw an off day here or there. If a greater consistency can be achieved then there is no need to panic about the lack of trophies, they will come. In a season where we won no trophies, we were within two games of winning two.
Gerrard says so: Steven Gerrard is our captain, Steven Gerrard is a red, Steven Gerrard plays for Liverpool, and he rates Brendan Rodgers. Some have said that they’re empty words forced on him by the club, but he’s said them so often and with such context, like the ‘I wish I’d met him 10 years ago’ line. Not everything Gerrard says is sacrosanct, but he knows his onions and he knows about playing for LFC. If he rates him, who are we to argue?
Well, me. This is the part where I argue.
Why Brendan Rodgers should be dismissed as Liverpool manager
Dramatic fall this season: There’s no two ways about it. This has been a bad season for Liverpool. From the great heights of last year, the club has fallen not just out of the title picture, but out of the top four altogether. Some, including the manager himself, have argued that people see this season in a worse light because of the successes of last season, which admittedly saw Liverpool overachieve quite significantly.
However, when Rodgers took over if you’d told me that the Reds would finish outside the top four with less than 66 points in his third season, I would say that isn’t good enough, regardless of how the team did in any previous year.
Inability to perform in Europe: The incredibly limp displays in the Champions League, and then Europa League, showed that Rodgers still has an awful lot to learn about managing in European competition. In his first season he experienced the Europa League, and didn’t overly impress, but it was his first time.
The expectation was that he would have evolved and learned enough to at least get Liverpool out of what appeared to be a pretty straightforward Champions League group stage (Real Madrid aside). What followed was six poor performances with just one — fairly lucky — victory at home to Ludogorets.
Numerous points dropped to poor teams: It has been a characteristic of Liverpool in the Premier League era to drop silly points to silly teams in silly ways. If Arsene Wenger and his Arsenal side have taught us anything in recent years, it is that disposing of these teams gets you top four. You can be fairly poor against the sides with genuine quality, as long as you do your job against the sides you should beat.
This season has seen an unwelcome return to those days for Liverpool. In games against the bottom half teams, the Reds have won only 34 points from a possible 60, only managing to do the double over Burnley and QPR.
Bad quality of football: It has not just been the poor results, but the performances that went with them. There have been plenty of games this season where the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City have dropped points against lesser teams, but more often than not they’ve been in smash and grab situations.
With Liverpool, many of the losses this season have been fully deserved. In defeats to Hull, Crystal Palace (home and away), Newcastle, Aston Villa (league and cup) and West Ham, Rodgers had very little to complain about in terms of luck. On each occasion the opposition were simply better. Liverpool had not laid siege to their goal, not dominated large periods of the game or looked particularly in control. They were just beaten by teams that played better on the day.
There have even been successful games where the quality of the football on show hasn’t really been up to scratch. Wins over Burnley (away), QPR (home and away) and Stoke (home) in particular were laboured and somewhat fortunate. Even during the unbeaten run in the middle of the campaign, there were a few outings where Rodgers and his men could consider themselves fortunate to have emerged unscathed.
Failure to take advantage of a poor Manchester United: This comes back to the failure to finish top four, but the worst part of it has to be that Liverpool have finished behind their fierce rivals, who themselves haven’t even had a particularly good season. Their overall play may not be quite as drab as it was under David Moyes, but Louis Van Gaal’s United team have dropped plenty of points themselves in this campaign. In fact they are on course to only achieve a handful of points more than they managed last season.
Their higher position is merely due to the failings of the likes of Liverpool, Everton and Tottenham. This season was a real opportunity for Liverpool to keep United down by keeping them out of the Champions League, and allowing them back into it will only make it a much harder feat to achieve next season.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku-p7CHVTa8
Inability to get anything out of strikers: It has been widely acknowledged that, after the departure of Suarez, Rodgers was dealt rather a bad hand of strikers to take his place. While they are far from world beaters, Mario Balotelli, Rickie Lambert and Fabio Borini have managed just eight goals between them this season. Eight.
They are certainly not the three I would have picked, and there is an argument to say that they’re not who Rodgers would have picked (though he supposedly did have a big hand in the signings of Borini and Lambert, and at least signed off on Balotelli). However, the fact is that Lambert scored goals, and assisted them, at Southampton. Balotelli scored goals at Milan, and Borini managed a healthy amount at Sunderland.
It’s understandable that they haven’t replaced the goals of Suarez and Sturridge, but they’ve barely replaced the goals of Martin Skrtel between them. That is more than just a lack of ability, that is mismanagement. They clearly don’t fit the way Rodgers wants to play, so why were they signed? Why couldn’t Rodgers adapt the side so that they were more catered for seeing as no-one else was forthcoming with goals? Why wasn’t anything done about it in January?
Odd handling of players : Speaking of mismanagement, while Rodgers man management skills have been brilliant on occasion, they appear to have been somewhat lacking with others, in particular Lucas, Lazar Markovic, Balotelli, and before them Daniel Agger, Nuri Sahin and Pepe Reina.
The first three have been very oddly treated in the last year, being wholly relied on for a very important role in the team one minute, and then completely bombed out of the matchday squad the next. Markovic is a young player in a new country who is apparently suffering from homesickness. He has adapted relatively well to a new role as wing back, but whenever a slightly below par performance is put in, he’s subbed at half time and often left out of the next squad entirely. The manager is entitled to do this of course, but it doesn’t seem to be treatment extended to any other player, apart from maybe Balotelli.
The Italian has been far from impressive at Anfield, but he is the best fit striker on the books at the club (with Sturridge constantly sidelined), and his omission from several matchday squads when supposedly fit has been odd to say the least. There may be perfectly reasonable underlying reasons for this, but it does make you wonder when you think of what Agger, Sahin and Reina have previously said about Rodgers, accusing him of freezing them out of the squad and a lack of communication, which leads me to…
Dismissal of experienced heads: Something that got me thinking the other day was when Rodgers commented that the team needed more experience. It reminded me of the summer he came in and instantly dispatched of Dirk Kuyt and Maxi Rodriguez. At the time it appeared to be part of his philosophy, to promote youth and lead with dynamic players. However, the side of that first season often looked lost, with too many inexperienced youngsters having to take the lead.
Given the levels that Kuyt has maintained since moving to Fenerbahce and Liverpool’s struggles with numbers of competent goalscorers (even last season we only had two, they were just very very good at it), I still can’t see the reasoning behind that sale, especially when you consider that the club is reportedly now trying to sign James Milner, the English Kuyt. Imagine if we’d had Dirk instead of Iago Aspas last season.
