“WE want them to be the decision-makers, we want them to understand their role in the team. Suddenly they’re thinking players. I’m under no illusions that I have to win matches but for me the best way to do that is to have a team that is flexible, made of players who understand why we do what we do.”
You could be mistaken for thinking the above quote is from Brendan Rodgers ahead of a career-defining season. You’d be wrong. Those quotes are from Sean O’Driscoll when his Doncaster Rovers side was flying high in 2010.
I turned my phone on late last night to an outbreak of social media fume. Firstly, I can understand why.
Removing Colin Pascoe from the assistant manager role and not renewing the contract of first-team coach Mike Marsh was unexpected and the delay in announcing replacements, or any kind of vision for the future, resulted in a great amount of interest building. A knowledge gap was allowed to build, a vacuum filled by rumour, and for some that sparked excitement about who could be joining Rodgers’ coaching staff for the forthcoming campaign.
At face value, to many, the appointment of a 57-year-old No.2 whose CV reveals jobs at Bournemouth, Doncaster Rovers, Crawley Town, Nottingham Forest, Bristol City and England Under 19s will be an underwhelming appointment. Many were hoping for an experienced assistant manager, one potentially with European experience; someone to get the juices flowing and potentially reinvigorate a manager who looked out of ideas and out of energy after that horrific 6-1 result at Stoke City in May.
Instead, Liverpool – or more specifically a recruitment team said to number Rodgers, the elusive Mike Gordon and Tom Werner — have appointed a coach who has no European or elite level experience, an up and down career in the Football League and until recently was coaching the cream of the country’s teenagers. A man who has had four jobs in five years, has a pretty poor YouTube clip doing the rounds and has mainly been a No.1.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dNynDVvxzQ
On the other hand, it is clear Rodgers rates his new right-hand man, evidenced by his quote from 2013 regarding the man who has the job of filling Pascoe’s shorts: “We need to stop blaming the players,” Rodgers said then. “The players get the blame in this country. No, it is the coaching. The problem is that the guys who are ’that type’ of coach you never hear of them really. Look at Sean O’Driscoll. He is one of the best coaches I have ever come across. He is working at Bristol City. He has never had a chance in the top flight. His teams were expressive, had movement, they were technical, but he will probably never get a chance at a higher level.”
O’Driscoll also seems to be very much in tune with Rodgers’ much referenced “one club mentality”. Speaking to the Garibaldi Gazette website, he said: “We were trying to bring the club together, make the non-playing staff part of the process, to engage the squad more in the local community, to bring the U21s and youth team into the first team environment, all the things I think are important and would try to do at whatever football club I was managing at. We also wanted to develop an identifiable style of play to be synonymous with Forest from top to bottom.
“The only way a club is ever going to achieve success is if the manager and owners share the same vision for what they want for their club in the long-term.”
In the same interview O’Driscoll, who also praised the work of Steve Peters, will surely have ticked an FSG box when he said: “when I came to Bristol City I insisted on the head coach title as I think more and more clubs will go down the continental route of having directors of football working with head coaches, and if you’ve got the right relationship between the two I think it is the right way for clubs to run.”
Like everyone else I have no idea whether in time this appointment will be looked upon as a masterstroke or a missed opportunity. Only results and vibes from the club will dictate that. I would, however, like to try and add some balance to the reaction from Liverpool fans so far and perhaps put a different spin on why his appointment: a) may have been made and b) could help the manager and therefore the team.
A few weeks ago Neil Atkinson, Paul Cope and I debated the roles of the backroom staff and what qualities would be required on the Tuesday Review on TAW Player.
It’s important in an assistant manager to strike a balance. You must have someone on your wavelength but who has the opposite qualities and a different personality so that your strengths and weaknesses dovetail.
It may only be superficial, but a cursory glance at past interviews with O’Driscoll reveals a man who shys away from the spotlight and is no fan of the media (“you’re in an industry which pounds you with negativity all the time”). The same can’t be said of Rodgers who has tried to use the media to mould his public profile. It’s also perhaps telling that O’Driscoll prides himself on questioning methods and ideas. In this interview he says: “I was a player for 15 years, I’ve done all my coaching badges, pro-licences and all that sort of thing and I’ve picked up bits from elsewhere but I’ve found that no-one these days asks ‘why we do it that way?’ All the sports that are innovative and forward thinking, like British cycling, have had people who have asked why do we do this and why do we train that way.”
It’s very difficult to head hunt and recruit the perfect assistant manager if time is tight. The fact that this appointment is being made now, at least in time for pre-season training, suggests to me it has not been lined up for months and months. The time to interview, get to know someone and get a real feel for them I don’t think has been available to Rodgers.
