In our book about last season I discussed mad results. That mad results were a thing these days. It was in the context of Spurs 0 Liverpool 5. Villas Boas got sacked after that game. Rightly.
My argument was that some sides have mad results in their DNA and others don’t. That United lose 1-6 to City and Ferguson ensured it never happened again. But Arsenal started to collect these results, losing 8-2 a few years back to United and losing 6-3, 5-1 and whatever Chelsea did to them last season. I’ve had a drink here. Doing what I can.
These results, I said, should make any manager’s position untenable. That happens, you lose like that, there needs to be consequences.
There needs to be consequences. Were this March and we were second I’d be arguing this kind of thing was untenable. If there aren’t going to be consequences then you have to be completely certain.
For me there would be consequences. Here and now, driving away from the Britannia, there should be consequences.
This is heartbreaking. Rodgers has had happen to him what happened to good men Benitez and Houllier. He’s had it at 100 mph. Come in, got settled, got playing, nearly won the league, wheels fallen off.
We can talk about how and why but…
In fact let’s talk about how and why because how and why are part of how this happens. For the last week I’ve been thinking about the end of season thing we tend to do. The end of season thing reviewing a manager and a season. Liverpool Football Club find themselves where they are because they decided not to try and win the league but because they decided to just come fourth. They decided that fourth would do. They came second and then felt they could consolidate backwards.
Football clubs are like sharks. They have to move forward or they die. And what we have on our hands here…
This isn’t just Brendan Rodgers’s fault. This in fact isn’t Brendan Rodgers’s fault at all. This is a dreadful strategic move, something grey bearded when impetuosity had won the day. Long-term planning in opposition to footballing reality. You should always press home any advantage. You should always move forward. Look at Stoke first half today. Look at Chelsea last summer. Always move forward.
It was a backward step when a football team had done what it had done with a mentality of no backward steps. A mentality embedded by Liverpool’s manager — Brendan Rodgers. You play and you play and you play. You never take a backward step.
Liverpool made three or four of them and it was compounded when Sturridge’s leg fell off. Suddenly a manager laughing his head off at Spurs was knocked sideways. Liverpool had had all the jokes and left themselves with a kitchen sink drama by mid September.
And yet, I was going to say, there was more than enough credit in the bank. There had been swashbuckling last season and some problem solving this. There had been a reality realigned last and one reimposed this. There had been more hope, more buzz, more bounce than I’d ever seen this city have last season. And there was flatness this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEP0SzosDM8
But there was credit in the bank. Having credit in the bank is a thing. An important thing. Having set fire to this mad place with too much expectation and too little money, having said you should never accept the reality, having said you, we can all do it, having had a football team in his image doing that, he had credit in the bank.
But then, 6-1 at Stoke. 6-1 at Stoke.
Regardless of this, of these words written as we pull away from Stoke it needs to be done tonight. Either way. Staying or going let’s circle some wagons and focus back on what needs to be focused on. Winning the league at all costs. Unrelenting effort towards doing that one thing. Do whatever has to be done tonight. Do the next thing immediately.
There are two things here. Two things are untenable. One is losing 6-1 at Stoke. Absolutely untenable. The other is not trying, not straining every sinew, not needing to win the league title more than anything in the world. From top to bottom. In everything you do. Everything you need. Everything you are. Making those sacrifices as a football club.
You know I need you more than I want you.
And I want you for all time.
You know that. You feel that. You know I need you more than want you. You know I want you for all time. Is that the case in Chapel Street? Is that the case in Boston? Sacrificing everything? Because we will sacrifice everything. Sacrifice everything.
Me, I’d give the manager a little cuddle. I’d give him a little kiss. I’d pat his cheek. I’d say all the best. I’d go for a sing song with him. Because while there should be consequences those consequences shouldn’t be celebrated other than in the right way. A cuddle, a kiss and all the best. You came closer than anyone else. You came the closest. Let’s do some karaoke.
All the best, mate.
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda-Photo
As much as it pains me I concur :-(
It’s all such a shame, so so close this time last year now we are here. Any debate about Rodgers being in charge next season is now moot.
I’m sad this evening, (was going to say blue but didn’t want any misunderstandings!)
It is a shame. We played some bloody good football last year. Even when Mr Suarez wasn’t around. What happened to that by the way? The triangles, the determination to play our football come what may. It made a brief appearance for periods at Chelsea but went into hiding again soon after.
Will he get the sack, though? I think he might have enough management speak up his sleeve to save himself. Given FSG had to consult “third parties” to identify him in the first place, is there somebody at the club with enough knowledge of football and brave enough to make the call while there is a still an element of doubt? I’m not sure there is, which is just as worrying.
Can’t agree with you that “we played great football even without Suarez last season”.we played 5 league games and scored 5 goals and 4 of those goals were scored by sturridge.
If there had been a few performances this season that had any resemblance to last years team then we could argue that it wasn’t only Suarez but there simply hasn’t.Spurs away is the only game in over 50 games that we’ve looked like anywhere near last seasons team.