A year later and Reina and Agger were gone too, and many recent reports suggest that Lucas is no longer wanted either. It is a curious way to behave, selling your experienced players and then wondering why your squad is so inexperienced.
The murky waters of ‘philosophy’: Did you see earlier on where I was gushing about the Brendan Rodgers philosophy?
Now I feel like I’ve wised up a bit. Philosophy, to me it’s just a made up word. A politician’s word, so young fellas like yourself can wear a suit and a tie, and have a job. Sorry, went a bit Shawshank there. Basically having a philosophy means giving yourself extra time in a job by simply saying you have one.
Look at Spurs. Tim Sherwood comes in as just a manager. No philosophy, just try to win games while wearing a child’s coat. He won a fair few, but was still dismissed. Mauricio Pochettino comes in, with a philosophy. He has a worse win ratio than Sherwood, but you never know what might happen because he has a philosophy. Spurs fans are happier with Pochettino than they were with Sherwood, because he has a philosophy. This apparently takes more time to implement than just managing a team to win games.
It is then not clear whether it is a positive or a negative that Rodgers has abandoned his philosophy several times over since coming to Liverpool. When he arrived he preached death by football, passing the opposition into submission, overwhelming them with possession and pressing. Last season he kept the pressing, but ditched the possession, and it worked extremely well.
The worrying part is that last season’s transfer strategy was supposedly built around this new philosophy of high pressing and counter attacking, largely in a 4-4-2 diamond formation. The abandoning of the style of play and formation rendered most of the £120m spent fairly pointless, or at least misguided. Players like Markovic, Can and Moreno were soon being asked to play out of position. They did pretty well, but it was fairly farcical that it got to that stage nonetheless.
Two strikers wanted: There is an argument that, given how the team did so well last season with two top-class strikers, that the addition of two more this summer will cure all ills.
That is probably true, but surely the counter argument to that is: wouldn’t near enough every team be significantly better with two world class strikers in it? If you put last year’s Suarez and Sturridge into, say, Southampton’s team, I’d be pretty confident of them making top four. It seems like more of an indictment than a plus for Rodgers that without ‘top class’ strikers, his teams look toothless and disjointed so often.
Unwillingness to work with a Director of Football: This was more than understandable when Rodgers was appointed, and it was admirable that he took FSG on to that extent. They wanted the DoF model, Rodgers refused, they gave him the job anyway.
Reports suggest that Rodgers will be told he now has no choice in the matter when FSG give him his end of year review, and as John Gibbons alluded to in his recent piece on the unsung successes of Damien Comolli’s time at the club, whatever you think about the DoF model, it can’t be any worse than the current Transfer Committee strategy. If Rodgers isn’t willing to compromise for the good of the club, then that could be a problem.
Soundbites: This is incredibly minor, but needs saying (unlike a lot of Rodgers’s recent quotes). I don’t think it’s remotely important what a manager says to the media, just what he says behind closed doors to his players. However, it is really more what you can read between the lines of his recent quotes.
He is a man under pressure after presiding over a bad season, and he knows it. In his time at Liverpool he has largely handled the media perfectly, often coming back from difficult situations by saying exactly the right thing in the right way and calming the worries of Reds fans everywhere.
Lately, he has been merely adding fuel to a growing fire with bizarre comments about bringing Gerrard off against Chelsea so their fans would clap him, the lack of experience in a squad he has shorn of experience himself, and in particular his insistence that performances like the drab 0-0 at West Brom were ‘outstanding’.
I’m sure he didn’t tell the players they were outstanding on that, or any other occasion he has used the word to describe a 6/10 performance, but you can’t help but feel a little patronised each time he does it. Liverpool fans are the most knowledgeable in the world, remember?
The comments don’t mean a great deal overall, but you have to worry that he has gone from being a calm and assured public speaker to one who sounds as if he’s beginning to panic, and seems to be treating every pre-match and post-match press conference like a job interview.
Availability of better managers: This one is of course in no way Rodgers’s fault, but it is perhaps the main reason as to why I and many others have been battling with the question for so many weeks.
One of the most annoying things in football is when you hear a football fan say they want the manager of their club sacked, and when you ask them who they want to come in, they have no idea.
As soon as Jurgen Klopp announced that he was leaving Borussia Dortmund after six successful years (and one rather awful one), all of a sudden football fans around the world found themselves not as happy with their own manager as they had been previously. Numerous Liverpool fans were just the same.
Even if the German goes elsewhere, there is a big chance that Carlo Ancelotti will also be unemployed soon, while the very promising Frank De Boer has stated on more than one occasion his desire to one day be Liverpool boss.
Then of course there’s Rafa, but Neil Atkinson absolutely boxed that one off with his recent nail on the head piece on the potential return of Benitez to Anfield.
It is not every summer that you get such a line-up of world class managers becoming available at once, and who knows, if the hierarchy does decide to stick for now but then pull the trigger part way through next season or next summer, they may find themselves in a position where all the good replacements have been snapped up and they either have to pay through the nose to get one, or settle for a lesser light.
So there you have it. It has taken a lot of going back and forth, reminding myself of every part of the last three years, the highs, the lows, the reasons for both, the mitigating circumstances, the alternatives, the ultimate goal and how to get there. So here it is.
On the balance of things, in my very humble opinion, IF, and it is a massive IF, a Klopp or an Ancelotti can be tempted, then I’d say the time would be right for Brendan Rodgers and Liverpool FC to part ways.
Having said all of the above about trophies, it was ironically a cup game that swayed my decision on this. When Klopp made his decision, I thought “No, we’ve got a good enough manager already. He’ll get it right.”
Then Aston Villa happened and I lost my shit altogether.
That probably makes me sound terrifically fickle, and who knows, maybe I am, but it wasn’t merely the one game, the one very badly managed game that swayed my decision. During the game itself, and during the aftermath that followed, every single doubt that I had been subconsciously storing about Rodgers and whether last season was the norm or this season was, whether he was the real deal or just a good manager with great strikers (I won’t say ‘fraud’ because that is bullshit of the highest order), it all manifested itself in 90 minutes of abject failure.
Three years into his reign, Rodgers had a relatively strong side at his disposal and sent them out against a vastly inferior side with a vastly inferior manager at our former second home, where victory would see us into the FA Cup final and give our season purpose. He lost, and he deservedly lost. I couldn’t envisage a scenario where any other top four manager with the same team would have made such a mess of it. I didn’t realise how thin the thread was that my faith in Rodgers was hanging from, but that game well and truly snapped it.
