SOME fans want Jurgen Klopp. Others want Carlo Ancelotti. Not so many want to stick with Brendan Rodgers, it seems. With daily debate over the manager’s future dominating Liverpool supporters’ timelines, we asked regular Anfield Wrap contributors and writers for their views. Should Rodgers have been sacked in the summer? Should he be sacked now? Can he turn it all around? This is our third and final part of this feature. Part one is here. And part two is here.
GARETH ROBERTS — @robbohuyton
1. Should Liverpool have sacked Brendan Rodgers in the summer?
Yes. To me it felt like it had run its course post-Stoke City and it was time to hit reset — new man, new ideas, fresh approach. Make it all feel bright and hopeful again. Jurgen Klopp felt like a gettable upgrade — and one that would reunite the fans, understand the city, lift the collective spirit and maybe take us somewhere. Liverpool demands a figurehead as a manager, someone who fights the corner and comes out swinging. Rodgers has hid under a blanket since the summer. It’s not what we’re about.
The team sleepwalked its way through the final stages of last season and it was depressing to watch — the manager seemed to have run out of ideas, or ones that worked at least, and even with the chance of saving the season with Champions League qualification the collective heart to go and do that just wasn’t there. Mitigate all you like, but to throw away top four because you can’t beat West Brom, Hull, Palace and Stoke? It’s not good enough. And it’s hardly asking the earth to beat sides like that.
Throw in the piss-poor attempt at qualifying from a more than doable Champions League group and that final-day 6-1 humiliation and I just felt it was going to be hard for Rodgers to re-emerge in a new season and convince everyone — players, fans, media — that he was the man. What can you do or say any different? It needed freshness. Now we have stale.
2. Should Brendan Rodgers be sacked now?
Unless there is a sudden and dramatic upturn in results, yes. I think all the ‘worst side in 50 years’ stuff is well over the top. There are some decent players at the club. Like fans, they could be lifted by a new man, with new ideas. Rodgers seems uncertain in what he is doing, evidenced by the formation changes, the switch of heart on Lucas and the rest. I think he’s floundering, confused by what is going wrong and how to fix it. It’s a shame, because we’ve played some fantastic stuff under him. I just think he’s too far gone now. I don’t see how he pulls it back. If he does, well go ‘ed, Brendan. It will be miracle-like. And it will mean Liverpool are winning on a regular basis — which is what it is all about and what it will always be all about.
3. Are you confident Brendan Rodgers can turn things around at Liverpool?
Not really. As I said above, I think he’s unsure about what to do for the best. He’s hindered by his own over-thinking. Unlike many others, I don’t think he’s a chancer, or a fraud. But what he is a young manager who is possibly a bit burnt out by the whole situation now. Talk is that he’s tried to delegate more this season, taking a step back and leaning on his coaching staff a bit more. It’s not working. Sometimes it’s best to draw a line under it. A break could suit everyone. It’s us not you, Bren, and all that.
JAMES DUTTON — @jrgdutton
1. Should Liverpool have sacked Brendan Rodgers in the summer?
Approaching an answer to this question by separating the context of the start of the season is incredibly difficult. Given the end of last season perhaps a slow start should have been expected? The 6-1 defeat to Stoke changed everything and exposed Rodgers to a lot of vitriol on social media and in the stands. Before that I hadn’t really given much thought to him being sacked, after that I was led to thinking there’s no way he could come back from such an embarrassment. But, the sentimental fool that I am, I felt he deserved another run where some of the legitimate excuses for the debacle of the 2014-15 campaign could be forgotten.
2. Should Brendan Rodgers be sacked now?
No. It’s funny isn’t it, but after a summer of saying “no more excuses” there are plenty already. Daniel Sturridge is back and Rodgers has shown what can be achieved when he gets a run in the team. Jordan Henderson has become the Sturridge of this season, injured in mysterious circumstances and then out for two months on his return to training. He’s brought new coaching staff in and signed loads more players so he needs time for them to bed in. But the overriding context suggests he shouldn’t last much longer. If he can’t get results or performances by the Merseyside derby it’s hard to see a way back because Liverpool have been conceding too many and scoring too few for too long now.
3. Are you confident Brendan Rodgers can turn things around at Liverpool?
He’s done it before but I’m not so confident anymore. Everything seems to have turned on him again. Mike Nevin had it right on a recent podcast when he said he looked like a man who had lost the courage of his convictions. He’s looked lost since the end of the 2013-14 season, a man haunted by his defeats more than is perhaps necessary. A young, vibrant, idealistic coach has become one who looks to keep things solid and play percentages. If he can’t turn things around I’d rather he tried something different, go down fighting, go down not wondering rather than the endless meandering football of recent weeks.