Wilkommen Jurgen, goodbye and good luck Brendan, it’s been a gas.
I’ve backed Brendan but you can’t have this. You can’t have 6-1 at Stoke. The wheels have well and truly come off. D’you think Suarez will come back as player-manager? :-)
And what was he doing with Sterling? Play him or drop him from the squad entirely. This way he gets booed without getting the chance to do anything about it. Poor man-management.
Don’t know if I’d want him to go unless Klopp comes in, mind.
fuck off…BR OUT now, i would take fucking tony pulis ahead of this shambles!!! Seriously fuck off
How about you fucking off! Seriously
eat mt shite bitch
And seriously go support the mancs, they are deluded as you biaaaaaaaatch…fucking turd
Do us a favour and shut the fuck up, lad. Not in the mood for hyperbolic heads with your attitude anymore. If this site was running 5 years ago, people with your etiquette would be all ‘RB OUT NOW!’
“BR OUT, BR OUT, BR OUT! I’d have me fucking ma in over him! Or that Kloppo. Whichever really.” – You, and others like you when it comes to chatting footy… You parody of a fan.
TOM, seriously your not worth a response you BR balllicker, assholetickler, go eat donkey shit (BR’s shite is perfect for you!!
BR OUT
It’s hard when you spend weeks defending a failing relationship, especially when everyone is telling you it’s already over, move on.
I keep going back to articles from last summer that claimed Rodgers was in for Bony, but FSG wouldn’t go beyond the 12.5M lowball bid that only irked the Swans. Certainly not going to trigger the 19M release clause because it didn’t represent “value.” Sanchez and Remy had fallen by the wayside.
Rodgers was left with a straight choice: Balotelli, Eto’o, or the void. Is there a right choice to be made?
And so, something so beautiful begins to take on the Aristotelian sense of an unavoidable series of events ending in death. It can’t be a tragic fall if it wasn’t from such great heights. But then again, it can’t be a redemption if there wasn’t a fall.
And so the conversation turns theological, and we still haven’t figured out how we are supposed to land a marquee signing without paying through the noses of people who insist, to our collective detriment, on “value.”
Mata and Shaw both agreed to play for Moyes, who couldn’t guarantee CL football. Di Maria came on board, as did Falcao, Herrera, and Valdes. Why? For the “top manager”? For the CL football?
We find ourselves looking at a relationship between the manager and the club that seems, fairly or unfairly, to be at its end. Then again, it may not be.
There is a great deal of soul-searching in the coming days and weeks. And, perhaps more importantly, some deep pocket searching, too.
bore off with this nonsense….absolute trash post from a deluded trash BR balltickler! Fuck off
Would you piss off mate. There are plenty of other sites to spout nonsense on.
Tom you piece of human trash, you are the only one spouting nonsense you fuck!!!! BR out is not nonsense and any one who thinks that is a MANC or a deluded shit load of fuck, now fuck off…I have spent thousands supporting this shite but no more, while BR is in iam fucking out!!!!!! I supoort and love Liverpool not some fucking arrognat cunt, and i am not trying to pretend iam the nr. 1 fan like rubbish condecending donkeys like you try to do…please fuck off bitch!!!!
and mate? who the fuck are you calling mate? go eat shit you wanker!
That third strip they played in today… So apt.
Funeral attire.
That was the nail in the coffin for Rodgers !! He can talk all the bullshit he can but all the fans can see right through it ? The club has to try an get klopp now ?
We were five nil down at half-time, there had been 11 fouls in the match, and we had committed one. That’s losing 5-0, and you’ve committed one foul. You can argue that Brendan carries the can all you like, but one foul in 45 in a match you’re losing 5-0?
The players can fuck off. Just fuck right off.
It is Rodgers’ fault though, no one told him to play Can at right back when there are two other fit actual right backs in the squad right now. Can fucked up for all first 3 of the goals. And it’s not the first time Can’s been poor at right back, he has been weeks
I’m starting to think last season he forgo his own philosophies and went with a tactic that maxmised the individual brilliance of Suarez and Sturridge, which to his credit paid dividends. This season he has money to build his own team in his own preferred image and we’re left with this
We don’t just need a managerial change, it’s the entire structure of the football department at the club, the recruiting process, the negotiation process, the CEO. Get actual experienced football people, not a bunch of faceless nobodies making important decisions, or a shitface snake like Ian Ayre
A proper DoF, a proper manager, a proper CEO, a proper scouting structure in Europe. We need a lot of things, coz atm we are a long way off.
The only manager I think can turn us around is Klopp, but there’s every chance he wouldn’t come if Real decides to go with him rather than Rafa. We need to give a man with his pedigree 7-8 years to fix this club
Always been a fan of Rogers, but he has looked lost the last few weeks. Wrong players wrong positions.
Needed to win today but did not play his best team. No pace and no goals. Why no back three? Or at least a back four with a proper right back.