This is not me saying that I desperately want him gone and that he won’t be able to turn things around. There is still a very talented manager in there and if we are to bring in two top quality strikers in the Sturridge/Suarez mould, then I would absolutely have faith in him being able to come close to recreating the joy of last season.
However, that is highly unlikely and so we have to assume that there will be modest additions rather than superstars, with the likes of Ings (below), Milner and Benteke the strongest links so far. If that is to be the case, I would feel a lot more comfortable with a Klopp in charge, someone who has made a career out of turning unsung mediocrity into league title winning Champions League contenders, or an Ancelotti, someone with experience to more easily overcome tough scenarios.
Rather than believing that Rodgers isn’t the man for the job, it is more that there are better managers potentially available and that this season has sewn enough doubt where the risk/reward ratio has swung further away from stick to twist.
Should neither of those two gentlemen wish to take the Anfield hot seat (and admittedly Ancelotti would be a very optimistic shout) then I would happily give Rodgers another season, though this leads to another difficulty.
With one more season comes more scrutiny. Every result is already obsessed over and criticised to the max if three points aren’t achieved, and with so many seemingly turning against the idea of more Rodgers, the atmosphere around the club could become toxic very quickly and even lead to a mid-season dismissal, which would be the worst possible outcome.
If Rodgers is to stay, and as things stand it appears that he will, then he needs to be backed. He needs to be given players he can work with, and not some he has to put up with. The club must give him the best opportunity to succeed.
Some of you reading this will agree, many of you will disagree (Hi Brendan), but there is hopefully one thing that we can all agree on. Whoever is in charge come August, whether it is Rodgers, Klopp, Ancelotti, De Boer or John Carver, we all need to get behind him and commit to an unwavering belief that next year will be our year.
That’s just my philosophy.
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda-Photo
Anyone that says achieving 4th this season would have been over achieving is dead wrong. The wage excuse makes sense under conventional circumstances but they completely ignore the FACT that Man United were in transition and way behind Liverpool before this season started. No one in LFC management whether it be FSG or the transfer committee including Rodgers, who said LVG would ‘find the Premier League a shock’ expected or intended for United to come back and finish higher than LFC this season. This has been a very weak Premier League season and Manchester United certainly haven’t performed to the level that their wage and transfer spend justifies nor have Manchester United reached a points tally consistent with what usually guarantees fourth. If United had performed to their natural wage ability then they would finish higher than Arsenal and perhaps even Chelsea.
Rather, what you saw this season was a relatively mediocre Manchester United team by historical comparisons with only a few players of consistent top performance, mainly a goal keeper who is their Player of the Year. A GK as player of the year just tells you how mediocre the team has been performing as they rely on match saving dramatics to win points.
United will finish the season with a MAXIMUM POINTS TALLY of 72 if they win their last game. Do you know how many points the 5th placed team, Everton got last season= 72 points. LFC’s potential total points tally of 65 if we beat Stoke would have gotten us 7th placed in 2013/2014. In fact there is still a chance LFC come 6th or 7th if we lose to Stoke (which is highly likely the way we’re playing) and Southampton and Spurs will their final matches.
This has been a very mediocre season from LFC and anyone who tells you that LFC being 5th is par this year are telling you nonsense. There has been a 30 plus point swing between LFC and United over this season. United were far behind us despite their bigger wage structure. Performing to our standard level if we bought well in the summer and were able to beat all the bottom half of the table teams like Palace, Newcastle, Sunderland, Villa at home, we would have finished the season with an expected standard of about 72-75 points which would have clinched top 4. Rather we were so lacklustre in ceding the initiative both psychologically and numerically to Man United.
This massive under performance in the League is not even to take into account the massive embarassment in both the Champions League and Europa League, and the failure to get to the FA Cup final as some kind of compensation for the poor season. When all the factors are considered and crucially the massive waste of funds in the transfer market on sub standard players for expensive fees, then it is clear that Brendan Rodgers deserves to be sacked ESPECIALLY now when there are massive upgrades available this summer like Klopp and Benitez.
Very good article overall, mate.
One ‘positive’ or ‘in favor’ argument though really needs clarification: “Ability to adapt and find solutions”
We/you need a set of actual, measurable criteria whereby to assess and categorize a manager in terms of his ability to adapt and find solutions.
Rodgers early on (and now again) kept selecting Gerrard in a DLPM or holding-midfielder position, either solo or as part of a ‘2’ in a 2-1 central midfield set-up and without Sturridge available. That’s an own-goal, a gratuitous, inexplicable one at that. Finding a ‘solution’ for that (and having combined it with leaving Lucas on the bench or even off the matchday squad) is not exactly a mark of distinction. Finding ‘solutions’, EVENTUALLY, to batshit crazy, self-imposed problems is not a sign of adaptability. It’s a sign that, eventually, some reality-testing got done.
He persisted with using Balotelli as a lone striker and expecting him to play like Sturridge. Just how many times did he have to observe that trainwreck of his own making before thinking that maybe a two-ST setup, probably with Borini, would be a better idea?
One last point re another so-called positive:
“Ability to develop young players”
No, sorry. For every young player that he’s given a chance to play to, there’s at least one more that he did not/has not. And, sorry, he doesn’t develop them. When you send young players out on loan, you’re no longer developing them, and you cannot take credit for their improvement. He hasn’t developed Ilori and Luis Alberto. He stopped ‘developing’ Ibe when he sent him out on loan. He didn’t develop, nor give a proper chance to the somewhat older (and much, unfairly, maligned Aspas). He hasn’t developed Wisdom. He didn’t develop Kelly and Robinson. He didn’t develop Shelvey. And he hasn’t developed Brad Smith or Branagan or all the other academy players he includes in the matchday squad every now and then.
As for Sterling, he still cannot reliably take a proper shot on goal from good positions inside the box. Yeah he’s scored some excellent goals but there’s been very little improvement in his actual shooting technique, etc. None.
And don’t get me started on Markovic (something you pointed out, also). Let’s hope he hasn’t ruined him with his treatment of him, and his use of him.
Wow, more David Segar, please. This was incredibly well written and one of the few pieces on the manager I have seen that managed to be thoughtful and seem like it was trying to reach a conclusion, not support one.
As someone who is neither pro or anti Brendan (I have pretty much the same opinion as the author) it’s been aggravating wading through all the nonsense. Great to read something by someone who realizes that the issue is more complex than “he sucks/he’s great.” Plus I laughed a few times.