MIKE GIRLING — @mikejgirling
1. Should Liverpool have sacked Brendan Rodgers in the summer?
Yes, once you start getting battered it’s game over. The 1-3 to Crystal Palace followed by the 6-1 at Stoke. It’s not repairable.
2. Should Brendan Rodgers be sacked now?
Yes, there are at least 2 very good proven managers on the market who are significantly better.
3. Are you confident Brendan Rodgers can turn things around at Liverpool?
I’d say he has a five per cent chance of turning it around and only a fool would bet on that.
PHIL BLUNDELL — @PhilBlundell
1. Should Liverpool have sacked Brendan Rodgers in the summer?
It’s a tough one for me, I could take him or leave him in the summer. And while it sounds very much like fence sitting, I was fine with keeping him. But if we had have got rid I wouldn’t have been upset in the slightest. Losing 6-1 is unacceptable and the way we downed tools in the last six weeks when a good run would have seen us get fourth wasn’t anything like we should be seeing. The positives of 13-14 and the negatives of 14-15 created two arguments that I wouldn’t do any more than draw with in a debate.
2. Should Brendan Rodgers be sacked now?
I don’t really see how sacking him at this very point would make much sense. Not because I think we’re a great team or anything like that, I mean that I don’t see how the people who decided to stick with him in the summer, to give him three new coaches, to give him a lot of new players, and also supposedly to give him more control in general can turn around this soon and change their mind so quickly. I think that lack of confidence in their own decision making would be a bit worrying.
It’s not been a stellar start to the season by any stretch of the imagination, but to make a judgement now I feel they’d have to have absolutely huge evidence from the first six weeks to make that change. Do they have it? I don’t think so. Two wins and a draw at Arsenal was encouraging as starts go, West Ham was abject and United poor but if we used results away at Manchester United in the last 10 years as a gauge of how the manager is doing, we’d have had about 10 different managers in the last 10 years, and then there was Sunday, which I didn’t really think was particularly bad. So for me, it would basically mean sacking the manager for the West Ham game.
You can’t sack a manager on the basis of one game. People will link it to last season, but I think you have to have a degree of separation. If you give the manager what we gave the manager in the summer, you can’t sack him after six league games. It could get worse, and if it gets worse, you get rid in November, or December. You’ll know then that it’s beyond saving. The only reason I can possibly entertain for sacking him this very minute is the sheer volume of people he’s lost in terms of support. And that’s without even talking about the blind hatred some people have for him.
The time for this question is probably two months off.
3. Are you confident Brendan Rodgers can turn things around at Liverpool?
I’d like him to. I really would. People seem to be hung up on needing to like him and I don’t get that. He’s actively trying his best for the good of the club, he isn’t on a sabotage mission so he isn’t worth of the levels of revulsion that he is on the end of in certain quarters, but people aren’t seeing things logically at the minute. There’s absolutely no basis for walking out of Anfield on Sunday and proclaiming the performance “terrible” — that isn’t to say it was a good performance, but there were signs of improvement.
The fact that people were walking out, telling everyone how bad it is, tells you what he’s up against. There’s no slack. And no team has ever been successful in that type of environment.
I’d absolutely love him to turn it round, because as Steve Graves said in Part 1 I like watching Liverpool win football matches. Do I think he will? I can’t see it because I think he’s up against too much, under too much pressure, but regardless of that two goals in three games against teams who will finish in the bottom 10 is not encouraging.
Bournemouth, West Ham and Norwich were games he absolutely had to send out a message. And we got four points. They’re the games where he turns it round. And so far, he hasn’t. Thirty per cent of the games at Anfield against the bottom 10 have gone in all likelihood and they’ve yielded four points. It doesn’t look good for him. For all the talk of the difficult away fixture list to start the season, that was countered with a soft set of home fixtures. If you can’t win your home games, there’s little down for you. And I’m afraid it looks like his days are numbered. So in short, I’m not very confident.
PAUL COPE — @Paul7Cope
1. Should Liverpool have sacked Brendan Rodgers in the summer?
No. I’m sticking to my guns on this, and will do even if he ends up being sacked this season. The right decision in the summer was to stick by the manager that they had appointed who had come so close to winning the league in the most unlikely fashion in 2013-4.