Too many square pegs in round holes. Borini is no Suarez but he scored 10 for Sunderland last year. This year has limited chances. markovich has been bright at times and when played up front against Tottenham looked threatening but then played at wing back and dragged off at half time.
As Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
If this was Hodge we’d be smashing stuff.
If its any consolation I am!!
If, If, If. Context isn’t it? You can’t defend that because Gerrard’s last ever Liverpool game after half a season of these players banging on about how much they respect him about the place aside, I’ve never seen anything like it. A complete scandal of a result. Stream cut out at 3 and I couldn’t actually believe what I was hearing for the half time score. But if we sack this man we’ll be a) getting a young, cheap, progressive and probably British coach in instead. Remind you of anyone? Might be worse and somehow even less experienced at top management or b) getting young, cheap wages players for this manager to try and coach to a level akin to what Chelsea, City, Arsenal and United are buying at. We’re on a hiding to not getting as close to the league as last year either way.
Regardless of this season, I’ve still somehow got more faith in Rodgers’ coaching ability than the hierarchy’s want never mind capability of allowing us to be all that we can be and that says a lot more about say, Ian Ayre or the absentee owners than it does about Rodgers. And after today’s result, that should scare people as much as it does me because I cannot be arsed with 5 year plans of working our way in and out of 4th spot. Like a Wenger with even lower expectations and without the big new stadium.
Get in another manager who might not pick a 20yo midfielder at right back who’s never looked comfortable there then watches him head it down to some tory bluenose cunt from fucking Moreton in the 6 yard box by all means, but we’ll get humiliated somewhere along the line regardless. If not in the Britannia in a lovely looking kit, somewhere else in some tribal tattoo purple shite in the year 2018 with Eddie Howe as manager or some shit. The specifics of odd games aren’t important to the general picture of how John Henry regards us from season to season.
FSG’s strategy seems based around actual, real life football being like a game of fifa: a team of 19-24 year olds no matter how highly touted and technical they might be will get bullied or look naïve at some point or another. We’re too mollycoddled. I reckon a Carragher – even now when he hasn’t kicked a ball in anger in 2 years and probably can’t run – stops a 4th and 5th going in by half time just by his very presence because people know he’d attempt to rip their faces off before he allowed himself to participate in a disgrace like that today. The most turgid Houllier, Benitez, Dalglish 2k12 and even Hodgson teams had proper pros who would have put their foot on it at 3 and said, ‘lets avoid a humiliation for 10 minutes, ey!?’ It happened in a big final in Turkey once. People might have heard of it…
Sound City was boss anyway and a credit to this city. I’m ecstatic all of the soccer is fucking off for a while, truth be told. And not a moment too soon either.
Who’s a possible replacement? By the way forget Klopp. Looks like a managerial merry-go-round is about to start and we are the last seat Klopp will want. We will end up with the braced chubby kid dropping his ice cream all over our head.
Until we know the candidates then not so sure. Fenway and Ayre.. Could end up with Hodge. Oh wait
Top to bottom club needs to search itself to find some substance . Two people to replace.
1. Brendan . Pains me to say it but been a big fan of him until this last month . Squad or no squad he can’t seem to motivate players and has no fear factor .
2 . Ian Ayre . I have seen geography teachers with more transfer accumen than him .
The club is hanging onto its idea of romanticism with old looking hands.
We move forward and roll with the big boys and accept where the game is or flitter away into mediocrity .
Put a team out there that knows what it means to where the shirt and win lose or draw I don’t have a problem.i accept defeats as part of supporting a club but the last 2 are not acceptable . Today was a dark day for the red men and an even darker day for Brendan Rodgers . A Manager doesn’t always take the blame for dropped points , as seasons are played in batches of games but he takes the blame for a defeat of this nature for sure. It’s 50/50 whether he goes .
What will FSG next move be?
We are so in the dark regarding things like transfers and team selection. I cant help thinking that alot of decisions have been imposed on Brendan rodgers, often selections have made no sense this season looking like there maybe political reasons for them.
We do know that for 2 seasons FSG have left us short or happy to take a chance on strikers.
Last season would Konoplanka got us over the line to win the title?
This season DS injured we did nothing in January with so much at stake, would that have got us over the line?
These are not the actions of ambitious ownership surely?
Today in the post match interview brendan said something like “due to a few factors he wasnt surprised with todays result?” wha.. whaaa you what?
Whats going on?
Sad for stevie so sad at least he scored a typically exquisite goal in his last game.
If FSG sack brendan i hope he doesnt sign a non disclosure agreement, as this transfer committee has been a sham that served only to offer as a bush to hide in from some shocking transfers.
If he stays what would that tell us? i really dont know.
I really enjoyed they way Brendan got us playing last year i want more of the same, but who is to blame? its not totally clear.
Maybe the one positive is not having to wait as long as usual to see LFC play again i spose. :(
If you are unsure about Rodgers staying as Liverpool Manager, then just read this result out loud.