Great piece, please write more.
Cheers Dan. Much appreciated (see? told you I read these things!)
Nice article David . I enjoyed it and I have a very similar, if not, identical outlook on the situation. You’re dead right about Kuyt haha, the old dog. He’s bound to have added at least 3 points to our total with a few scrappy tap ins and goal line clearances.
Though I’d be happy to give Rodgers more time I’d break my back and the bank to bring in Ancelotti as I think he guarantees success. Such a proven track record. Give him £100m; If you build it they will come. We’d hit the heights once again I’m sure…..If only, in my dreams.
Great article. Nice to hear thought happening, as opposed to much of the debate/pissing contests these days.
I keep wondering what would have happened if Rodgers had been given Bony. We reportedly offered a (shock!) low-ball bid of 12.5M on Rodgers’ request, but FSG refused to pay the 20M required.
I don’t think Rodgers needed a “top quality” striker. We did fairly well with Sterling up front, and he ain’t no striker. Remy would have sufficed. Not top quality stuff, but at least someone with movement and a bit of pace to play off the shoulder.
With someone like that, suddenly players like Coutinho, Sterling, Henderson, Lallana have something to mess about with. The whole squad would look a better prospect.
That said, if you put a truly “top quality” striker in the mix, throw 40M or so at Lacazette’s overlords, and suddenly we have what could be the most potent attack in the PL (especially if Sterling remains).
And if we stumbled on some defensive balance with Sakho and Mignolet leading the way, who knows?
I say Rodgers should definitely be given a chance to succeed. If FSG bite the bullet this summer on a top striker that – and it seems that Rodgers is fairly adamant that this is the only course of action – we just might see the dizzying heights of last season. And isn’t that what we are really want in our heart of hearts?
An excellent article.
You forgot to include Sakho in your list of ‘ unwanted then and presumably unwanted now’ players, despite their obvious quality. I have a totally jaundiced attitude to Rodgers manaement, and so find any defence of hm risible; last season should not define his maagement, it’s this season that he should be judged by.
I played football for a long time, under a variety of coaches. Some teams pick themselves, and that’s what happened last season. Rodgers abandoned his preferred philosophy because Suarez forced him to.
This season, Rodgers bloody-mindedness kept Sakho and Lucad out until November. Thats when the team resurrected itself. Lucas mentoring Coutino had a great deal to do with the boys blossoming. Then, Lucas out and Sakho out, skids hit again.
But he doesn’t want either of them…
There’s only one departure from LFC that I want to see.
Change the record for god’s sake. How many articles do we need on whether to back or sack the manager? We have a game coming up, Summer transfer business to discuss, implications of FFP loosening to consider and what do we get? The bazillionth article on Brendan Rodgers. Camps aren’t going to change and neither are minds at this stage so give it a rest would you. We have more pressing concerns than one bad season.
Look, in Brendan first season he was getting slated left and right and i remeber having lenghty discutions with many fans that he was right for us and that i was seeing enough in the performances that he was trying to do something.. And it proved the case last season as well with our best season in the league for well 20 years..But Suarez and Sturridge scored 52 league goals between them..No manager on earth can take the credit for that, f.eks Sturridge’s chipped goal vs west brom or back heel assist away at Cardiff or chip vs Everton at anfield are not due to BR tacticts, the same goes for Suarez brace in the first half vs Norwich (2 absolute worldies) 2 worldies vs Cardiff at anfield and numerous sensational goals are due to individual brilliance not tacticts..
I have not watched a liverpool game since he took over where i felt we will not concede at any minute..Even if there was some clean sheets in that 13 game run look at the opposition guys, it was team we SHOULD beat. And we failed to do that on some occasions as well during that run with Draws vs Liecester,Bolton and defeats to Chelsea and Besiktas..
The Aston Villa was the final nail in his couffin for me, fickle or not, before that game i had already lost alot of hope, we were totally outfought and outplayed by the Mancs at anfield, and crushed by Arsenal (DESTROYED) i mean come on. In 3 games you throw away the season and the team doesnt even put up a fight, if a manager of LFC cant inspire players for a semi final or a home tie vs the Mancs then something is fundementally wrong..
Home defeat to Aston villa (0-1)
Away defeat to West Ham (3-1)
Home draw with Boro (2-2)
Home draw with Blueshites (1-1)
Away defeat to Basel (1-0)
Home defeat to Madrid (0-3) (No shame in loosing to Madrid, but 0-3 down in 20 minutes, BORE OFF BRENDA)
Home draw with Hull (0-0)
Away defeat to Newcastle (1-0)
Away defeat to Palace (3-1)
Away draw with Ludogorets (2-2) FFS
Home draw with Sunderland (0-0)
Home draw with Basel (1-1) Have you ever seen a grown man cry?
Away defeat to the Mancs (3-0) (Even though that was one of the better performances this season, shocking right? right)
Home draw with Leicester (2-2) (After leading 2-0 at halftime)
Home draw with Bolton (0-0)
Away draw with Everton (0-0) (Considering the state they were in at the time)
Away defeat to Besiktas (1-0) (Absolutley shocking in Europe)
Home draw with Blackburn (0-0)
Home defeat to the Mancs (1-2)
Away rape to Arsenal (4-1)
Deafeat in the Semifinal vs almighty Villa (2-1)
Away draw with Westbrom (0-0) (Doesn’t matter we were outstanding)
Away defeat to Hull (1-0)
Home drubbing by Palace (1-3)
THese games have 1 thing in common we can all agree on, very disapponting results, some range from shocking to awful to gob awful back to only awful but mostly gob awful mostly!
So would any of the 4 teams above us in the table keep Brendan after those results? I am certain that he wouldn’t have got to manage half those games because he would have been chopped long before that!
The performances are awful, we look mightly dis-organasied, i will be very very very kind here but he has been shite in the transfer market as well..
First season signings:
Joe Allen: (Decent Squad player at best)
Fabio Borini: (Works hard but in the end not Liverpool quality by a long shot)
Nuri Sahin (Obvious quality player but used out of position and had a falling out with BR)
Assaidi: (Looked a promising player, never given a chance and flopped)
Samed Yesil: (Very promising youngster, injuries have completley ruined his chances at Liverpool)
Philippe Coutinho (Fantastic player)
Daniel Sturridge (Senastional player)
So first season i would say Only Joe Allen is not a complete flop and adds something to the squad but not the first team and would be in many liverpool fans starting 11.