Given that the owners have obviously taken some responsibility for the problems we experienced last season, I think they were right to give him another chance and to support him in the transfer window.
I said pre-season that if we are ever going to win the league again we’re going to have to do things differently to Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal who all have far more spending power than us.
Whether people like it or not, the main way you can stand out from the crowd these days is to give your manager time to get things right. Anyone who has looked back at Ferguson’s early years at United will see how similar they were to Brendan’s early years here, including him finishing second in the league early on with a huge proportion of their fan base wanting him to be sacked shortly after.
I’m not saying that Rodgers will be as good as Ferguson, but then Ferguson might never have been as good as Ferguson if he’d been sacked after three seasons. I’ve heard shouts that FSG need to show their strength by sacking him which baffles me because it takes far more strength for them to stand by him than it would to sack him. Sacking an underperforming manager is the easiest thing in the world for owners to do to deflect any criticism from themselves. Sticking together and trying to learn from their mistakes shows much more strength.
2. Should Brendan Rodgers be sacked now?
No. They shouldn’t have sacked him in the summer and I don’t think that anything should change just a few games into the season. I’m the biggest culprit of getting carried away pre-season about what can be achieved going into the new season, and I think we’d all agree that we had a pretty successful transfer window, but the reality is that with a number of new faces in the squad there was always a risk of another settling in period being needed.
The loss of Jordan Henderson has been a big blow to the manager but there were signs on Sunday that things were starting to come together. If you watch that match again without the emotion of the live event and the desperation of wanting to win, there were actually some really positive signs including loads of real chances being created in the box, Sturridge coming back from injury and Danny Ings showing a real hunger and desire to lead the line the way a certain lunatic South American used to.
Before everyone starts shouting at me on Twitter, I’m not for one second saying that Ings can replace Suarez, but from what I’ve seen he’s the closest player we’ve had since Luis left to someone who will hassle opponents and never give up on anything, which sets the tone for the rest of the team. He kept three or four balls in play at the weekend which he had no right to, and we created chances from those situations. Ings getting a run in the team with Sturridge getting back to fitness could actually be the catalyst we need to start playing exciting football again.
3. Are you confident Brendan Rodgers can turn things around at Liverpool?
I wouldn’t go as far as saying I’m confident he can, but I definitely think he’s still got it in his locker to turn it around and for us to go on a good run.
He’s shown in the past that he can ride the crest of a wave so I just hope he can build on the last two games with a win against Carlisle and another against Villa.
If we can get two wins before the derby and score a couple of goals in each game, all of a sudden the press (if not the fans) will be talking about being unbeaten in four and going into the derby hopeful of a result.
Win the derby and we could see another run starting, but only if he commits to us scoring more goals again. My concern is that the pressure around his position and the club will prevent him from really letting loose with his formation and team selection, and my opinion is that the way he saves his job and turns this around is to convince everyone that he’s still capable of putting out a team that can score fours and fives in a match.
Even the most cynical Rodgers hater will struggle to argue for him to be sacked if he gets back to that football, but it’s easier said than done in the pressure cooker of Anfield when so much public opinion is against him. The biggest thing everyone should remember is how quickly things can change in football, even for the very best players and managers, so I wouldn’t write him off just yet.
NEIL SCOTT — @66zimbo
1. Should Liverpool have sacked Brendan Rodgers in the summer?
Realistically, yes. Within three days of the Stoke game. Not just because losing 6-1 to Stoke should never, ever be the kind of result that we shrug off and accept as something that happens now. Although that is reason in itself.
And not just because it was the culmination of a season that held all the appeal of Katie Hopkins picking dog-shit from her hair. But because it symbolised everything about a club that has quietly teetered into mediocrity, from the top down. Owners. Manager. Players. It was confirmation that the idea we should always look to be the best, always see ourselves as competing at the very highest level, has been abandoned.
Obviously this reflects deep-seated problems at the heart of the club and can’t be solved just by replacing whoever happens to be manager at the time. But at least it would have been recognition that things needed to change. As such, the decision not to act came as no great surprise.
2. Should Brendan Rodgers be sacked now?
I don’t hate Brendan Rodgers. I just want him to win games for Liverpool. That’s the bottom line. I’m not arsed about all the other noise, deafening, insistent, angry as hell and thirsty for blood. Just win games.