Stoke 6 Liverpool 1
Last month you said you had thought for months Rodgers would get sacked if he didnt get 4th. You never said it once in all those months preceding your statement. Not in all the dozens of shows you hosted & not in all the articles you wrote, even when Rodgers’ position was (eventually) questioned. That was a disgrace and a disservice to your subscribers and our football club.
Unfortunately I should have known it was possible from someone who describes himself as “to the left on Tony Benn” yet endorses the modern Labour Party.
What is vile though was you werent on your own. The vast majority of those who contribute to TAW were the same. Cowards to a man and a woman (except Rob, who is just an embarrassing know-nothing. His aplogist act for Rodgers would make James Pearce blush). You could all see what people like me could see as early as September. That Rodgers was out of his depth. That he was making mistakes, costing us points & not learning. But you didn’t want to say so.
The same thing happened with Gerrard. It was clear from September, when he was being given the runaround by Stuart fucking Downing he was finished. But TAW never mentioned just how bad he was until November. I know you saw it but were too yellow to say so. That too was a disgrace and a disservice to your subscribers and our football club.
Instead you chose to label people like me a “snide.” For saying what anyone with half a brain should say. Well, people like me have been proven continuously right since the start. Any proof you want of how right I was and how wrong others were can be found at the bottom.
I said Rodgers altering his philosophy so readily was not a positive.
I said last seasons achievements (won fuck all) was down to a combination of factors that didnt include Rodgers, namely:
-Chelsea, City & United all being in transition with managers in their first season
-Suarez hitting the sort of form very few players in history ever hit (and dont give me the shit that this was down to Rodger; just like Messi isnt down to Rijkard or Guardiola & just like Ronaldo isnt down to Ferguson or Mourinho, these special players develop without any need of a manager to help them)
-The standards of the EPL declining rapidly. This has continued this season. The EPL is full of shit teams. The recent record in European conpetitions put this on display.
-The fact we had no cup runs & no European football, meaning concentrating on the league every game
-We were incredibly lucky with injuries
I said this season, tactically, he was throwing shit at a wall and hoping something would stick, and that eventually the players would suss him out and realize he doesnt have the answers. I said once they realized they’d stop playing for him.
I said he talks too much shit to be taken seriously.
Rodgers has said as many cringeworthy and utterly bullshit things as Hodgson did. Perhaps not as defeatist but still pathetic from a manager of LFC. But his mates in the media and sychophants at The Anfield Wrap didn’t discuss it or said that it “didnt matter what managers say to the press.” Yet the same people said it certainly fucking mattered when the Hodge did it!
Well, idiots like you and those who comment under articles on here who continued to delusionally support Rodgers through every repeated mistake have their comeoppance. Well done all. It certainly helped the teams performances. Magic.
So this is a massive “I told you so” and “fuck you” to all those that labelled me a manc or a snide or said I didnt know what I was talking about. The fullness of time shows who knew what and how early. And who was either hopelessly wrong or just too craven to admit the truth.
http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2014/10/liverpool-0-hull-city-0/#comments
http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2014/11/neil-atkinsons-match-review-newcastle-united-1-liverpool-0/
http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2014/11/crystal-palace-3-liverpool-1/
I’m not sure what you’re after here. Do you want a medal for being ‘right’?
People can have doubts about the manager whilst continuing to support him and the team you know.
I don’t really see the point of this acid bath of a post. If there are recriminations to be had, they should be with somebody connected with Liverpool Football Club. I don’t believe TAW or even fans who have supported Rodgers are responsible for our dreadful showing today, or this season in general, however right or wrong their opinions might have been during the season.
here, here Chris
u ok hun?
One final post, just as a follow ip to the one above and incase there are any morons out there still behind Rodgers….
2013/14 David Moyes at Utd = 64 points #davidmoyesisafootballgeniusbanners
2014/2015 Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool = 62 points #rodgersout
“When you spend £100m you should be challenging for the league”
“Southampion were on their way to being a top 4 team. But they changed their minds and decided to sell their players”
“Outstanding” “character” after draws at home to hull and away to pub team Ludogorets.
If FSG dont get rid of him then the turning on them by a lot of our fans will finally be justified. So lets hope Rodgers will be sent packing down to West Ham to the standard of manager he is.
Enough is enough, that is unacceptable, we’ve been pretty much awful for most of the season Defensively not much better than last season but that is overlooked as we nearly won the league. The club have some major decisions to make or Gary Neville could be right about the direction we’re heading.
That performance was sack-worthy for sure but there is no sense in sacking Brendan until we have a top quality replacement lined up. Klop would be exciting but other than him is there anybody else out there? (Serious question) I wouldn’t have any problem with the owners saying something like “If we can get Klop or *insert other top manager name here* Brendan will be gone, but if not then he stays and fights for his job in the next season”. He knows that he messed up but firing him now before any business is done and then scrambling around to find a suitable replacement is bonkers.