2nd season Signings:
Mignolet (Good shot stopper and a decent keeper allround but not great)
Ilori (Never given a chance and the club is looking to move him on)
Kolo Toure (Gives his all but in the end his bad performances is what sticks)
Mamadou Sakho (Our best defender by a mile)
Aly Cissokho (Really? The worst footballer i have ever seen, but a decent enough defender i guess)
Victor Moses (Just awful)
Luis Alberto (Looked very promising and did well enough in his very very few chances but again chipped out and will be sold this summer)
Iago Aspas (Wow, just wow, what a light weight! No more needed to say)
3rd season signings
Dejan Lovren (At first i though finally we are going to replace Skrtel because i have managed football at a high level and played it at a higher level and i can tell you Martin Skrtel is awful, absolutley awful and anyone who thinks otherwise has a fundemental lack of understanding of the game sadly, but that discussion is for another time. But Lovren was bought to replace Sakho who is our best defender, BR is useless and clueless and i said it back then, as long as Skrtel BR’s bum buddy is in Liverpools line up, we will never win anything or reach our targets! Lovren has been mainly awful but anyone partnered with Skrtel will be and i will not write him completley off yet because i believe under a new manager who partners him with Lovren he will become a very good player for us, many will say this seasons best performance was Tottenham away in the 3-0 win, Guess the back 4 in that game (Manquillo-Lovren-Sakho-Moreno) it was their first game together and apart from 2 chances for spurs all game they were very very solid but only Brenda tinckers and fucks with what is working and working brilliantly)
Manquillo (I believe he is an ok player, but Martin Kelly could do the same job and Could play CB as well not to mention Andre Wisdom)
Moreno (A good LB, but awful LWB and has been exposed, under a manager who knows the basics of defending and can teach him a thing or 2 i believe he will be a very good player for us)
Emre Can (An excellent prospect but has been badly misused in defence and RB but he will become a great player for us in the near future)
Adam Lallana (Maybe a bit expensive but i believe he is a class act, just simply a sensational player to watch the way you dont know if he is left or right footed and his tecniche and skills are amazing, many dont rate him for some fucked up weird reason but at some point earlier this season he was our best player by a mile for 4-5 games straight and then got injured, he will become a big player for us next season i truley believe, Many rave f.eks about Coutinho and i love him, but Coutinho has 8 goals and 7 assists in all competitions, Lallana has 6 goals and 5 assists in all competitons but in half the minutes, iam telling you he will be brilliant for us)
Lazar Markovic (how much did he cost again? 25 million €, wow just wow, considering Jordon Ibe was our best player in pre season i didnt get this signing at all, but maybe the club was planning for Sterlings departure as they new he was leaving, so good thing Brendan has used him out of position every single game, subbed him undeservedly half the time and made him regret the day he joined us, he has undoubted talent but i fear we will never see that under Brendan)
Mario Balotelli (I pulled my hair in disgust when we signed him, has been even more awful than i expected and a complete sorry excuse of a footballer and that Brendan rejected Loic Remy and dithered on Wilfred Bony to get Balotelli in the end is nothing short of fucking criminal and sackable)
Rickie Lambert (Would have been a big upgrade on Aspas if he was Luis Suarez and Sturridges back up as planned, but Suarez was Sold and Sturridge had his worst season with injuries yet so sadly for him just not good enough for Liverpool even though its debatable if he would have done better if played to his strenghts, we will never know though because Brendan prefered Sterling for some reason upfront! Lambert is 33 and will probably leave next season regardless of who is manager)
Origi (No idea)
So Coutinho,Sturridge,Sakho,Lallana,Emre are great players and signings.
Mignolet,Moreno,Allen,Markovic are decent and have room for improvement.
At some point or another all of them have put in Man of the match performances. (Or performance in Markovic’s case the away match vs Sunderland)
Lovren,Balotelli,Lambert,Manquillo,Ilori,Aspas,Alberto,Cissokho,Toure,Moses,
Sahin,Borini,Assaidi,Origi
So after 6 transfer windows and 240 million + spent
5 very good players
4 decent players
jury still out on 2 players (Lovren and Origi)
and 12 very bad signings.. Maybe when we move on Allen and if Markovic doesnt improve we can say that we signed 7 players who really make a diffrence to the team in Mignolet,Sakho,Moreno,Emre,Lallana,Coutinho,Sturridge
and the rest are squad fillers and not needed.. Hopefully for Liverpools sake
Lovren,Markovic and Origi can come good.
So in the transfer market Brendan has been not that good and buys players for the sake of it and doesn’t use the academy and blocks their way with his buys…
The argument that he uses youth from the academy is a lie, a myth, Shelvy, Wisdom Suso, Sterling all played in his first season but that was because there was no other options..
Where is Shelvy? Gone. Suso? Gone. Wisdom? Gone. Only Sterling is here and i feel Sterling has regressed if anything and that shows he is being badly mismanaged, still got 11 goals and 10 assists, for a 20 year old playing so many postions he should be proud and probably is.
Jon Flanagan was given the chance because it was forced, there was nobody else left fit!
Jordon Ibe was only recalled in January because Brendan was forced to because the club was under FFP investigation and couldnt sign players to please Brenda who has a kid in a Candy store mentality with his buys..
Why when the team couldn’t score a goal to save their life wasn’t Jerome Sinclair given a real chance? What about Sheyi Ojo? What about Cameron Brannagan?? A real talent but Joe Allen keeps getting chances, Ryan Mclaughlin, Martin Kelly, Andre Wisdom, you would say the competion between them would have given us a good selection for RB but Kelly gets sold for peanuts, wisdom gets shipped out on loan, Mclaughlin who is full international by the way still hasnt got his debut yet, Keeps using the useless Johnson and loans in Manquillo who is just as experienced as Ryan Mclaughlin.
Jordan Rossiter is seen by the club as a real gem, but not by the first team coaching staff as he is not quick and short. Well you got to be fucking kidding me, i didnt notice tha blistering pace and hieght of Joe Allen or Coutinho for the matter. At least Rossiter is a winner and hard as nails and have a brillaint passing range with both feat, great tackler, reads the game senastionaly for a 17 year old and has incredible techince, but Brendan wants to buy buy buy, he is as fickle as most of our fans and sadly we will loose many many talents people dont even know about if Brendan remains in charge because we will keep on buying players with no plan for the academy players because BR doenst use academy players, its a myth and a lie!