The aim, lest we forget, is for Liverpool to win football matches. While the assistant manager has a role to play with the squad I think with Rodgers in charge it could be overplayed.
Brendan is a tracksuit manager and his big passion is coaching. He’s never going to delegate the coaching principles and nor should he. If he was more of an emperor-type manager – like Alex Ferguson for example — there would be more pressure for a different type of assistant manager who would lead the coaching on the training field.
I believe the right assistant manager for Rodgers is one who will keep the players on their toes, strike the right balance with them and provide honest, loyal and trustworthy support and advice to the manager.
I argued on the Tuesday Review that it’s often forgotten that the assistant manager is not only present to try to get the best out of the players but also to get the manager at his peak. To ensure we have a 100 per cent enthused, creative, hungry Brendan.
I’m lucky that my own assistant manager is incredible at his job and one of his many great attributes is getting the best out of me. In times of trouble he digs me out of a hole as much as the players. I’m also fortunate that he is the opposite of me personality-wise but also incredibly honest and loyal. My head first-team coach is creative and brutally honest. We don’t always agree but that’s good. No one should want to be surrounded by yes men and it’s a dynamic that works really well for me.
We often say on the Tuesday Review that fans forget this is work, and work with very long hours spending a lot of time in each other’s pockets – as Driscoll himself has said in the past: “The responsibilities of, and demands, on a manager day-to-day have escalated massively in the 13 years I’ve been a manager. Your phone literally never stops ringing from 6am to midnight with agents, media and all the other stuff you have to look after at a club.”
It’s therefore vital Rodgers selects coaching staff that he feels are not only right for the job but also that will get the best out of him; that will challenge him but complement him; that he can trust.
The appointment shouldn’t be looked upon in isolation as it would appear the highly regarded Pepijn Lijnders will be stepping up from coaching the Under 16s at the academy to first team coach. Rodgers is also very close to the academy director Alex Ingelthorpe who I’ve heard very good things about from many in the game. This creates an interesting dynamic for Rodgers being surrounded by two very different people in O’Driscoll and Lijinders rather than Pascoe and Marsh.
It’s a great shame that the academy could be losing such a top coach, especially when you think of the upheaval there over the last 20 years. However, what a boost it must be to any young coach at Liverpool to see promotions from within. That should give an extra boost to the academy staff and they should all be striving to follow the route of the 32-year-old Dutchman.
On Driscoll, well let’s not pretend — it’s not the most exciting or exotic appointment at face value and I can understand the initial reaction of disappointment from many fans.
But I think we have to trust Brendan on this one. With limited time ahead of a huge season I can totally understand him wanting a more experienced guy who he rates and can trust working alongside him whilst adding a young, dynamic European coach to his backroom staff. Everything is on the line for Rodgers – he remains favourite with the bookies to be the first manager sacked next season — so he has to take calculated risks but he doesn’t need to make reckless ones.
If Rodgers thinks the new appointments will get the best out of him as a manager then right now that will do for me. Brendan Rodgers back at the top of his game could be the best new signing of the summer.
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He was abysmal at Bristol City. Absolutely detested by the fans for his negative clueless tactics but also, interestingly, for his personality – he was viewed as arrogant and dour. I know that Forest fans appeared to have some good things to say about him, but his time as Ashton Gate was an unmitigated disaster – and his failure is only emphasised by the success that the club has had since he was given the boot.
I don’t know whether this will have any reflection on his suitability for the assistant manager role at LFC. But I know that my City supporting friends were dumb struck at the news he is now at Anfield.
Rodgers surrounds himself with people who are grateful for the opportunity to work at such a big club. Not people used to being at top clubs with big managers who know the standards required and who will push Rodgers in the right direction.
I have nothing against O’Driscoll – but he has never coached Premier League players yet he’s 57 years old. After sacking Marsh and Pascoe, we thought FSG were going to force Rodgers to get in top coaches experienced in winning big trophies.
Instead we see Rodgers throw Pascoe and Marsh under the bus for a rotten season and yet be allowed to replace them with another pal of his …. who has less experience at the top level than Pascoe did.
I’d be amazed if Rodgers survives til xmas. He’s too weak and insecure a manager to go for top coaches, so sticks to mediocre pals grateful for the chance.
If I was a manager I know i’d rather have someone backing me up who I know and trust than have some foreigner I’ve never met come in just because he has been at a big club before.
Yeah, we’ve been down that road with Pascoe, remember.
