SO Brendan Rodgers remains the manager of Liverpool Football Club. We wish him well, and cross our fingers. But me? I think he’s sunk. Before he starts, I mean — he’s sunk. “Why?”, I hear you ask. Well, if a manager is going to lead, he has to have authority. And right now, I’m not sure he has it. Players, fans, media — does anyone feel confident in his mandate?
A manager must lead. And to lead, he needs the consent of those who are supposed to follow him. To do that at Liverpool, right now, after everything that’s just gone on, he needs authority. His authority must be beyond question. And there’s the rub. You see, on the day he walked through the door, the club sowed seeds of doubt that would ultimately germinate and undermine his authority. The seedlings continue to grow.
Authority is in the eye of the beholder — if we perceive it, he can achieve it. A clever man called Max Weber once theorised that there are three routes to that perception. So over to Max.
Route 1: Charismatic Authority
“Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool, We’re on our way to glory, built a team like Shankly did, our kids will have a story.” – Us lot.
With ‘charismatic authority’, the leader has authority because the followers want him to lead them. Rodgers is a naturally likeable, charismatic man, and — whether consciously or not — he set about asserting this kind of authority the moment he came through the door, talking in rich metaphors, and even using pseudo religious language, for example saying about Lucas Leiva: “He’s one of the disciples I would say, he understands totally what we’re doing.” He spent part of his early career working closely with Jose Mourinho, and it’s clear he learned a few things in that respect. If it hadn’t been for Being Liverpool, there’s a chance the feel-good factor around him would have been near unanimous. His man management was good, the senior players liked him and bought into his methods (just Google for quotes from Suarez and Gerrard), and half way into the second season, the away fans really started getting behind him too — we all know the song. Those things are significant: they bolster a manager’s position.
Route 2: Rational-Legal Authority
Most football managers operate in this category. With ‘rational-legal authority’, the leader is backed by a ‘mandate’, bestowed by an accepted source of power that everyone accepts. That mandate might be based on fear, the grudging acceptance of a democratic outcome (give me a moment while I wipe the tear from my eye), or the collective preservation of interconnected vested interest (see Sepp Blatter for maybe the best example we’ve seen of this in recent times). With ‘rational-legal authority’, there are rules and routines that the followers all subscribe to, grudgingly or otherwise, and the leader leads in accordance with those rules.
Against that backdrop, a manager can expect at least a brief spell in charge: the people with the power appoint them, set out the rules and tell them what’s expected of them, and after a spell, if they haven’t delivered, the authority will eventually be withdrawn. The white hankies come out, the dreaded vote of confidence gets passed, fans start shouting at each other in the stands and on social media… we all know the pattern well enough by now.
So what was Brendan’s mandate? And what were the rules? Well, Rodgers came in with what seemed as clear a mandate as any Liverpool manager has had in recent times. The Chairman and Managing Director rolled out the reddest of red carpets, with a press conference talking of a new era of “attacking, relentless football”. This followed the most public of private pursuits in living memory, with rebukes for Dave Whelan, lattes with Martinez, and Rodgers supposedly rejecting the job three times before accepting. He wouldn’t work with a Director Of Football, you see.
But there, lurking beneath the surface, lay the seeds of doubt: Liverpool told him there would be no Director of Football; but the reality would prove from the outset to be very different — it just turned out to be a Committee rather than a single person.
The second crucial aspect was acceptance on the part of those he was supposed to lead. That includes the fans. Did we, the fans, accept it? Rodgers’ appointment was set against the backdrop of an ignominious sacking for possibly the second most significant figure in the club’s history and, not only that — they did it after he’d won the club’s first trophy in six years.
It’s fair to say that some weren’t convinced, and it would barely have mattered who took the helm, let alone someone who had never won a trophy beyond the Football League Championship Play-Offs in his career. Being Liverpool compounded things — some set out into the new era with an agenda, and the “Brenton Rodgers” meme became a convenient stick to beat him with.
So Brendan’s mandate was relatively strong; but the seeds of doubt were sewn the day he took the job — all it took was a change in the weather for the seeds to germinate and take root.