Joa Teixeria,Ryan Mclaughlin, Jordan Williams, Brad Smith, Jordan Rossiter, Cameron Brannagan, Sheyi Ojo, Ryan Kent, Samed Yesil, Jerome Sinclair are all very talented players and all should have gotten their chances this season for 15-20 minutes here and there, its not like we were winning anyting and spare me the crap about having these players on the bench gives them any kind of experience other than Balotelli joking around picking his nose.
About Teixeira, he came on last season vs Fulham, changed the game with a brillaint cameo, what happened next, he was not even on the bench for the rest of the season and was shipped out on loan, awful planning awful use of a player who deserved another chance, now he is injured and under BR probably be sold for peanut, but hopefully that wont happen though and BR gets his p45.
The transition argument is mute because if BR remains in charge you will see alot of players shipped out and many many others signed and another season of transition will be happening, why dont you tell the transition bullshit to Southampton? or Manchester City last season? or Everton last season? or millions of examples. its a useless excuse by managers to fool the sheepole, trust me i know, i used it many times when i used to manage in the Egyptian Premier league.
Then Brendans personality, many say that is nonsense and shouldnt be in any evaluation of his job, YEAH FUDGING right! Hilarious some guys are, he takes the credit for everything even if it is completley out of order, and hangs his players out to dry and throws everything and everyone under the bus to deflect blame from himself. That is not a guy i would bust 2 guts for, thats exactly why you get these awful performance at a semi-final because sub consiously the players have no leader on the sidelines, they know they are the first to be blamed and critizsed even though Brendan is the one with the least quality of them all…
How about Lucas Leiva? How about Mamadou Sakho? How about Raheem Sterling?
Both of the first 2 want to leave the club because of the current management or lack of, when both got back in the team the team performed much much better, but good defensive players is a term lost on Brendan who is absoultley useless in coaching a well drilled solid back 4…And Sterling only 20 already realized that under Brendan he will not become the world class player his potential can UNDOUBTLY reach and nothing can change that fact, or that he will never win a Premier league title if Brendan is the manger!
If we loose these players so Brendan can stay that would be a disaster!
I appologise for the very long post! Had to vent some frustration
I suggest you should also apologise for thinking that the word “rape” is appropriate in a discussion about football:
“Away rape to Arsenal (4-1)”
well i won’t…it was in a footballing sence a rape, so get off your high horse mr. sensitive, soft lad…
Your failure to acknowledge the offensiveness of that speaks volumes.
Speaks volumes of what a knob you are! Bore off, you dont know me or the shite i have been through in my life for a bloody tool like you to come here spouting absolute tosh! Bore the fudge off!!!!!
I couldnt have said it better , I disagree with skertel though.
Disagree about Skrtel all you want mate, he is gob awful..He is always too deep, way to deep!! never in position, never comunicates, way too rash, way too hesitante and have no tactiacal awarness or bravery at all, keeps backing off until the other teams strikers already scored, he makes last ditch challenges and some blocks that make fans think he is good, but if he stopped backing off and was positioned correctly in the first place those challenges would not be needed in the first place, every single defender that has played with him apart from Agger struggled. Sakho is Frances nr 1 defender ahead of the likes of Varane, Koscielny, Mangala, Zouma, Mathieu, and Lovren was the best CB in the PL last season after Kompany. BR ruins defenders by playing them with Skrtel, he is not a defender that build partnerships, and that is why we need a new manager who sees that Skrtel should be nowhere near the starting lineup in most games we are trying to win..In an away game at City, Chelsea, Arsenal where we set up to just defend and defend only he might be useful but that is not how Liverpool plays or want to play and just to prove my point, take a closer look at Skrtel tomorrow, his positioning, his backing off players, his rashness and stupid fouls which are completley unneccesary..Peace
I just left 200 votes to back Brendan in the poll above. Legit that.
Na, only retarded and shows you are probably a Manc deep inside without even knowing it…what a knobhead
I lied. I didn’t leave more than 2 votes (to sack) and that only because it didn’t remember my vote.
Just wanted to draw attention to the fact that the poll allows multiple votes, thus it’s not legit.
my bad, good point
It very much is a balance as i really want a manager for 5-10 if not longer years… I have lost a lot of faith in Brendan over this season.. Not so much for the results but for the abject performances and the manner of our draws and losses, if he stays our best hope is Sturridge stays reasonably fit scores 15-20 and a Benteke or Ings scores 10-15 and maybe Origi scores a couple.. Its a major if, as Lambert, Balo and Borini scored almost 50 goals last season, this they have barely managed 5.. Very few managers are afforded absolute world class players like Suarez last year, if you gave Alan Padew, Tony Pulis, Steve Bruce Suarez in that form, see how they do… I am of the opinion if Klopp or Anchelotti were to become available then break the bank balance to bring them in.. If not back BR and allow him to either thrive or fall on his sword.. The only problem is if he does stay, by January or next summer, the only managers likely available are the Garry Monk’s of this world….
Is it time to talk about the elephant in the room? Given the contrasting departure of SG and RH, is it about politics? Modern day politics? Liverpool IS a socialist place, that’s why we fucking walk on our higher plane (sic). Unity though. Some of Manchester has it too. We all know the modern game is what it is, but it still needs to be challenged. I think. Don’t just take it for granted. And not just ticket prices. I’m done!
SACK
The idea that Suarez was nothing before Rodgers is a joke. This is a guy who scored 49 goals in 48 games for Ajax the season before signing, and 50 goals in 85 the two seasons before. It;s not his fault he was stuck with Carroll.
You say Rodgers ‘gets Liverpool’. Kind of. But Reina, Agger, Kuyt really got Liverpool and you need people who get it. There;s hardly anyone at the club who ‘gets it’ now. We should have kept all three, especially Agger who was a fighter and who would have fought in the FA Cup semi final and not caved.
Anyway if Rodgers is here then he should be supported sure, but I think a better move would be a fresh start than ‘continuity’ for continuity’s sake.
YNWA
You say Rodgers ‘gets Liverpool’. Kind of. But Reina, Agger, Kuyt really got Liverpool and you need people who get it.
It says something when a lot of Liverpool fans go out and buy Agger Brøndby shirts. Which aren’t easy to get since their website only ships internally(meaning Denmark).
You know, coming from where I come it is desperately hard to find sound fans of this club with sound opinions. Most are/were fair weather fans who hopped on the band wagon (too late?) or nastalgia trippers who bought the Liverpool DVD. I admit my love for the club only runs a few decades deep but some of the nonsense spouted by these people should be considered blasphemous if not extremely short sighted. It wasnt until I found TAW that I felt ‘tapped’ into the source of what like minded fans were on about. Mind you, I don’t agree with every dribble their people put out but most often they are spot on.
