Brentan Rodgers

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Rossa said:
When did wages become part of the the transfer fee? If you sell the player after three years, do you take away the last two years of wages or how does that work? Do you include the sell-on fee, marketing value and shirt sales to the table as well? It's such a ridiculous way of talking about what a player costs. He was talking about transfer fees. Stop taking everything else into account. That's very Liverpool-ish! Net worth, net worth.
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Once again as you must have missed the point - the point is Liverpool cannot afford to buy players like that because they cannot afford the wages, so what's the point in using them as a comparison?

There was never ever even a slight chance that they could have used that money to buy players like Falcao or ADM instead. Liverpool could only dream of shelling out 500k in wages p/w on two players.

It doesn't mean they didn't buy some average or under-performing players with the money they did spend though.
 
cesc's_mullet said:
Once again as you must have missed the point - the point is Liverpool cannot afford to buy players like that because they cannot afford the wages, so what's the point in using them as a comparison?

There was never ever even a slight chance that they could have used that money to buy players like Falcao or ADM instead. Liverpool could only dream of shelling out 500k in wages p/w on two players.

It doesn't mean they didn't buy some average or under-performing players with the money they did spend though.
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I know Liverpool don't have the financial power of United. However, taking wages into account when taking about transfer fees is a little ridiculous considering there are so many factors coming into play when you start opening those boxes.

What you also must consider is that United most likely have to pay more, both in terms of transfer fees and wages than most other clubs simply because the other clubs and the agents know that they can and are even willing to pay more.

They didn't have to shell out 500k for two players. What they should and could have done was go for that one world class signing and go for cheaper options also to provide more depth. Rodgers exclusively went for depth it seems. Look at how much a player like Sanchez improved Arsenal, for instance. Comparing ADM and Sanchez, United had to pay over the top. Liverpool could certainly have done with a player of his calibre. Also, I'm sure that Balotelli wasn't all that cheap, but he was a big gamble and one that didn't pay off, thus far at least. That transfer fee and those wages could have been spent on a premium striker, to use car terminology, if they had dropped one or two of the other average signings.
 
He's a good manager - albeit one with weakmesses, like most - in a bad run. Like most managers once the pressure is on he's making more poor decisions. I don't like this modern idea of dealing only in absolutes. He's not the finished article but with time and patience I imagine he'll prove a good manager.

Obviously he comes across like a bit of a tit at times and if I ever ended up trapped in a lift with him I imagine I'd quickly be yearning for the sweet release of falling 20 floors to my death but that doesn't make him a bad manager.
 
Are the decisions he's making all that poor? It's just he's been scrutinized a lot more due to their form. He was probably right to drop Mignolet. He was probably right to go with Sterling up front too.
 
Can't believe he took Lallana off. He was there best player. I was confident when I saw that.

Lallana must be pissed. Consistently one of their best players and gets dropped.
 
Rossa said:
I know Liverpool don't have the financial power of United. However, taking wages into account when taking about transfer fees is a little ridiculous considering there are so many factors coming into play when you start opening those boxes.

What you also must consider is that United most likely have to pay more, both in terms of transfer fees and wages than most other clubs simply because the other clubs and the agents know that they can and are even willing to pay more.

They didn't have to shell out 500k for two players. What they should and could have done was go for that one world class signing and go for cheaper options also to provide more depth. Rodgers exclusively went for depth it seems. Look at how much a player like Sanchez improved Arsenal, for instance. Comparing ADM and Sanchez, United had to pay over the top. Liverpool could certainly have done with a player of his calibre. Also, I'm sure that Balotelli wasn't all that cheap, but he was a big gamble and one that didn't pay off, thus far at least. That transfer fee and those wages could have been spent on a premium striker, to use car terminology, if they had dropped one or two of the other average signings.
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I must have worded my first post poorly - I was simply trying to say what I said in the post you quoted there. Not really using wages to include in the amounts being paid for transfers.

Personally I just don't see who they really could have obtained that would be of the requisite class to be comparable to quality players like ADM, Fabregas, etc. bar Sanchez of course. They're playing on a different field to United, Chelsea and City where transfers or potential transfers are concerned.

All of their signings would have been speculative or had questions marks over them, just as Balotelli, Lallana, etc had when they signed for them. Just so happens that to date none of their signings have paid off.
 
RedDevilCanuck said:
Can't believe he took Lallana off. He was there best player. I was confident when I saw that.