Route 3: Traditional Authority
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGwRK18iGW4
We won’t spend long on this one. With ‘traditional authority’, you see, the leader has authority because it’s become routine — no one questions — everyone just accepts it. Only a handful of managers in the history of the game have ever achieved that kind of security (for example, Shankly, Paisley and Ferguson) and even then, it all still relied on them continuing to meet expectations, or for them to massage them down to sustainable levels (for example, Clough and McLean). It’s doubtful any manager will get close to this again, albeit Wenger comes close.
So back to Brendan. In his early months in the job, he proved himself adept at bolstering his authority — taking potential challenges in his stride. He engineered Andy Carroll’s departure gracefully, and quickly shifted out players he didn’t see as fitting in with his style. His handling of Jamie Carragher’s final year at the club was exemplary — the player never having a bad word to say about the man, and when Luis Suarez agitated for a move, he proved himself firm and resolute, the player despatched to train with the reserves. Meanwhile, we all saw his handling of young players, albeit possibly in too much detail (again, thanks to Being Liverpool). The man could handle people, albeit sometimes in an overly touchy feely way.
Rodgers did as much as he feasibly could to bolster his authority. His relationship with the majority of the media was strong, and he demonstrated his charisma at every turn. And then, of course, 2013-14 happened. There were doubts, but from White Hart Lane on, performances on the park blew them away. Or so we thought. We’re fickle buggers, aren’t we?
You see, the doubts continued to grow. His stated mandate, unveiled amidst great fanfare, was as clear as mud. In fact, you might go as far as to say it was a tissue of lies. He had no Director of Football, that much was true; but still he found himself directed and fettered. A manager lives and dies by his work in the transfer market, it’s often said, but the summer of 2014 betrayed the fetters that the club had put in place — reasonable fetters had they been explicitly stated and agreed to at the outset, of course, but there was the rub — they’d never been explicitly agreed to.
And so season 2014-15 started, and we all know the story from there. Fast forward to Madrid… then Juan Mata… then Wembley… then The Britannia. Fast forward to two weeks of speculation, with deafening silence from the very men his perceived authority relies upon. Fast forward to coordinated briefings to newspapers on the ongoing pursuit of transfer targets (“You mean we’re signing players? Who’s making the decisions?”). Fast forward to a trip to Boston… or would the Bostonians come to Liverpool? Nobody really knew. And then they arrived, and the self same papers told us in unison that a plan had been written. Nobody knew who wrote it, or what was in it. Nobody knew the direction the club was going to take. But the manager ‘was safe’.
Ian Herbert went further, saying, “Rodgers has signed up to plans which have been laid for an improvement.” That hinted at the manager having passively agreed to a fundamental change in his mandate — the terms of his role. But nobody was told how it would work.
We’d seen talk of them explicitly imposing a Director of Football structure upon him, in direct contravention of the terms of his acceptance in 2012. So where does that leave Rodgers? Nobody really knows.
And there’s the rub. If they’re going to change the terms of his mandate, where does that leave our perception of his authority? Do we feel he’s in a position to lead the club forward? Raheem Sterling agitates for a move away, Balotelli continues with his naughtiness, and as things stand, it doesn’t look like Rodgers fancies half his squad in the first place. So how are the players supposed to see things? And by extension, how are we? Perception is everything, and the minute doubts come in, we have a problem.
The players, fans and media smell blood, and because of that, there is zero margin for error as we go into the new season.
It’s for that reason I think he’s sunk. Things will inevitably dip — and the minute that happens, the knives will come out in earnest this time. We don’t see Gordon and Werner doing a Silvio Berlusconi, do we? Berlusconi put the fear of God into the AC Milan players and told them — you do what he tells you or you’re out. Look what happened there — that’s a clear mandate.
As it stands, Rodgers needs something similar, or we’ll be looking for another manager by Christmas.
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda
I’ve never seen a more obvious case of someone waiting in the wings than I have with Liverpool and Klopp.
“You take that break Jurgen and we’ll give you a bell when Brendan f*cks up again yeah?”
“Ja!”*
*Thank you Google Translate!
You know what’s weird? I went to see Noel Gallagher in concert last night. There were the obvious Manure knobs yelling their stupid song. And others asking where his brother was. The guy in the seat next to me could have won a Klopp look-a-like competition. The only thing missing was baseball cap!!