I thought that before but there are others worthy of a go. Klopp/ancelotti (will be sacked soon) are the gold standard. If they wont come theres de boer and koeman. I dont buy the klopp or keep rodgers idea. If you dont rate the manager then every game he stays for your going backwards.
would you trust BR with more money though?
are you stupid or something???? we just lost 6-1 to fucking stoke…my girlfriend would do a better job..bore the fuck off, BR OUT NOW
Are you eleven, or something? You contribute nothing but shit and call people you disagree with “bitch”. Fucking cockwomble.
11? haha, thats funny, now go eat some donkey shit (BR’s shite) i have 10000s supporting this crap, while BR’s in am fucking out…Now go stick your head in the mud!!! Bloody parasite wanker
BR has his bags packed lad.
.. For Australia..
You’re gonna be a frustrated mess next year. Haha
No iam not, he will get the sack, if not i am not watching another game with that clown in charge! Hence i will leave the nervous reck nonsense to you and your buttbuddies! I will enjoy my weekends with my model GF on my fucking yacht! Not spending a fucking penny on this shite anymore..I seriously believe any manager would do a better job with this squad of players end of the fucking discussion!
He’s got to be toast,and Ayre with the committee too.If he survives that will be all you need to know about FSG’s ambition for the club.Brendan still states he’s got a lot to offer at Liverpool,that genuinely frightens me.He won’t admit he’s out of his depth instead he’s bullish to the end.Not my fault,individual mistakes again.He played not to get beat,no starting striker,Can at RB again,false nines,players going missing,no commitment,no tackles,got bullied again.
Please,please,please I want more of this again next season like a hole in the fucking head.
Fucking short memories our so called fans.
Loads wanted Benitez out after a bad season and forgetting what he had done.
They are probably the ones shouting for him to come back now.
So in a few years after seasons of nothing they will be shouting get Rodgers back.
This season has been painful but if you want to join a fanbase who permanently screams for the managers head then fuck off to the North East.
The man DESERVES respect you all loved him 12 months ago
Benitez won the CL and FA Cup with us and helped us to a league challenge. He won the league in Spain. Rodgers has won zip. Anywhere.
And everyone fucked off on Rafa. Left him standing all alone on his last day at Anfield – bar a few hundred on he Kop.
Because we’re all turning into fickle gobshites like Chris McTit above who mistakenly believe we have some Devine right to win everything, always.
Amongst all the bile (not necessarily on here), that was a brilliantly measured and touching response, Neil.
there are clips on YouTube of fans singing rafa Benitez at Stoke today. they couldn’t sing his name at his last home game v Chelsea in 2010 coz they all wanted him out.
WANKERS
Spot on mate. Bang. On.
I took it to be a reference to tomorrow being the tenth anniversary of a certain cup win not necessarily calling for his return.
Very painful to watch this afternoon, at the end of a very painful season to watch.
So close last year – and yes, Brendan rightfully gets credits in the bank for that fantastic football we all saw last year (“We are Liverpool, tra-la-la-la-la”)
Over the last few weeks, since the wheels came off vs MUFC, Arsenal, Hull & Villa in the Cup, he’s looked lost, and today is the trough of his despond….
I take no satisfaction in whatever the outcome of this may be, because I suspect it may be the end of Brendan Rodgers. Remember, this time last year, we were all talking of him building a dynasty…now, we’d be lucky to get Blake Carrington on a free…
Painful, very painful….
Spot on. There’s something very fucked up about taking pleasure in the team and the manager’s suffering. Time to go maybe, but let him go with some dignity.
He probably will go, and if so it probably will be for the best, but I agree with Neil here – this is sad stuff. The performance was shameful, but this is a shame. The man has skills. He is talented. In decades gone by maybe, just maybe, this is his ‘Fergie before Robbins in the Cup’ moment, the episode where, if he survives, he goes on to greatness. Because let’s face it, we’re all too quick to call for sackings. You’d think we love a sacking, the way we go on about hiring and firing.
The LFC team last season was simply the most thrilling I’ve seen since 1987 and I was a kid then, everything was a bit magical at that time. Last season was amazing, and no matter how people try and dissuade me otherwise, it did NOT happen with zero input from Rodgers. He helped make it happen, In the same way that this season, this pained, messy season, he has contributed to how it’s died away. He turned a corner after the autumn crisis and then turned back into a cul de sac in the last 6 weeks. And as Neil says, a lot of what has gone wrong probably isn’t his fault, or at least, it’s not all his fault. So if he packs his bags, bear in mind that any new guy is going to be working within the same parameters with the same constraints. So I don’t know. I just wish things were different and we’d fumbled our way to fourth and settled down for the summer and got our business right for once and the laid into everyone else from the off in August. Maybe it can still happen, but looking at it now, it just seems unlikely. Either way, it’s not something to be celebrated. And if he’s off, then thanks for the good times Brendan.
it might be a blessing in disguise we never come 4th. Just so FSG rethink their whole policies. Brendan is young. And as you just said, it could be like Fergie’s turnaround point. It’s tough being a red again. And I do think he has lost the dressing room. BR’s coaching staff don’t seem Adequate to me.