Lallana must be pissed. Consistently one of their best players and gets dropped.
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He's not a ninety minute player though, and it's not as if he's set the world alight.
 
Brophs said:
He's a good manager - albeit one with weakmesses, like most - in a bad run. Like most managers once the pressure is on he's making more poor decisions. I don't like this modern idea of dealing only in absolutes. He's not the finished article but with time and patience I imagine he'll prove a good manager.

Obviously he comes across like a bit of a tit at times and if I ever ended up trapped in a lift with him I imagine I'd quickly be yearning for the sweet release of falling 20 floors to my death but that doesn't make him a bad manager.
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Of course he's a good manager; he wouldn't be able to do what he did last season unless he is. He's probably also very intelligent. His problem, to me, seems to be that he's a little bit too arrogant. He talks as if he and his team never makes mistakes. It's always just dumb luck or the referees problem. Ferguson was a dick for anyone not a United fan, but he could go flat out and say that United were lucky to win. You just don't hear that from Rodger's, and he seems to genuinely believe it too.
 
RedDevilCanuck said:
Can't believe he took Lallana off. He was there best player. I was confident when I saw that.

Lallana must be pissed. Consistently one of their best players and gets dropped.
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It's baffling how Rodgers has used him so far. He should be playing every game, not coming on/off at half-time or just sitting games out all-together... Seriously WTF is Rodgers thinking?
 
cesc's_mullet said:
I must have worded my first post poorly - I was simply trying to say what I said in the post you quoted there. Not really using wages to include in the amounts being paid for transfers.

Personally I just don't see who they really could have obtained that would be of the requisite class to be comparable to quality players like ADM, Fabregas, etc. bar Sanchez of course. They're playing on a different field to United, Chelsea and City where transfers or potential transfers are concerned.

All of their signings would have been speculative or had questions marks over them, just as Balotelli, Lallana, etc had when they signed for them. Just so happens that to date none of their signings have paid off.
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That's fair enough. They probably can't go for the world class signings that United and Real Madrid can go for. However, United haven't always gone for the current world class players. Instead there has been a mix of signing one or two of the supposedly great players and taking a punt, after good scouting of course, on promising youngsters.

I'm no scout and nor do I have a comprehensive knowledge about all the players in Europe. What I do think is that Rodger's should have tried to find at least one upper class player that could at least somewhat guarantee him results. Now he only bought promising players, or half of that at times. How he could honestly think that Lovren would improve his team is beyond me. He was never an upgrade on what they had, and that is saying something. Lallana isn't a bad purchase, but he's probably the best of the lot...

Don't you also think he should have gone for a bit more quality over quantity as he spunked too much cash on quantity? It goes without saying that if he payed 50.000 pounds in wages for three players, then that is 150.000 that he could have spent on one player instead; there are quite a few very solid players that would come play for those sums.
 
Brophs said:
He's a good manager - albeit one with weakmesses, like most - in a bad run. Like most managers once the pressure is on he's making more poor decisions. I don't like this modern idea of dealing only in absolutes. He's not the finished article but with time and patience I imagine he'll prove a good manager.

Obviously he comes across like a bit of a tit at times and if I ever ended up trapped in a lift with him I imagine I'd quickly be yearning for the sweet release of falling 20 floors to my death but that doesn't make him a bad manager.
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From what I have seen he does not have plan B.

He did nothing yesterday to really take a grip of the game. People may argue that Balotelli made a difference, but Liverpool were carrying Gerrard and Lallana for most of the match. He could of given Sterling a free role, brought on some more legs and put players like Jones under immense pressure as they were on Yellow cards. Most of the good opportunities Liverpool create arose initially because of poor passing by United, not good work from Liverpool.
 
SalfordRed1960 said:
From what I have seen he does not have plan B.

He did nothing yesterday to really take a grip of the game. People may argue that Balotelli made a difference, but Liverpool were carrying Gerrard and Lallana for most of the match. He could of given Sterling a free role, brought on some more legs and put players like Jones under immense pressure as they were on Yellow cards. Most of the good opportunities Liverpool create arose initially because of poor passing by United, not good work from Liverpool.
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Guardiola rarely has a plan B. Sir Alex vs Barcelona in those CL finals didn't have a plan B. I can name many other examples where you could say the same thing. Rogers is clearly a good coach, anyone who can get a team to play with the intensity, pace and power without top players like his Liverpool last year must be good at something. Unfortunately for him though, being a good coach alone doesn't make you a good manager and it looks like he maybe comes short when it comes to other aspects of management like man-management. Or this simply could be a bad period that he will get over. The point is just because he comes across like an insufferable tool, doesn't mean he's bad at what he does.
 