We might as well write off 2015/16 but in fairness fsg need to take some responsibility for the signings last year, there was no need to spend money on players like markovic when you have ibe, or buy lovren and send ilori on loan or get rid of agger etc they could have saved 50 million and put it towards they stadium. all we needed was a great striker last year and we couldnt get one even with champions league football, that cant be all down to rodgers can it? But i agee i cant see him fixing things, lets just hope ancelotti or klopp are still available when lfc do sack rodgers.
Would have been a lot less complicated, and infinitely less Weberian, to simply bin him and move on.
I agree Rodgers position is already precarious and we haven’t even started the summer yet let alone the start of the season.
This leads me onto my point though. Look, I don’t know enough about how club are supposed to run and what their relationship with the fans should be but it seems common sense to me to say nothing about what his mandate is.
Everything about the club is in the open whether it’s the team Rodgers will play at the weekend, our negotiations with our players about contracts, every move we make in the transfer market and every turn about where we’re up to with the manager saga. John Gibbons made a good point – we don’t have to make an announcement that we’re keeping our manager yet people think it’s odd we didn’t clarify that. Add to that the fans using everything we’ve ever been told as a rod to beat the manager and make his position even more precarious such as the Spurs quote about spend, the judge me in 3 years (if he actually said that), top 4 and a trophy should be the minimum plus the million other things we now have to read every day. Why tell the fans what the plan is and make it even more pressurised for him. Like I say, maybe that’s a clubs duty to their fans, I’ve no idea either way what’s right or wrong. I don’t want to hear it though.
I’d rather he just got on with it. Another season / half season like the last one and he’ll be gone. We all know that much. I’m not a fan of quantitative science anyway. I only work on a holistic approach. For example it’s possible to go through a season and beat everyone from 6th down home and away, draw against the top 4 sides home and away and still miss out on 4th despite being unbeaten and having 98 points. Ok, an extreme example but I don’t think that should get him the sack for not achieving top 4. Another example is getting to 2 semi’s this year when in reality we hardly played any Premiership teams to get there and didn’t do that well against the Championship sides. It was the least we should have achieved.
I wanted to comment on his authority but can’t now. I think I’ve made half of the point I wanted to make but I’ve got cracked ribs and I’m having a sneezing fit so I need to sign off and sort my head out.
Thanks for an excellent, considered comment. I think the club are perfectly entitled to say nothing, and to not expound upon the so-called plan, but in doing that, they’ll only compound a position where the manager is already hung out, and in the process of dripping dry.
Robin, it was not just the results, it was the way in which he was out-manoeuvred at every turn. On a season when Manu were vulnerable, we were doubled by them. All season we saw the most ludicrous substitutions, players used in unfamiliar positions and a promising player in Markovic absolutely crucified when an. Out-of-sorts (to put it mildly) Lovren was played again and again. Johnson, a clever but flawed, fading RB played at LB. Sakho and Lucas ignored until he was absolutely forced to play them, triggering a good (but misleading) run of results which only ended when they were unavailable. The end of the season exposed his naivety and absolute absence of footballing smarts when he re-jigged the tactics 3 times in one game.
The seeds of his inevitable sacking (I can’t see him surviving) were sown when we finished second. He absolutely believed he was a genius. It’s called ‘hubris’.
I don’t care about his private life, although I don’t think he has any dignity. But the major strike against him is his preparedness to affix blame, coupled with the complete lack of combativeness in his teams. There is nobody with balls left. He shunted off the Shelveys and the Spearings.
Good article, Roy.
I think it’s fairly obvious FSG wanted an “upgrade” – Ancelotti, Klopp – and were knocked back, for whatever reason (and there could be many). I know, it sounds well-reasoned – and I believe most would rather Rodgers stay than, say, De Boer come in – but in real-world terms, the spectre of doubt over Rodgers right now is huge. He basically has no authority, as you said, and he’s signing on for something to which he didn’t agree, in the beginning.
I don’t think Rodgers has an eye for a player, and believe a DoF would have been the way to go. I know we have a “Directorate of Football,” as you’ve coined it in the past, and by slipping this Committee in over Rodgers undermined his authority right away, when he supposedly wouldn’t work under one.