I go into each game now and I don’t see us winning. I don’t see a plan. The players look confused and edgy, desperate for someone to put their trust in, to get behind, on and off the pitch, but no-one’s standing up. How do you come back from that? So yes, sack him. Sack him now.
But there’s something else. I’ve always hated those clubs that publicly get behind their manager in the summer, then chuck him out the window before the clocks go back. It smacks of panic and muddled thinking. And it makes it seem like you don’t know what you’re doing. Not a good look for hard-nosed businessmen (because ultimately, that’s what they are) like FSG.
And, the other issue, hovering above all this like a massive balloon with Jurgen Klopp’s grinning face on the side, is who you get as a replacement. Do we go balls out for the Teutonic Flavour of the Month? Do we press the reset button & go for a Rodgers Mk. 2, someone like Garry Monk (Ricky Wilson on crack)? Do you end up with someone nobody really wants because the shouts for change eventually become too loud to ignore?
Instinctively, I want that change too. But without addressing the other issues at the club, the lack of direction, the recruitment strategy, the paucity of ambition, the unbalanced, leaderless, screamingly average squad, it’s a sticking plaster on a severed jugular. So, that’s kind of where I am.
I can see him riding it out till Christmas. But if the derby goes badly, all bets are off.
3. Are you confident Brendan Rodgers can turn things around at Liverpool?
In the short term, he might. He’ll pick up a few wins, interspersed with a few defeats. Rinse and repeat. Every promise of a bright new dawn dashed. And we end up back at the same place. Agony prolonged for everyone.
One of my big problems with Rodgers is, for someone who prides himself on his tactical acumen, he doesn’t half get out-thought a lot. Every manager can lose games. But the manner of our defeats in the last 12 months is telling. We’ve been out-maneuvered by people like Warnock and Allardyce and Pardew (twice) and Sherwood and Hughes and Bruce. We haven’t just been beaten. We’ve been countered, blunted, made to look bereft of ideas. By managers who, with the greatest of respect (sure) aren’t getting a sniff of a top four job anytime soon.
That’s as damning as any statistic you can throw about.
He may yet make us all look like dopes. He may prove that 13-14 was the norm not the anomaly. And I’ll be happy if he does because none of this is personal. Not for me. I just think it’s become too entrenched now to be recovered. Too much hatred, too much vitriol, too many questions without an answer.
We all need a lift. We all need to get back to enjoying the game. We all need someone to get behind. Right now, that’s not Brendan Rodgers. Does anyone think it ever will be?
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Pics: David Rawcliffe-Propaganda-Photo
Don’t think I’ve read one person answer the 3rd question with a yes. That’s deeply worrying. Also when Neil Scott spells out the managers who’ve out thought him it’s quite stark.
All in all its saying there’s not a great deal of hope about……is that where we want to be?!
Yep, it really did put it into context. Sad thing is we’re now in a position of simply waiting until the inevitable, and the each day that passes in a wasted opportunity.
My 2p’s worth…
1. Sacked at the end of last season…..yes. As bad a season as the previous one was good. Poor transfer business (I don’t buy the TC argument, sorry), poor tactics that change too often, lack of fight towards the end of the season and a humiliation at Stoke the final nail in the coffin. Not only that but he should have resigned when his number two and head coach were sacked.
2. Should he be sacked now…..no. Too early in the season. But watch this space by Christmas. If we bumble along until the end of the season and don’t finish 4th or better then it should be goodbye (regardless of cup success).
3. Can he turn it around….maybe. I give him a 10% chance. We may go on a good run but can he really put his dossier into action? He knee jerks too much for me which points to lack of confidence in his long term plan.
Winning over the fans will only happen with good results. I hope he does it. Not for his sake but for the club’s sake.
If you look on most football club forums, the main topic of conversation is about sacking or keeping the manager. The role obsesses us all. Few of us are sure how much the manager does, or if the players even really pay much attention to him (other than waiting to see if he has picked them).
No fan can be happy, if the manager doesn’t fit the bill in their eyes. Half the squad can be crap, but if the manager has the face of a nocturnal bird, likes 4-4-2 and speaks like Frank Spencer’s dad, utter despair ensues before he’s even had time to properly insult us.
We put our hopes and dreams in men with ruddy complexions, piles and a touch of gout. Everything they say is pored over earnestly. We gradually kill them and then throw rocks at the corpse. Even this fails to sate us.
Should this job really still be done by one man, year after year, as it has been since the global game was worth about 5 quid? We berate the manager for giving young men in their prime too much game time, as it might all be a bit much for them. But we want to see the manager at it for 18 hours a day, 364 days of the year.