Theonas said:
Guardiola rarely has a plan B. Sir Alex vs Barcelona in those CL finals didn't have a plan B. I can name many other examples where you could say the same thing. Rogers is clearly a good coach, anyone who can get a team to play with the intensity, pace and power without top players like his Liverpool last year must be good at something. Unfortunately for him though, being a good coach alone doesn't make you a good manager and it looks like he maybe comes short when it comes to other aspects of management like man-management. Or this simply could be a bad period that he will get over. The point is just because he comes across like an insufferable tool, doesn't mean he's bad at what he does.
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Agreed, not saying he is bad, but even last year there were question marks about his ability to get his team to defend as a unit. Very good last year on the attack, though.

Many of us on here gave Moyes absolute hell for not being able to motivate the players. Look at the likes of Gerrard, Henderson and Co yesterday and in previous games this season. It is easy to hide behind the 'we would have done this with Sturridge', but we do not really know that. Their players left the park arguing. Henderson in particular was giving other players grief for the passes he was getting/not getting. Their is something wrong at the moment.

Said it in other threads, Liverpool played well above themselves last year, regardless of how well there attack was, which is easy to do when the ball rolls for you. Look how they collapsed after Chelsea and Palace. Look at how RVP is performing now that he has got a bit of confidence. It is the same for all teams, gives you that extra spring.
 
SalfordRed1960 said:
Agreed, not saying he is bad, but even last year there were question marks about his ability to get his team to defend as a unit. Very good last year on the attack, though.

Many of us on here gave Moyes absolute hell for not being able to motivate the players. Look at the likes of Gerrard, Henderson and Co yesterday and in previous games this season. It is easy to hide behind the 'we would have done this with Sturridge', but we do not really know that. Their players left the park arguing. Henderson in particular was giving other players grief for the passes he was getting/not getting. Their is something wrong at the moment.

Said it in other threads, Liverpool played well above themselves last year, regardless of how well there attack was, which is easy to do when the ball rolls for you. Look how they collapsed after Chelsea and Palace. Look at how RVP is performing now that he has got a bit of confidence. It is the same for all teams, gives you that extra spring.
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Yes we gave Moyes hell because he couldn't motivate our players and that is exactly what I meant when I said that Rogers might be lacking on other aspects of management. He might be bad at man-management, motivation, identifying the right players to buy or whatever. But as far as coaching goes and the ability to teach a team how to play, I thought what he did last season was the work of a well coached team and not simply a confident team.

I really disagree that attacking is easy to do. Defending is easier as all it takes is put numbers at the back. Even Liverpool looked strong defending when they went to Madrid simply because they had 8 or 9 men behind the ball at all times. The tricky part is to manage to do both to an efficient level which is extremely rare to achieve. Even Chelsea this year, I wouldn't say they are as good going forward as Liverpool were in the second part of last season. In fact the only team I can think of who managed to defend and attack equally well was City last winter for 2 or 3 months. Liverpool relied on a high risk game where they took the lead and could afford to sit back and commit numbers. When that didn't happen like against Chelsea last year, they had to come forward and that is what is happening to them this year.
 
He will get until the end of the season, and it would be mad if he didnt. (Unless of course he loses like the next five in a row and it doesnt look like changing). I expect Liverpool to be inconsistent and finish midtable / top 8.

Sturridge, if he ever returns, will obviously be a boost. Europa League will be a nuisance because its a got the carrot of CL place for next season.

But I dont understand Liverpool / Rodgers from the summer. When he first came in, you could see his methods, what he was trying. Play the ball out the back, keep possession, and pressure the opposition.
The summer saw him bring in Lambert (but its not the worst thing because he should be a plan B for them), and then bring in players who dont really fit a style of fast paced pressure and possession.

Lallana should be playing more often then he is. I did find it odd that Balotelli didnt start today, I was certain he would have wanted to do well against United after his time at City. He actually did ok when coming on (except scoring and the constant whining when losing the ball but that the latter is expected)

The money wasted in the summer though will cost him long term.
 
Rossa said:
That's fair enough. They probably can't go for the world class signings that United and Real Madrid can go for. However, United haven't always gone for the current world class players. Instead there has been a mix of signing one or two of the supposedly great players and taking a punt, after good scouting of course, on promising youngsters.