Long summer of soul searchin Red army. But lets stick together
YnWa
never talks about defence. need a proper defence its still part of football. purchased loads of average players, palace away, semi final at wembley, talks alot of shit, who the fuck is brendan rogers ?i understand the trying to be loyal but all the classic liverpool sides could defend and this never gets mentioned in the b r philosphy . hopefully good times on the way
Hi
I enjoyed the Annie Hall shark reference , and I agree we have a dead shark on our hands. To me there is now no doubt that Brendan should go, the clamour has reached such a peak. It has been fun at times in a crazy harum scarum way but it was an experiment that has failed.
There is no consistency , just constant formation changes . Players out of position , the wrong players out of position. A travesty of a defence and worst of all no real guts to dig in and fight when things have gone wrong as things do.
Liverpool FC is not really a job for an apprentice, which BR is ultimately is. It has proved to big for him. But there is more wrong than just BR and I hope that FSG
Sort it out in the Summer. However thet may be a bit shite at running a football club, it seems a travesty now to sackKK for winning a trophy and getting to a final. Accomplishments that seem well beyond the grasp of BR. However he will be with us next season.
Sorry Neil, this result just highlights more than ever we need goals. A new manager won’t turn balotelli and borini into rush and fowler. So let’s forget about that and just buy goals. I like you know we won’t always get what we pay for, but a clear effort by the club’s to show that’s all they want as well would keep me happy. Let’s try and but goals this summer, if we don’t get enough buy more in january. Let’s win this game 7 – 6 because we don’t care how many goals you have we have more.
Last year Brendan made us all happy just to see the reds play. We sold 40 odd goals in the summer, and only bought back 10 or so. That’s the difference between last season and this, don’t bother with new managers, you’d be better off trying to start a crowd fund movement to bring back Suarez.
Spot on. All teams at all levels need the belief they can score. When it disappears you finish the season like we did. The squad is bereft of goal scoring ability as evidenced by them looking to a 35 year old Gerrard. He believes in himself still. Amazing character.
Can’t coach it. Can’t shuffle the deck. You must acquire it. Buy goals. Buy character.
let’s sack one of the best young managers in Europe and replace him with a Spanish manager we all wanted out five years ago
Is he though? For me, best young manager status is conferred on those who win enough of the games that really count until you have a trophy or a title. The LFC manager cannot be losing to Tim Sherwood in a game that really counts. He just can’t. Ferguson, Mourinho, won those key games in their early development.
Really, one of the best young managers in Ewrop?? I’m all for a bit of hyperbole but that really is overegging the pot
Some really poisonous fellas on these comments threads! It’s like a contest of who can swear most.
Our season ended about 3 weeks ago. Rodgers is conflicted. He’s got a side full of dross, the biggest name in Liverpool’s modern history is leaving and his best player has developed into a dreadful winnet. He’s responsible for a lot of it. I’m fuming with him. But I don’t want him fired.
Are people really looking forward to another new “project”? Another transition and philosophy? Another 3 year stint from The New Fella whoever that may be?
Ian Ayre will still be here. We will still leak details of players we’re chasing only to be outbid by rivals. We’ll still be there-or-thereabouts 4th, 5th, 6th. And all you angry little internet people will get just as angry on your comment feeds, using naughty words and demanding they get the sack!
I’d rather buck the trend. We’ve done a Spurs this season. Let’s not become Spurs with regards to hiring and firing, because it doesn’t work.
Now please don’t call me any nasty names, because I’m quite sensitive!
Love that others are out there who can’t be arsed with starting all over. Let’s try and fix what we have and not perpetually rebuild a squad every few years. Rodgers will know exactly what he wants to fix the dross we have put up with this season. Let’s give him a chance to sort this out in one season rather than another 3 year plan to anyone else.
I agree continually starting over will achieve little but I don’t believe Rogers has the ability to correct this mess.Over the last three seasons teams continually walk through and all over us.
I’m also not convinced about player recruitment with Rogers and the committee.Whether or not he’s had the final word on the players bought the overall success rate seems poor,perhaps if players were played in their prefered position or weren’t cast aside and brought back in the attitude of some whilst on the pitch might have been better.
Look, an awful result for sure but presided over by the same man who delivered last year and who brought about a sparkling mid-season burst. Yes, there have been mistakes but knee-jerking and calling for the managers head will not achieve anything.
The fact we all spend a summer stewing on this doesn’t help – no chance for anyone to put things right…
Otherwise, plenty of talk of losing the dressing room? Really? Well, can all those ITK give specifics rather than post whispers / rumours…. We all back his stance over Sterling yet want to hang him when a team of internationals go missing in action… Can’t have it both ways.
For me, BR stays or we regress once more….
Keep the faith. No matter how difficult….!
Is Rodgers the problem, or is Liverpool FC the problem? Could probably be both; whatever, its fucking depressing times.