I want to like Brenadan Rodgers. I really do. However I can’t help but feel that Ive been conditioned to think he has the magic answer for all the riddles this job requires(his large manifesto of footballing philosophy anyone?). That somehow he’ll pull the rabbit out of the hat and this team will get by. That he is the man to be trusted. There have been signs that point otherwise.
Easily, last year at home to Chelsea: any experienced head would have shut down shop and ensure we did not lose that game. Instead we played directly into Jose’s hands.
This season’s Champions League was a disgrace. The club, it’s supporters, and the brand in general deserved a better offering.
He can’t blame the lack of world class striker as an excuse. He’s signed all the strikers we have on the books! Those are HIS buys.
Not getting back into the top four: last year was almost the ultimate God send for any supporter who’s toiled over the years in their support. For any fan who’s had to hear it from the Man U/Chelsea/Arsenal(and now City) crowd that their club is the present and future of English football. That LFC is over. I hate, utterly HATE that. But I do need to ask, we’re we lucky last year? Yes we played some damn good stuff but so didnt Newcastle in the 90’s? Last season, Chelsea had a new manager(not entirely) that had to sort his squad, United the same, and lets face it Arsenal is always going to be Aresenal(party for fourth!). This season United changed leadership again and we failed to capitalize on their transition thus resulting in what is sure to be another underwhelming transfer summer. Did they really do the double on us like that?!
Just know that after every defeat, every stale performance more and more people will be looking to sharpen the knives. It’s already begun. Can the club afford to wait until October/November? What happens when all the would be replacements have gone elsewhere? Call John Carver.
I’m sorry I didn’t intend to write so much…perhaps it was the wine.
One point about the article; how can you possibly conclude that the sacking if Dalglish was ‘probably justified’ without presenting any evidence in support, and then write an unquestionably interesting argument about whether or not his abject successor should be retained? Kenny made mistakes, and maybe he should have had a short tenure, but to dismiss him in such a way was reprehensible, especially as he was replaced by a man who rode on the back of Martinez supplemented by cuttings from a Roy of the Rovers playbook?
I get what you’re saying Kevin but the article was already 5,000 words long. To also look at the Kenny dismissal would have broken my fingers, and my keyboard, and perhaps the internet.
That’s definitely another debate to be had, but as I remember pretty much everyone at the time agreed that things weren’t really working under Kenny. It was heartbreaking to admit it, but certainly as far as the league went, it wasn’t going well.
But yes, the way in which he was dismissed was nothing short of a disgrace, though that is another argument for another article (or you could check Google, I seem to remember there were some very good TAW articles on it at the time)
Brilliant article! Well reasoned and balanced.
It sums up exactly how I feel about this situation and, like David, it wasn’t until the Villa game that I had a proper ‘lose my shit’ moment over Rodgers.
Brendan is alright. Some fans have gone way overboard in their criticisms of him and I think he’s got talent. Having said that, I really rate Jurgen Klopp. He’s an upgrade.
So to summarise, the poll should have a 3rd option ‘back Brendan but if Jurgen wants the job then a mutual parting of the ways is best for everyone’. Or something a bit more succinct than that. I’m no writer.
I think many things that you can argue in his favour can also be used against him. He has been very erratic in a lot of the things that he’s done, at times he’s been tactically flexible, at times he hasn’t been. He’s developed and used some players well and not done so with others. He’s said the right things sometimes and other times not
I think FSG will be asking him to show us how he’d improve us next season and beyond, if they aren’t satisfied that it will get us where we wanna be he’ll be sacked.
You’d imagine a day after Dortmund played their final FSG will be calling Klopp, and I’d be disappointed if they don’t at least hear Rafa out and pick his brains out. The man still knows this club and this country inside out
Good read. I’ve been a backer since day 1 but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit my resolve had weakened significantly after this season’s limp excuse for a fight. I’m receptive to all arguments against him and can see a lot of the comments here do hold water.
I’ve always backed Rodgers. First season I had some big arguments. Last season I had none. This season, I’ve kept quiet but quiet in my continued backing of him (except at games- sorry all, I’m one of them lads still singing his song – a show of unity as much as anything).
For me, I want to know which season was the one-off. Write the 1st off, cos it was half good, half getting there. The 2nd was perfect and the 3rd was appalling. If the 4th is anything like number 3, he’s gone. If it’s more like 2, and some firepower returns us to a shout of decency, he stays.
I just can’t imagine that with a fit Sturridge this team would be in 5th. Add goals to this team and we limp over the line ahead of United. Take goals away and we’re just behind.
Whoever bought Balotelli is the criminal responsible for this. Brendan, if you bought him, then it’s your fault. But if you were handed him as I imagine, it’s the club’s fault. Buying an immobile sulk, a fat pub player and recalling a championship-standard loanee is the reason we’re not talking about which pot we’ll be in and who we want in the groups.
We can all agree that 4th was the target and a reasonable one. Not getting there given how poor United were is the biggest failure of BR’s career. Even worse than the semi, which was unforgiveable. But he has just enough credit left in the bank to show us what he can do next year.
PS I’d be lying if I said the thought of Klopp didn’t tickle me in special places. But I like the idea of not sacking people unless they’re called Roy Hodgson.
Yes because every club in Europe has shown that changing coaches regularly isnt a big deal and its more important to have boss players.
No because it doesnt matter who your coach is, in theory, as long as you have boss players.
One thing we need to do is stop putting him or anyone else on a pedestal.
Great piece, exactly how I feel. We should only get rid if there is a clear upgrade. I only see Klopp or Rafa as clear upgrades that we would have a realistic chance of getting so as far as I’m concerned, unless one or both of them are interested then give Rodgers another season but buy at least one proven forward (break the bank for Higuain?!).
Incidentally I think Klopp and/or Rafa should be sounded out. Fuck ‘undermining’ the manager or being ‘disloyal’ – if Rodgers was a Real Madrid target do you think he wouldn’t at least want to hear what they had to say?!
Let’s face it, even if FSG cough up more dosh I doubt Rodgers would be able to bring in big name players in the way that Klopp, Ancelotti and Benitez could. That’s a big problem. Rodgers has not earned his reputation. He has merely bestowed it upon himself.
He has harmed his reputation if anything, out showing in Europe was pathetic.. With the worst Liverpool side i have seen in many years!!
For the first time I whole heartedly agree with an entire article on Liverpool and Brendan Rodgers. Every single line of it speaks to my views precisely at present. I am a little concerned actually that someone out there is literally IN my brain!! Long but worth it.