I rate Rodgers as a coach but I don’t see this upcoming season as anything but a treadmill move. I’m worried about a manager who knocks the axe is looming shelving (ostensible) cornerstones of FSG’s philosophy for the Club – youth development, coaching for the future – and going with “his guys.” How many times will Marković see the field next season, with the pressure on Rodgers to get a result, more than develop a team? And, by all accounts, Marković wasn’t his signing, and we’re already linked with selling him. And therein lies another huge problem. So, yeah, outside of us, y’know, not having a team good enough to compete for our supposed targets (I’d assume CL football places), another team that doesn’t suit the “type” of players we have in our squad – ie., why are we buying Milner to press high, yet are also interested in Benteke? Surely they’re players who thrive in different systems? – the owners showing little faith, lots of fans whom he lost last season wanting him gone, I can’t see anything but another season of underachievement, relative to our spend.
I think it’s fairly obvious FSG wanted an “upgrade” – Ancelotti, Klopp – and were knocked back, for whatever reason (and there could be many). I know, it sounds well-reasoned – and I believe most would rather Rodgers stay than, say, De Boer come in – but in real-world terms, the spectre of doubt over Rodgers right now is huge.
Doesn’t it speak volumes if that was the case and Klopp said no to them? it doesn’t bode well for FSG’s governance.
I’m prepared to get behind Rodgers and hope that he turns things around, but this is reminding me a little of when Gerard Houllier was appointed co-manager with Roy Evans – everyone knew deep down that it was only going to end one way for Roy. Paradoxically this time the Houllier figure hasn’t been appointed (yet), but we all believe he is waiting in the wings for the right time.
Very strong analysis this. It’s an angle I’d not thought about much and it’s insightful.
I just can’t help but get my head around this fact that we’re over-reacting about the season just gone. Was at the Football Weekly live show last night in Manchester and the common consensus was that “Liverpool are f*cked” (direct quote). It seems hugely reactionary.
We’re in an experimental period in the club’s history. The manager was a gamble, his tactics are risky and the club’s transfer policy is an even bigger game of chance. Personally I’ve got the patience to see how this summer’s experiment goes. I genuinely think it might work.
The margin of failure last season was so much smaller than people seem to think. It was defined by a lack of goals. Throw in 15 or even 10 more, and we finish 4th and not a soul questions Brendan Rodgers.
The big experiment last year was to see if Balotelli could provide back-up to Sturridge. Could he do well in a 2? Spurs away suggested he could. Then Sturridge’s season finished and the tactics went barmy and overall, the experiment failed.
From the way this window has started, it seems more sensible. Unless we get Benteke. If that happens, my optimism dies, pretty much.
The authority Rodgers needs to command is with the players. We will soon see whether he still has that. I think a lot of the “he’s lost the dressing room” reports on Twitter were huge exaggerations and I don’t think FSG would have left him in post if they felt there were major problems there.
The point that keeps getting raised about the fact that Rodgers has had something imposed on him that he didn’t sign up for (transfer committee), doesn’t really stand up. He said when he joined he wouldn’t work under a DOF, I don’t think he said that he needed to have complete control of transfers.
You might regard the Transfer Committee as effectively a DOF, but if it is, it is only with regard to the part of a DOF’s role that applies to recruitment. The manager does not report to the committee and the committee does not have oversight of other parts of the club that might usually come under a DOF, eg, Academy.
If there are some changes coming with respect to how recruitment is managed, I don’t see that we can say that undermines the authority of the manager, especially as we have no idea what those changes might be. There is nothing apart from very loose speculation to suggest that Rodgers mandate is being changed in any significant way. Now if it came to pass that another senior football figure was being brought in a DOF or Technical Director, that might change things, although it needn’t necessarily undermine the manager. Mourinho can work alongside a Technical Director at Chelsea and still keep his ego intact, so I imagine Rodgers could.