It’s a strange appointment for sure, but it seems obvious that there was a disconnect between what Rogers wanted from training/coaching and what was actually happening on the pitch – as a fan there definitely was – and maybe the whole thing had just gotten stale. Maybe Marsh and Pascoe had zero new ideas between them and what Rogers needed was just someone to bring some new thinking and a different point of view because Pascoe and Marsh were doing as asked, rather than as needed.
That being the case then why not pick someone whose thinking is more attuned to his own rather than scouring Europe for an expensive option that might not work any better and – and this is important – might really only be angling for the big job, creating tension rather than unity. It’s not Earth shattering, but it’s not bad news either. It;s a bit ‘meh’ that’s all. But if it works…
Oh, and my Bristol City supporting father laughed his arse off when he heard.
Yikes.
There is an obvious reason why this appointment is more important than would normally be the case in an “assistant to the manager”.
I mean Ferguson had many assistant managers over the years. None of them took over. But no one really cared outside the mancs.
The reason this is “important” being the sheer gobsmacked reaction to many of us who thought Rodgers should have been axed. The man at the top. Not his minions working under HIS DIRECTION.
Not that they shouldn’t have been axed. But this lead to speculation that maybe now we would get a top guy to work on the defence…
Instead we get Brenda’s favoured minion/player — someone with no experience at the highest level.
I’m pleased with this appointment as it reassures me that Rodgers has decided, much as he did prior to the switch to 3-4-2-1 last season, that he should be himself and his team’s approach should reflect his philosophy. O’Driscoll seems very much to share this approach, footballistically.
Excellent point. If he’s going to go out by Christmas, let him go out trying to play football his way, not the horrible mash of styles and ideas we saw last season.
Yet another appointment by Rodgers made from a position of weakness and insecurity. He simply will not have anyone question anything he says or does.
As Alan said above, he puts people into positions they are not qualified for to ensure their loyalty and unmitigated submission – yes men. This simply does not happen with top managers at top clubs, who realise criticism and questions from within better them as men and managers.
O’Driscoll is a 57 year old never-has-been and never-will-be who has achieved nothing as a coach. He’s been a failure everywhere he has been. Yet he is now Liverpool Football Club’s number 2. This tells us an awful lot. I always thought it was a bad joke someone like Pascoe was our number 2. This appointment is an improvement. From 0/10 to 1/10. Its another bad joke.
So now our leading three coaches (Rodgers, O’Driscoll and Lijnders) are all best suited to teaching the game to kids. One has no experience coaching men, another no experience of coaching in the premier league having had win percentage ratios of less than 30% in the lower leagues, and the main one has no experience of coaching successfully in Europe and whose players clearly stopped buying his bullshit and playing for him last season.
What are FSG thinking allowing this nonsense to not only continue but to prosper? How do they think this will end in anything but disaster?
How can 90% plus of Liverpool fans see that if FSG weren’t going to sack Rodgers they needed to put in place around him a team of highly experienced and respected coaches who have actual achievements on their CV, but FSG can’t?
We’re going to be 10th come November, closer points-wise to last than first.
Picking a man up who has never been at that level before never happens at big clubs. So Paul Clement getting taken to PSG and Real as his number 2 from being just another coach in the chelsea set up wasn’t like that. How about that Scottish lad who got taken to Valencia.
Tell me how getting some random number 2 from Europe who has never met Rodgers, just because he was given a chance at a big club before would be more helpful than giving somebody he knows and trusts his chance. It’s not like it’s some young gun just coming through and looking to learn from the manager, it’s an older man who already has his own ideas. He also isn’t shy of giving that opinion, which is exactly the opposite of a yes man.
How about you just stop using absolutely everything possible to beat Brendan with.
The haters are gonna hate mate and nothing is going to change them. There is nothing to suggest the previously linked No.2s would have been right for us, but seems many want to play ‘fantasy football’ with the coaching staff, even though they know no more than the rest of us.
YNWA
What are you talking about?
Paul Clement worked his way up at Chelsea, a big club, starting with their centre of excellence for under 10s and 12s. He went to Fulham as their head of academy after being head hunted, then returned to Chelsea once the same role became available. Hiddink, a world class manager, brought him into the first team set up and was impressed enough to recommend Ancelotti keep him on. Ancelotti, possibly the best manager in the world, was also impressed and made him his number 2. He won titles at Chelsea. Ancelotti took him to France and Spain and he won more major honours.
In what way is the 43 year old Clement, whose CV is full of major championships and who has world class managers on speed dial, comparable to the 57 year old O’Driscoll who has won fuck all and whose biggest advocate is Brendan Rodgers, a far from world class manager who has won nothing? Answers on a postcard please.