We rail that he isn’t given even more influence and responsibility. He must be allowed to do everything and be his own man. The coaching, the media, the deals, the works. Most quickly get the sack. Those who don’t tend to go mad.
Players are rotated. If they lose form or confidence, they are taken out of the firing line for a bit and somebody else steps in while they get their heads together again. The manager just gets thrown back into the bear-pit every day. There is no middle-ground. He either leads us alone to the promised land, or we butcher him.
Rotate your coaches? Give the guy under the cosh a few weeks with the reserves, away from the spotlight? Impossible! There can only be one leader and we want our pound of flesh next Saturday.
Tear his carcass apart and see if he really bleeds red.
a great descriptions and writing, Lady in whatever,… you are a pro writer, arent u? maybe u should vontribite regularly at TAW?
I do think, fundmentally, he is a little bit of a bluffer, blagger, braggart, whatever.
2013-14 season? Well to some extent he was bluffing there too, but bluffing with the best hand, which almost lead to him, in continuing poker parlance, clearing up the table.
“You’re the boy that talks but says nothin’
A big game to the ones that you think will believe you
But you don’t know how to read
The look on my face when it says, yeah I’ve read that book too
And who the hell’s impressed by you?
I want names of the people that we know that are fallin’ for this”
Jack White, Hypocritical Kiss
1. Pffft… Probably. Ish. Not sure. Does 14/15 cancel out 13/14 with all the mitigating circumstances? He still made some strange decisions outside of all the context that was spoken about surrounding Suarez/Sturridge, transfer committees, the Sterling saga, the fuss surrounding Gerrard’s impending departure, etc. Giving Mignolet his break to bring Brad Jones in for games against Arsenal and United is a bit dense when you’re trying to save 4th spot. Needing a win in the last group game at home against Basel where the likes of Enrique and Lambert find a starting birth and player of the season Coutinho very much doesn’t is still a head scratcher. The Lovren/Sakho argument that bled in to this season.
2. No. Some actual creativity and chances in open play against Norwich. See how we get on till after the derby. See how he mixes and matches Benteke, Sturridge and Ings when they’re all available. That’s probably the better time for this talk to be honest, but I get that you’re taking stick from some heads in the comments over being in some kind of pro-Rodgers Illuminati cult and feel the need to respond to it, just to basically say that loads of you wouldn’t have minded seeing the back of him.
3. I’d love to say our next 13/14esque adventure is coming next year after maybe a cup win for him and nicking 4th this season, but I just don’t see it happening in this environment. Everything’s got to go near perfectly for him to be the Liverpool manager long term at this point. I’d be surprised if he’s still here this time next year. All this might have been sound had Gerrard have lifted the title 18 months ago. Ah shite… There goes my head. Don’t know why I bring that up. No good comes from it.
Just a general point about how we’ve been run these last two summers: so the fella nearly pulls the ultimate off after managing us to our best season in ages, you give him a bumper contract, but yet there’s still this my signings vs your signings argument when it goes tits up with seemingly no one accountable (unless you’re Mike Marsh and Colin Pascoe. Who aren’t in the frame for the misspending on transfers anyway). After a failure of a season your next move is to… Give him more autonomy to get more of his type of signings? Does anyone see the arse-backwards disconnect in logic there?
A club that at least tries for competence would usually reward achievement with increased power then take it away accordingly or get rid entirely after a manager has failed on his own terms. FSG are great businessmen and all that and I’m sure they know their baseball or whatever but on footy they are fully mental. Benefit of the doubt for them during the Comolli/Kenny period, but it’ll have been 5 years next month since they took over. Things still shouldn’t be this weird.
This is a manager who has no pedigree of winning things anywhere, remember. And he’s already the 2nd longest serving manager in the Prem, so he has got time. More time than a manager would get at any top club in Europe without winning something.
In my eyes, we’ve seen two Rodgers. The one that has at least ONE quality striker at his disposal, and then there’s the one reliant upon Balotelli, Lambert, and Borini.
With Suarez in the side, Rodgers had a win ratio of 50.38% (67-30-36). With Sturridge in the side, he has a win ratio of 60.29% (41-15-12).
When Sturridge was available last season, Rodgers had a record of 12-2-4. With Suarez absent, but Sturridge in the side, Rodgers has a record of 19-4-5. During the 10 game ban, we are a more balanced side, scoring 19 and conceding just 6. Sturridge scores 11 goals in those 10 games.