You’re another dooms day merchant. I’ve just read your mate Martinez’s piece and you both must have been looking over each other’s pint whilst conferring in the Bar judging by the content therefore I think as much of his post as I do of yours. For the record I posted a comment on that and suffice to say is ditto for this. It’s a long time ago I know but a great example of perseverance, trust and achievement is Sir Gobshite Ferguson up the road and look what happened there and didn’t he do it with aload of kids too. All of a sudden the fan base is full of wannabe journos and managers who want to throw as much shit at the fan as they possibly can for what agenda is anyone’s guess. And my final say on this negative tosh is stop fuckin winging in your ale and get a grip and pull yourself together. It’s my guess that BR must be made of quite tough stuff to get where he’s got already however he must have been absolutely goosed at the Man U stage of the season because for 4 months before he had guided the good ship LFC into tranquil waters after the poor start to this season. Admittedly he ‘s made some bad match day decisions and subs but he’ll. no doubt he’ll learn the error of his ways
But I’ll stand by what I say here because we all like to think we know a thing or 2 about footy but some of us aren’t as fickle as others and for what he has achieved the season before last which in my view was no fluke, he defo 100% deserves another go for atleast another season and he deserves EVERYONE’s full support as does, not least of all, our wonderfull institution. I don’t get our fans lately I thought we were supposed be different, almost unique, then we need to start acting like it and not like some sulky spoilt kids who can’t have their own way.
It is absolutely inperitive that we stick together otherwise divided we will fall, and this time we won’t half fall. Clearly he also needs the support of FSG in the summer coz if they don’t and we don’t then we all may as well meet up in your Bar and we can all cry in our ale coz there’ll be no point in going the game. So as the saying goes ‘Put up or shut’
COME ON YOU REEEEDS !!!!! Y.N.W.A
So an article saying the owners have undermined Rodgers’ authority, and you think I’m whining about the manager? Bugger off.
Apologies for that – was in a shocking bad mood last night – no need for that last comment so I’m sorry I posted it.
Can I also quickly take issue here with Melissa Reddy on a point she made in a recent City Talk, one which I also hear from other people too namely:
‘Fans are the cause of / to blame for the high turnover of managers at football clubs.’
Total. Bollocks.
This is like saying your sneezes are to blame for your cold. They’re a symptom not a cause.
By way of proving my point can I indicate that one of the issues with LFC is that there is very little in the way of knowing what goes on behind the scenes – as people quite rightly point out, it’s FSG’s club so that’s their prerogative. But this also goes to indicate that fans have basically f*ck all say in when a manager is fired so can we please stop this parroting of the same myth over and over – it is nonsense.
Isn’t fsg the problem? Shouldn’t a manager be able to manage?
May be his last season but let’s get behind him.
In as much as I have my doubts with Rodgers I still think he’s done enough to deserve a little better than this type of dismissal. Would I have preferred to have Ancelotti? Yes, Klopp? Yes, but still we bleed red and still.we are Liverpool…I’m behind whatever manager starts the season and behind the team no.matter what… BR has shown enough to deserve mine and all our support with the team playing some of the best footie we’ve seen in the modern era. In my opinion he has all the attributes it takes to be successful but we have none of the patience…YNWA.
Great piece and a hard one to disagree with BUT: might this not be a case of FSG trying to institute a model which is the norm on the continent, and with Brendan being boxed into a corner/pro-Europe in outlook/tick whichever is applicable, he has fallen into line?
I seem to recall that when the DOF gig was being bandied about when Brendan was appointed, it was Louis LVG who was the name in the frame; it was more than a generic DOF idea, it was Liverpool doing the Dutch. In those circumstances – knowing something of LVG’s colossal ego, domineering charisma, track record etc – then anyone taking over wolf have been mental to go along with it. And so Brendan laid down a marker. The committee, while somewhat shite, is essentially a faceless cabal. It’s existence hasn’t helped Brendan, but it has gone some way towards a continental model which rightly or wrongly FSG have wanted to introduce from the get-go. And if Brendan is canned come Christmas, whoever comes in will almost certainly have to agree to the same framework. That being the case, doesn’t that mean we might have to redefine how we see the idea of managerial ‘authority’?
And if BR does get binned at Christmas, how sure are people that Klopp will be the choice? I don’t. Klopp is only taking time off because a high profile job isn’t available. Did we offer him the job and he turned us down because we wouldn’t bin the transfer committee if he came? Who knows.