As far as last season goes, there _were_ some who were putting forth well-thought out, sober, reasonable critiques of our performances, even during the long, glorious win streak.
— Suarez and Sturridge being fit and available at the same time and being in excellent goal-scoring form,
— Sterling and Coutinho coming into form,
— Henderson and Allen being healthy, available and in good form,
— Stevie as DLPM eventually clicking and then flourishing
— no European or domestic cup competition ‘distractions’ and subsequent extra time on the training pitch
— a wee bit of fortune
were the conditions that allowed BR to deploy his managerial and coaching skills well and to good effect in the second half of the 2013-14 season.
If klopp wants to come to us then sack Brenda!! If not we should keep the tart haha
I agree with all what you said except the last part about supporting the manager no matter who he is,I support the club ,if the manager is detrimental to the club then he has to go as Rafa said no one is bigger than the club,not even him,so who is BR ?
I support my club
“but the worst thing a manager can do is continue to do something that clearly isn’t working.”
Like playing MB up top on his own all those times? Like playing DL at CB all those times? Like playing SG at DM all those times? Like playing SG for so many minutes because Rodgers needed him onside?
And saying he’d get better results with 2 top quality strikers up front…..eh….what manager in the world would not get better results with 2 top strikers up front? He bought Borini and Lambert. I don’t rate either very highly, but both are capable of scoring goals in this league. And don’t get me started on Balotelli – a player who has scored 80 goals for Italian/European champions & English champions, and won league titles and a champions league and driven his national team to a Euro final, all before he enters his prime.
And at no stage has Rodgers threatened to get the best out of any of them. This supposed tactical, dynamic, thoughful & greatly talented coach couldnt come up with a system whereby his team could provide chances for proven goalscorers.
Yes, Rodgers understands what it is to be a Liverpool manager, but that doesnt mean he’s good enough to be one. His record in Europe, something so vital to us as a club, is nothing short of a disgrace. Its no wonder players like Sterling have no faith he can turn things around & want out.
Its also no wonder Rodgers can’t attract any top players. Why would a good player from Europe want to play for him, opposed to a Klopp or an Ancelotti or a Mourinho etc etc?
3 years & a gross spend of what? £215m? Thats plenty of time to judge him. This is his squad. This is his team. And after all that time & money he’s constantly changing formations and worse, playing good players out of position. Its not good enough. The progress since he took over is minimal & frankly inappropriate for the time given and money spent.
FSG need to stand up now. They need to put their system in place. Put in a DoF and pay the money to both get rid of Rodgers & appoint a proven winner as manager.
great points all.
Two things upset me today. First up, Rodgers says he is ‘150% certain he will still be manager next year.’ If that wasn’t bad enough, ‘thisusanfield’ reports that the narcissistic tosser wants to sell Lucas ‘…because he prefers Joe Allen in the role of holding MF…’
Ffs.
In the 50s there was a boy who came on TV at halftime in one of the rare televised matches and juggled the ball nonstop for 10 minutes. Absolutely useless footballer, though.
He’d be an ever present in a team managed by Rodgers…
Look and play like an under 12? Right up Rodgers street.
I’m not surprised, Lucas only just stayed last season and of course he was not needed then either, until he was and he reminded everyone what a good player he was and the job he can do.
The biggest snub for me was the Lucas should be the next Liverpool captain. The bloke would die for the club ( something BR likes to remind us he would do), he’s been through an amazing amount of crap whilst here, he is a leader and he’s a thoroughly good man.
Actually writing that I can see why Brendan wants rid.
I agree with those that take issue with some of the positives.
He gives young players a chance? As answered above, he gives some a chance and others he doesn’t. I suggest he gives them a chance when he has no choice. When the only option left to him is to stick a youngster in because all of his other options are deleted. Would Sterling, with all his potential, have gotten a game if we’d had a decent player in his position? I think this also explains many of his tactics. For example, Mignolet didn’t win his way back into the team after being dropped earlier in the season. Jones got injured. How long would BR have stuck with Jones between the sticks if that injury had not occurred? How many points would that have cost us? Many times BR gets credit for making a tactical switch or substitution, but often he doesn’t do it out of creative tactical planning, but instead he’s reacting, to injuries, to criticisms, to form (much too belatedly imo.) “Fixing the defence” this year? He didn’t fix anything, he through another body in the way. As soon as we reverted to 4 at the back, the defence went to crap again (which makes his little snide remark about a defensive coach seem even dumber than it did initially.)
If BR stays then he needs to sign a marquee player. Not because LFC need a marquee player necessarily, but because this is one stick people use to beat BR with, and it needs to be addressed or it will propagate and become a self fulfilling prophecy (if it isn’t true already, which I believe it is.)
My biggest fear is that BR stays and we sign a combination of Ings, Milner, Delph, Trippier, Garbut, Benteke, etc… If that happens, then I will enter next season with no hope, and that is what scares me, the lack of hope.
Sack, enough is enough
5-0 down to Stoke at half time,playing no recognized striker,playing not to get beat.He should’t last the day let alone the week.I can’t wait to hear him talk his way out of this one,I dare the man to say we were outstanding one more time.No doubt we played with character not to make it into double figures.
He got away with so much after the Crystal Palace game purely due to it being Gerrard’s last home game.Won’t get away with it after the Stoke game,150% certain of that.
Stoke 6 LFC 1 – sack him I’d say…
After watching that performance against Stoke, I think even Rodgers would click the ‘sack’ button!
Rob Guttman how are you feeling ? Do you still believe you know anything about World class Coaches or Great Coaches ? Neil Atkinson do you still feel Rafa is not a League winning Manager considering your man Brendan has accumulated less points over 3 seasons after £225+million than Rafa’s first 3 not to mention 7 finals and 4 trophies ..do you both still you think you know more about football than us “novices” ..!
I really dont understand why BR had anything in his CV to be manager of LFC in 1st place. Never won nothing in his career, never even being in any sort of finals, and still hasnt. I mean top club deserves top manager who has prove his worth by winning something notable in his career. Atm BR’s best archivement is that he made Sotton as top half team with our money. So i see absolutely no reason to waste an other year with him. Most of his singings are so poor that they cant even fit into his 1st11.
We really have to do everything we can to get Klopp, he has won Bundesleague 2x and has being in UCL finals, with alot less budget than Bayern Munich has had. So he can make people happy again, its fucking 10 years since we won something big and this is Liverpool at 80’s we won league every year….
loved your playlist