Brendan keeps saying that everybody at FSG has confidence in “The Model”.
Be careful Brendan! I knew people who had confidence in a model once upon a time.It doesn’t always work out.
I decided to make a model once.It was a model of a sailing ship in an empty whisky bottle.My backers were right behind me.They bought a litre bottle of whisky ;drank it then gave me the empty whisky bottle.They had such confidence in my ability for detail and planning.It was about 6 years ago.
It took me about 3 years to plan and meticulously place every matchstick in that bottle.When I’d finished I asked them all round to see the launch.
They stood around waiting.They said “It looks looks like a sailing ship.But it’s not upright”.I said “No, look what happens when I pull this fine twine attached to the first matchstick”.
It was then that I realised that I’d forgotten to attach the piece of fine twine to the first matchstick.
I said “Look,I know a Company who can sort this out.They can break the bottle and build a new bottle around the model.But it will cost a few quid”.They said “You’re joking aren’t you?We paid for the 987,482 matches it took took to make this;plus the whisky bottle.”I said but “I’m the one who had to strike them all and blow them all out.And I put them all in place”.But they wouldn’t have any of it and just said “Jog on!”
So I started a new “Model”.I decided on a scaled Spanish Galleon in a 1+1/2 litre whisky bottle.I explained to my backers about the potential problems with having to build a new bottle around the “Model”but they were OK with that.
Anyway,come the day of the launch I invited them all round.They looked and said “But it’s lying down even though it looks like a Spanish Galleon”I said “No,watch this”. And I tugged the piece of cotton which I’d attached to the first matchstick.Now I think I mentioned earlier that it should have been a piece of fine twine.Anyway,the cotton snapped and I finished up with an empty whisky bottle full of used matchsticks. after 3 years of careful planning.
But are you fine people on “The Anfield Wrap” prepared to to give a man an even break?
My next model is a matchstalk man in an empty jam jar.Surely that’s worth investing in?What could go wrong?
This time next year (or in 3 years) we could all be millionaires!
Best young manager in Europe, based on what? Rafa has aiways had my support so not everyone wanted him out. Apart from being completely wrong, your gross and ill informed generalisations are startlingly accurate.
Ok 6-1 was a bad scoreline but I would have preferred finishing 7th to avoid playing in Europa league on a Thursday followed be a premiership game on a Sunday, a tournament which is long winded and one we don’t need.
For a moment let’s try to understand Brendan has had shit loads to deal with this season and FSG don’t help. Our negotiator for transfers Mr Ayre, lacks the skills somewhat to seal a deal. Then we have scouting team who are clearly inept at their jobs. we replaced Suarez with Ballotelli when it’s clear Rogers didn’t want him. If our owners understood what LFC is all about, they would have given us a marquee striker in the summer. Please don’t say Carroll because other clubs have spent larger amount on a single transfer which weren’t successful. That’s football, you put it behind you and move on. My issue is FSG not Rodgers, FSG need to throw more money at this. Get two or three marquee players in this summer, whichever way you can, just get them in!. They can use the Sterling money to offset the costs. If FSG continue following the strategy they have implemented; this club will continue to go backwards. If Klopp is the new manager he needs to be backed financially. If they can’t land Klopp then Rogers needs to stay, there is a shortage of managers suitable for the LFC job, we can’t go through another Hodgson situation again because FSG knee jerked again. If that happens, I assure you we’ll all be screaming for Rogers to return and FSG will be our new Gillet and Hicks.
So firstly we should be out of Europe because the manager can’t handle all the games and if we are’nt in the CL then who cares?. Not the best attitude.
Secondly, FSG are not the only owners who are not based in the UK, I agree Ian Ayre does not inspire confidence but I don’t think Henry or Werner are on Skype at Melwood taking training sessions, picking the teams, deciding which players to play out of position, deciding that we won’t play with any of the 3 strikers we have, deciding tactics.
FSG may or may not be the perfect owners but let’s not make out that the football on the pitch side of this is their fault. Oh and as a P.S., I have never bought the line that BR has no say or sign off on the players bought. No way is that happening.
You must be a “new” fan. The club has had great times in the second fiddle European competition. Perhaps you need to refresh your history?
I can’t make my mind up on the Rodgers situation.
I could say we keep him, but who’s we? The blokes that tell him he’s no longer needed, are they we?
Are they us?
The guys that said, “it’s either Balotelli or Eto’o because they’re value for money”.
They’re not ‘we’
Brendan is more ‘we’ than them idiots at the top will ever be.
I’m undecided over Rodgers because he has made costly errors, the Gerrard contract I can never forgive him for.
But on the other side, he brought us closer than anyone ever has and the idea of starting from scratch with a new manager, new style and the excuse of, “The players are getting used to the philosophy” make my stomach turn.
The owners, the transfer commity and Ayre let us down this year, not just Brendan. Think about those things before you say Emre Can shouldn’t be at right back or why is Lambert starting or Sturridge is injured again.
We needed players in January and no one reacted, 4th was still on.