No one wants to even look at what his record is when both Suarez and Sturridge were unavailable. I can’t even bear to calculate the stats. But, put it this way, take away the 13 game unbeaten run last season, and that’s pretty much it.
Now, we have Sturridge returning, plus Benteke and Firmino. That’s 134 goals in the last 3 seasons between them. It seems entirely feasible – more than that in my eternal sunshine – that they are able to all click together with Coutinho.
And what’s more, I see them all able to succeed within the particular philosophy that Rodgers espouses along with O’Driscoll and Lijnders. And if they do succeed, and we do find a better defensive balance, we really could hit the heights.
Think of the semi-final last season against Chelsea, the one with Costa stamping Emre Can. We went toe-to-toe with the Champions when they were at their best. Now, imagine the same game except with Daniel Sturridge instead of Sterling, and Benteke instead of Balotelli. No way are they the better side, and no way they are going to Wembley.
We already saw a glimpse of our potential against Arsenal. And that was without Sturridge against a side that had just played a full season together. I think if we click, then there is no side out there we will need fear. And I, for one, am willing to give Rodgers until December to see if he can make that click happen.
For what it is worth, I did a tally of the answers (this is far from exact science folks). 15 people answered across the three posts. See below.
First, the consensus. As I see it and as I’ve tallied it, the answers suggest the following:
1- Rodgers probably should have been sacked in the summer.
2- There is an even split (with a bit of confusion and hedging) as to whether or not we should sack Rodgers now.
3- Nobody really believes Rodgers can turn this around (maybe briefly, but definitely not long-term).
The actual results as I tallied them (15 people answered the 3 questions):
Question #1:
Yes: 9
No: 3
No, but…: 2
…I don’t know: 1
Question #2:
Yes: 5
Yes, but…: 2
No: 5
…I don’t know: 3
Question #3:
Yes, but…: 1
No: 10
No, but…: 1
…I don’t know: 2
I hope…: 1
As for me (as if my opinion matters), I think I’d answer:
1- Yes
2- Yes, but…only if we can get someone who has real experience and has won some things at the top level who is also willing to work with the dozen+ new players we’ve bought over the last 15 months. (So, Klopp or Ancelotti?)
3- No.
1. Probably not.
I think it’s reasonable that he got the chance to turn it around after the 6-1 loss at Stoke.
2. Yes.
After a summer transfer window where it’s been reported that he got all his targets, as well as appointing a new coaching team that share his playing philosophy, you’d expect us to start the season with a clear set-up + tactics.
You would also expect that after spending big on attacking players that we’d be more dangerous.
You would expect that the manager would’ve bought players to fit a specific system that he wanted to play.
In reality we’ve started the season playing all number of formations. We don’t have enough wide players, but keep setting up in formations that require wide players. As a result players are being played out of position. In the Man U game, 3 of our summer signings were playing out of position (Gomez, Ings, Firmino).
Our team is crying out for a top CM, and we didn’t buy one. It’s become known that Rodgers was interested in Kroos, yet we end up buying Milner. There is a huge gap between Kroos and Milner!
Illori never got a chance before Gomez was bought. Origi was brought back but it seems he’s off again in Jan. Lucas was all packed and ready to go, yet after staying he’s started every game. Can has ended up back as a CB against Norwich at home…
It just seems like Rodgers doesn’t really know what he wants.
3. I don’t think he can
4 years on and are we honestly any better than the day he arrived?
I understand that we’ve lost the likes of Suarez and Sterling, but he’s had 120m to replace them and he hasn’t.
It doesn’t take a genius to see that Balotelli, Benteke, Ings, + Origi are not the same kinds of players. This suggest to me that Rodgers lucked upon the SAS, because he’s shown that he can’t go out and find similar kinds of players to replace them – even if it means getting players a level below because you can’t replace Suarez like for like.
I think Benteke and Ings will do well for us, I just don’t see how they in any way fit in with any kind of football Rodgers has ever talked about.
Half of the things that Rodgers used to say, we no longer do, and arguably have never done for a sustained period of time – like:
‘playing the same formation through all age groups’
‘winning the ball back in the first 6 seconds’
‘dominating possession’
‘death by football’
He’s a manager who talks in soundbites, but very rarely actually achieves what he talks about.
I agree completely with the guy on Monday’s TAW (I think it was), who said ‘Rodgers is a coach, he’s not a manager’ – and I think that sums it up.