I'm no scout and nor do I have a comprehensive knowledge about all the players in Europe. What I do think is that Rodger's should have tried to find at least one upper class player that could at least somewhat guarantee him results. Now he only bought promising players, or half of that at times. How he could honestly think that Lovren would improve his team is beyond me. He was never an upgrade on what they had, and that is saying something. Lallana isn't a bad purchase, but he's probably the best of the lot...

Don't you also think he should have gone for a bit more quality over quantity as he spunked too much cash on quantity? It goes without saying that if he payed 50.000 pounds in wages for three players, then that is 150.000 that he could have spent on one player instead; there are quite a few very solid players that would come play for those sums.
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His signings have definitely been poor-to-rubbish so far this season - but at the time I thought they would all be decent-to-good signings, but maybe not for those prices (for example I think Lallana is a quality player, just really not a marquee signing or a statement of intent kind of signing, and one you wouldn't pay 25 million for). That was at the time, in hindsight now it seems Lovren has been a shambles, and the rest have question marks over them for various reasons.

Who could they have signed though?

I guess Remy would be the first name that comes to mind that they could/should have wrapped up.
 
As much as I'd love him to stay at Liverpool, I'm struggling to see the "he's a good manager" argument, in all honesty. Last season very much seemed like the exception, rather than the rule.

Started his career at Watford, taking over a team that had finished in the Championship play-offs the season before from 21st at the time of taking over (November) to er...22nd by the end of January. Then, given that they didn't sign anyone, it appears the team that finished 6th the year before remembered they weren't quite shit enough to get relegated and managed a comfortable mid-table finish.

Following his "success" at keeping almost-promoted-the-year-before Watford up, he took the Reading seat after Steve Coppell's departure. Recently relegated from the Premier League, Reading were hardly looking likely contenders for relegation. But Brentan had other ideas, steering the side to 21st by mid-December. They finished 9th after he left.

Swansea, who missed out on the play-offs by a single point the season before Rodgers' arrival, hired Brentan to continue their charge up the English league system. Guided by Brentan, who was praised for implementing an eerily similar style of play to predecessor, Roberto Martinez (Paulo Sousa doesn't count), Swansea managed to secure a place in the play-offs, and subsequently winning a place in the Premier League. Swansea then continued playing the Brendan-Rodgers-and-definitely-not-Roberto-Martinez influenced style of passing football, and managed a respectable 11th placed finish in their first season in the top flight.

As Swansea didn't quite match his ambition, Brentan then moved North, to the sunbeds of Liverpool. A team still in transition after 20 years and 7 managers since their last league win, Rodgers, #8, was going to be the man to complete their transition. New owners, money to spend, new ambition, a tried and tested (and definitely not commonplace) style of football - things were looking up for Liverpool. After a couple of season of mid-table mediocrity that had seen the previous three managers sacked, Brendan led Liverpool to 7th, one place higher than they'd finished the year before.

All was not lost though because Brendan was still in a job, and he'd come up with a new style of football that involved going shit or bust for an hour and hoping you'd scored enough for your inevitable end of game collapse to not matter. This saw Liverpool finish an unprecedented 2nd, narrowly missing out on the title after teams realised not giving them space and/or scoring 3 in the last half hour at Selhurst Park were ample tactics to halt the Liverpool charge. With the fans furiously denying that their bolt from the blue title charge was at all related to a lack of European football, Luis Suarez being one of the best players in the world, Daniel Sturridge miraculously not being injured every game, David Moyes existing, Chelsea and City also getting new managers, Spurs sacking theirs part way through the season and replacing him with a PE teacher, and Arsenal being Arsenal, it was clear that Liverpool were ready for a second stab at the long awaited 19th title.

There was a twist in the tale, with Liverpool's star man, the racist rat-face with rabies, Luis Suarez, was leaving for Barcelona. Liverpool weren't a one man team though, and in the 5 transfer windows leading up to the 2014-15 season, Brentan had spent over £200 million bringing in a squad of average wingers and strikers to cope with the departure. It turns out that overpaying for a couple of shite defenders and a crap keeper doesn't solve defensive woes though, and Liverpool now find themselves languishing in 10th, 2 points ahead of Stoke, and that team from Birmingham that didn't score for an entire month.
 
KiD MoYeS said:
Are the decisions he's making all that poor? It's just he's been scrutinized a lot more due to their form. He was probably right to drop Mignolet. He was probably right to go with Sterling up front too.
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Me and a Liverpool sympathising mate were discussing the possible lineups on Friday, and to be fair i said to him i'd consider playing Sterling up front while Sturridge is out. Even after the game i don't necessarily think it was a bad decision, against most other keepers he'd have had a brace. Could do a job there certainly.
 