FSG will erode Rodgers’ support base – all his hand-picked Inepts, force him to accept the transfers their people want and impose a d of f on him until
his healthy ego induces him to resign. Problem solved.
This article came across to me as strongly stating that the fans have a RIGHT to know every detail about the club’s decision-making process, the actual decisions made, the detailed contents of supporting documents, who authored and approved those documents, and how they will be implemented and evaluated. The fact is the fans don’t really have a natural right to know these things. They have no actual substantive financial stake in the club or its commercial sponsorship — except to buy tickets for their personal entertainment and bits of club memorabilia such as kits, scarves, match programmes, etc. and maybe some refreshments inside the ground. Ticket revenue probably barely — if even — covers the club’s basic operations to accommodate the fans during games. Unless fans have been buying BILLIONS of Dunkin Donuts, squirrelling away mega-millions of Pounds into accounts at Standard Chartered banks in Asia and Africa, buying mountains of Nivea skin cream, etc. they have no financial stake in FSG or the club. We’re — sorry to say it bluntly — only paying spectators.
When you go to the cinema to see films and buy snacks to take in with you, or to a music concert at Echo Arena, do you demand to know how the theatre or the band is managed and operated and how its profits are spent? Of course not. The reality is that fans — while they are certainly vitally important to a football club — do not have a natural birthright or covenant to know anything about the club’s internal corporate or financial operations. It’s hugely admirable and a tremendous credit to Liverpool fans that we feel so immensely committed to and passionate about our beloved club. But we do have to recognise and accept what our rightful role is. And Robin Crimes is correct in his statement above, when he paraphrased John Gibbons comment, that clubs are under no obligation to announce when a manager is STAYING. To the club and the Owners it’s simply carrying on their existing operations.
It took Bill Shankly several years to build and train a squad that repaid his effort with resounding success. But he struggled for 6 years before getting that first silver, later went through a 7-year drought, and was named Manager of the Year for the first and only time after he had been at the club 14 years! Maybe we should all take a humility pill and remind ourselves that our role as SUPPORTERS is to SUPPORT. Success will possibly follow, but it most definitely will not if we give in to cynical defeatism.
Erm, Shankly’s first match with us was 1st December 1959. Got promoted in 1962. Won the First Division in 1964. That’s 4 and a half seasons. Won the FA cup in 1965. Plus got into the European Cup Semi-final and was robbed in a sting that even Sepp Blatter would have blanched at. By all means decry our referring to Shankiy as a bench mark, but get the facts right.
The point still remains that it took several years, despite the number being off by one year because I counted slightly differently. Pointing out one tiny detail correction while missing the bigger and much more important point is exactly what our negative, cynical fans are getting lost in.
Shanks first game was when we were mid-table in div 2, and we were thumped at home. We finished 4th. And again 4th in 60/61, after cleaning out the squad. Won the division 61/62, 7th in div 1 in 62/63, champions 63/64 and 65/66.
Not only did Shankly know what he was doing, he had Paisley, Fagan and Bennett on staff. He was not afraid of being shown up by his staff because he was a football manager, not a cuttings collector. He didn’t NEED a director of football, or a defence coach. He had them already. The now departed Marsh and Pascoe would have been lucky to clean the boots in those days. Or subsequent days, tbh. Houllier and Benitez would not have been too jealous to employ talent .
Excellent and very true !
Its players fans and media that undermine the authority of a manager if things don`t always go right so what chance does BR or any other manager stand?
How can you possibly keep a big boat afloat if the paddles keep falling off? to that i mean the attitude and intentions of the many players who think they are bigger than Liverpool FC and always use the tedious excuse of playing champions league football to get free from LFC, that`s not the managers fault, thats the greed that exists within young players being guided by the gannets that are the agents and until the agents are put in their place and controlled then LFC will always remain a breeding ground for quality players so that richer clubs can pick off players as they choose, We need to keep our players and mentally prepare them for battle season after season in order to get to higher plains and for that to happen then the support needs to get behind them players and make them feel part of a very big story, because right now the liverpool support on match day is only a whimper to what it used to be and no i don`t go the match, i cant afford it.