Now we’re left with ‘If we did that…’.
#notjustRodgers
Strange to say but this could be the making of Rodgers. Unless Klopp is nailed on I would not entertain anyone else. We have to buy goals regardless. And character. The model has to evolve. Surely FSG can see that.
I am torn:
Does LVG get us forth this year with our squad? NO
Does LVG accept this squad to begin with? NO
Does Mourinho win the league this year with Liverpool? NO
Does Rodgers win the league with Chelsea or Man City? …
Buy goals!!
Yep, buy enough goals to win games 7-6, ha
Goals change games. If you don’t believe you can score, the effort ain’t the same and you are waiting to lose. It’s a self fulfilling prophecy. Ever played in such a team – “Jimmy is injured?? We’re fucked!”
Yes, goals change games, so maybe don’t play a midfielder at right back when you have the 2nd most expensive defense assembled in the world, and still manage to be defensively inept every season
The way we defend under him, we’d need to score 80-100 goals every season to either get in the top 4 or challenge. Those require loads of attacking talent (which cost money), and freak seasons.
Chelsea are champions this season, they probably won’t score 80 this year, Arsenal won’t score 80, neither will Man Utd. You know what? Because they are better than us in defense, even Arsenal’s better
Southampton has the 2nd best defense in the league this year, we ripped their team apart in the market, they finished a point behind us. You see how this works? And do you think if given the same amount of money we have to buy attacking talent they wouldn’t be finishing higher?
It’s like people forget the whole principle of building from the back because of last season, tell all the great managers in history about that and see what they think.
Good defense allows you to overachieve
ARE YOU Serious or some sort of knob? what a cretin!!! We need goals…We have conceded 100 goals in 2 seasons! fuck off
so why didn’t BR try to use Balotelli as a hold up and lay off guy? Southampton do it every week.
Why is rodgers so inflexible that if the forward is not like sturridge he won’t use him?
Buying goals is just part of it. while BR was pissing about moving Can around and destroying our defence, he was refusing to change attack methods to make the most of Balotelli and even lambert, as hold up players.
See lambert’s flick on for gerrard’s goal. Why weren’t we doing that all season?
BR is the problem. He’s a poor manager.
We’re too special to lose by a big margin ? Horse-shit. We just all feel so upset and ashamed we think sacking is the way to preserve dignity, draw a line and make it go away.
It MAY be that out of the public gaze things have gone irreparably wrong and Rodgers has to go. I have no idea. From the outside it boils down to the underlying reasons to the drop off in form at the end of the season on the one hand and this particular game on the other.
In terms of the overall season – clearly and hardly with hindsight there was always a very high risk we would not get much higher than 4th – you kindly pointed this out.
But the problem is we are now mucking around with narratives ultimately as saggy and artificial as Damien Hirsts shark – of Gerrards departure, of a virtually scripted horrific last week.
Narratives are of course the precious currency of fans, there is no escaping that – but ceding to the overarching narrative of the last few decades leads me to step back and allow the owners to now earn their more prosaic and hard-nosed worth.
FDB is the most likely replacement imo. Someone who has some pull on the global stage.
Rodger’s should take his half a million payoff for finishing outside the top four (which he negotiated himself! – shows how clueless he is), pick up FSG and their annoying attractive wives and in the words of crazybob – feck off.
Delete the committee, get rid of the odd bad apple or 2. However dont change the manager. We’ve all heard the one about the baby and the bath water
I’m undecided on whether he should stay or go. Which of the players that came in last summer & the summer before did BR want & who didn’t he? I like Lallana, Markovic shows promise but then gets left out for weeks on end. Aspas was a nightmare, Alberto showed promise but was hardly given a chance. Who scouted Moreno? We went on all summer desperately trying to sign him, he started great, then when he got caught out of position a few times he was bombed out, then brought back, then bombed out again. Manquillo similarly started ok for a youngster, then disappeared for months before finding his way back onto the bench. We don’t seem to be told enough about who is injured & who is just dropped, bar Balotelli. I agree with others that do we start a new ‘project’ & then have to put up with another 2 to 3 years of trying to get ‘my team’ together? I’m going to try & ignore football until August, like the team has for the last 6 weeks.
it’s not about the 20 year olds. buy as many of them as you like. it’s the immediate starters he bought. Lovren, lallana, balotelli. that doesn’t say top 4 to me.
and then rodgers refuses to play balo’s strengths. use him as a hold up guy, why not? Soton do it every week. have runners running off him.
We had markovic and sterling, who has runners that good?
do the same with lambert. that flick on for gerrard to score. what’s wrong with that? why not do it some more?
It didn’t fit rodgers idea of how to play football and so he refused to entertain
it.
Dreadful manager. Ignorant, pretty dense and stubborn. terrible manager.
Fucking retards, what the fuck is there to discuss!!!!!! I cant believe my eyes thats this incompetent arrogant clueless fuck still has not got sacked! FSG OUT!!!!!!!!!!