If Rodgers is to stay then the new number 2 should have been fairly recognisable and experienced in winning a fair few things – not experienced in failure and being hated by the supporters of the (lower league) clubs he has managed.
Maybe you are happy with the lowering of standards and expectations, with postmen and failures as LFC’s Ass Manager, but that’s up to you. But as a fan of Liverpool, I’d prefer if we were, ya know, successful. And to be successful you must prepare to be successful and give yourself the best possible chance. Having coaches that senior pro’s have no respect for is not going to achieve that.
Maybe you’re slow and will only realise this in October/November.
Well said.
Well said Leanne. The 2 just don’t compare.
Spot on!! I think it also says no one with that kind of experience would come here right now. Frankly, this is the best job of O’Driscoll’s career so far. If BR gets sacked this season Lijnders can always go back to Kirkby(hopefully!!) or will go elsewhere.
Leanne, how do you know senior pros have no respect for O’Driscoll?
Spot on.
When I got home last night I saw Jim Boardman’s tweet about O’Driscoll. Intrigued, I watched ‘the video’ and initially thought it was a joke from Jim but I didn’t get the joke. Anyway, I Googled his name and was shocked to the core to see the newspaper headlines that this guy was gonna be our number 2. I then got a message off a mate asking me what I thought. I replied with a message full of disgust.
This is exactly the kind of reaction I despise. I knew nothing of O’Driscoll at this point and based my reaction on ‘the video’ and my intuition of his personality. It’s an absolute bullshit approach and many Liverpool fans are guilty of the same thing regarding Rodgers. After a bit of reading the paper talk I realised this man could be ok but the truth is, I simply don’t know one way or another yet I’ve got / had strong views that this appointment is / was wrong.
My conclusion is also built on the same bullshit, admittedly, as the truth is, I don’t know anything about Pascoe or Marsh either. I just feel they weren’t good enough for Liverpool and I was glad they were released. So, I think this can only be a step up, bearing in mind the respect O’Driscoll and Lijinders are held in by some.
Unless Liverpool fans know something concrete about either of these two and why they aren’t right for Liverpool then they should shut their mouths and let them get on with it.
You’re right! It’s wrong to jump off the deep end…….but then look at his CV. How do you coach a winning mentality when there are no winners around???
The only winner I can see about the club at the min is Milner and he hasn’t even kicked a ball for us yet.
I know mate but the truth is, none of us ‘experts’ who post comments with such conviction actually know anything except what we’ve learned in a few articles off the internet. I just find it a piss take that we don’t give anyone a fair chance to prove themselves. We don’t know enough about him to judge and a CV is not always conclusive. There can be other factors why someone hasn’t succeeded. It’s not enough to destroy someone before they’ve had a chance to show otherwise.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, I think this reaction is not so much a reaction to the appointment but more a reaction to people’s own negativity. Some people are just miserable fucks and it reflects in everything they do. Call me naive if you want but either way, we can’t change this appointment. The sun’s shining. I’m not gonna beat myself up over this based on minimal information. If I feel from what we see in the future that it was wrong then I’ll be the first to kick off because I feel there’ll be justification. I’m not there yet though as he hasn’t even started.
100% a cv isn’t always conclusive….but at 57 it gives ya a pretty good idea of his career to date.
“We don’t know enough about him to judge and a CV is not always conclusive. There can be other factors why someone hasn’t succeeded.”
Its this type of delusion that really hurts us.
SOD is 57 years of age and managed 5 different clubs. What “other factors” stopped him being a success all his life and at each separate club?
Fuck me.
Ya think he might just not be good enough?
Roy Hodgson has got a cracking CV… Also, there’s only a limited number of jobs you know? The surety either way is a bit mad. Maybe wait and see and that?
It’s pretty simple Leanne. I may have been shocked and underwhelmed when this news broke but I don’t know anything about him and if I’m honest I don’t think you do either. I’m hoping someone somewhere has spotted something that’s really gonna work for us with him. Truth is, I’m not confident there and probably lean more towards the ‘yes man conspiracy’ but as I don’t know I’m prepared to give the man a fair chance if for no other reason that my choices in this are zero. He’s got/getting the job. I don’t want to be consumed by negativity thanks. I don’t want to comment with venom on every subject because I’ve lost all rationale such is my hatred of Rodgers. So to summarise. We’ve got no say in this. We either get bitter or enjoy the summer. I’m not deluded. I’m junsure. I think you are too. We’ve just chosen polar views on how to express that unknown. Like I say, I cling to the hope that someone at the club knows what they’re doing. Hope is definitely different to deluded.
To The Anfield Wrap – would you be happy if we signed Jon Stead to play up front?
If you say yes you’re a liar.
If you say no, why would you not be happy? After all, there’s only a limited number of jobs for strikers you know? Your surety would be a bit mad. Maybe wait and see and that? Maybe he would score 20-25 goals a season?
Stead is the striker version of O’Driscoll – a failure in leagues lower than ours. One has been promoted to a standard he doesn’t deserve, the other just signed for Notts County.
Just as things seemed to be getting better,signing Firmino and Clyne and Higuain’s name being mentioned (yes it won’t happen,but you can dream) then we see O’Driscoll named as number two.
Shouldn’t say this but I started losing interest a long time ago,I thought the days of lowering expectations had gone when we saw the back of Hodgson but no,Rodgers has carried it on.He’s cleared out the majority of senior players,players who may have voiced concern (more to do with wages) and he threw his coaching buddies under the bus to save his own skin and now appoint a coach with even less experince in top flight football than himself.Bunker mentality.
I shouldn’t be worried,he’ll be gone by December after another slow start,players fault obviously and hopefully once the ground redevelopment is complete FSG too.The slide into mediocrity just continues,a step forward and then two giant ones back.The pressure on Rodgers will be huge and usually when under pressure people do strange things and I’m sure he’ll oblige us.
We were told of change,I had hoped for experienced coaches,O’Driscoll has experience but at lower league with Bristol City,Forest and Donny Rovers.This doesn’t inspire me,but like I stated they’ll be gone soon.He should at least get people in who can help him,even challenge him,but there lies the problem.
Whatever happened to Carlos Quieroz?
After almost a week of splendid optimism and the relief and euphoria of the realisation that top talent DO actually want to play for LFC after what seems like years of self induced paranoia brought about by this rediculous penny pinching and amateurish transfer policy, Most of us have only just come down off the ceiling after the high profile signings of Firminho and Clyne, both of whom could have taken their pick of potential CL suitors. And yet here we go again with these keyboard warrior idiots. As soon as somebody at the club makes a footballing decision which they simply disagree with and ok yeah, may be on the face of it, the coaching decision does appear to be a bit strange one
which most reasonable fans with a modicum of sense may possibly raise their brows a la Rodger Moore, nod their heads and shrugg their shoulders before muttering to themselves ” Ok yes a strange choice. Well we’ll soon see how good he is when the season starts” Yet once again here we have the know it all, wannabe pundits/managers who use medians such as this site, as they do with several others, to share with us their negative inconsequential irrelevant drivel as if we are all hanging on their every word, and as if we are all waiting to stick the knife in to Rodgers at the earliest given opportunity Ffs get a grip, grow a set, and for once, take in a few deep breaths eat a slice of humble pie and if you are going to post an opinion. Then PLEASE put it in context with what Rodgers achieved in 2014 with 2 other inexperienced backroom staff members. For once try looking out into the world through rose tinted glasses and not dark grey and take the appropriate medication if you have history of psychological issues. But for crying out loud and for the love of God, give it a fucking wrest and BE POSITIVE!! YNWA
I would love to know where all the ‘in the know’ information about Brendan throwing his coaching staff under the bus has come from? I’ve read people blaming Stevie leaving on the manager when these same people said he was no longer good enough to play for us. As somebody already stated above, absolutely anything he does will be used to beat him, until he is no longer our manager – then the process will begin again.
Perhaps Pascoe and Marsh were identified as weak links during our internal review, or from player feedback? Perhaps it was always the plan to replace the pair this season to keep things fresh? The truth is nobody knows and nothing we say can change it. Keep the faith and back the manager
As somebody already stated above, absolutely anything he does will be used to beat him, until he is no longer our manager – then the process will begin again.
Maybe because he’s the first LFC manager in 50 years not to have won a trophy in his first 3 years as manager. Maybe because he has a record of bottling big games.
But the fact that he was the first manager in over 20 years to get us within touching distance of a title is just forgotten, discarded with the flares, banners and optimism his management brought back to the club and its fans!
There were mistakes made by everyone last year, from the top of the club right down to the players. I just think that the level of performances and the style of play 2 years ago should allow him to make some decisions without everyone seconding guessing them. The last thing we need as a club is increased scrutiny and negativity surrounding each and every decision.
Too much fantasy football style thinking going on. The very last paragraph of Sean’s piece says it all for me.
The manager cannot have coaches/assistants picked by club that he doesn’t want no matter what your feelings on the manager. SOD at 57 might have found his calling as a number 2 especially working with elite players now that are more in tune with his coaching philosophy than lower league players could ever be. Lots of great number 2’s failed as managers ( Brian Kidd, ray harford etc).
YNWA