BorisDeLeFora said:
Bringing on Markovic to play left wing back was one of the most stupid things I have seen a manager do, what an absolute waste of everyone's time.
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Couldn't understand playing Henderson as a wing back either, he's like their most energetic midfielder and someone who could have closed down the space Mata & Rooney were afforded in midfield, instead he puts in Stevie Me, who spent the entire game hiding infront of his center backs. The amount of time and space Rooney got sometimes was incredible against a team that came out looking to press.
 
Ive always had a gut feeling that Rodgers is a good manager but he's made some mistakes this year. I don't think he's making the best choices on team selection ATM and I don't think the summer money was spent wisely at all.
 
Theonas said:
Guardiola rarely has a plan B....
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I think Guardiola's plan B is formation based, not stylistic. Barcelona made adjustment against teams like Madrid and United, when those teams would press hard to start, but they were more positional:

Busquets would drop extra deep, Xavi was very flexible back when he had mobility and some other stuff I can't think of right now. Oh yeah, Alves moving higher up the pitch.
 
He's a good coach, but he still has to prove himself as a manager.

With regards to the "big" signings, it's not about big names. It's about delivering with good players at the end of the day. You can't spend 100 million and not get a single player who truly makes his mark. An example is our signing of Blind. Signed for little, not a big name, but he made a proper impact. Suarez and Sturridge weren't top top players when Liverpool signed them either.

If the excuse is that he signed squad players, then they haven't looked like good squad players. Although I'd argue that you can't spend 100 million and have only squad players to show for it.
 
Alex99 said:
As much as I'd love him to stay at Liverpool, I'm struggling to see the "he's a good manager" argument, in all honesty. Last season very much seemed like the exception, rather than the rule.

Started his career at Watford, taking over a team that had finished in the Championship play-offs the season before from 21st at the time of taking over (November) to er...22nd by the end of January. Then, given that they didn't sign anyone, it appears the team that finished 6th the year before remembered they weren't quite shit enough to get relegated and managed a comfortable mid-table finish.

Following his "success" at keeping almost-promoted-the-year-before Watford up, he took the Reading seat after Steve Coppell's departure. Recently relegated from the Premier League, Reading were hardly looking likely contenders for relegation. But Brentan had other ideas, steering the side to 21st by mid-December. They finished 9th after he left.

Swansea, who missed out on the play-offs by a single point the season before Rodgers' arrival, hired Brentan to continue their charge up the English league system. Guided by Brentan, who was praised for implementing an eerily similar style of play to predecessor, Roberto Martinez (Paulo Sousa doesn't count), Swansea managed to secure a place in the play-offs, and subsequently winning a place in the Premier League. Swansea then continued playing the Brendan-Rodgers-and-definitely-not-Roberto-Martinez influenced style of passing football, and managed a respectable 11th placed finish in their first season in the top flight.

As Swansea didn't quite match his ambition, Brentan then moved North, to the sunbeds of Liverpool. A team still in transition after 20 years and 7 managers since their last league win, Rodgers, #8, was going to be the man to complete their transition. New owners, money to spend, new ambition, a tried and tested (and definitely not commonplace) style of football - things were looking up for Liverpool. After a couple of season of mid-table mediocrity that had seen the previous three managers sacked, Brendan led Liverpool to 7th, one place higher than they'd finished the year before.

All was not lost though because Brendan was still in a job, and he'd come up with a new style of football that involved going shit or bust for an hour and hoping you'd scored enough for your inevitable end of game collapse to not matter. This saw Liverpool finish an unprecedented 2nd, narrowly missing out on the title after teams realised not giving them space and/or scoring 3 in the last half hour at Selhurst Park were ample tactics to halt the Liverpool charge. With the fans furiously denying that their bolt from the blue title charge was at all related to a lack of European football, Luis Suarez being one of the best players in the world, Daniel Sturridge miraculously not being injured every game, David Moyes existing, Chelsea and City also getting new managers, Spurs sacking theirs part way through the season and replacing him with a PE teacher, and Arsenal being Arsenal, it was clear that Liverpool were ready for a second stab at the long awaited 19th title.

There was a twist in the tale, with Liverpool's star man, the racist rat-face with rabies, Luis Suarez, was leaving for Barcelona. Liverpool weren't a one man team though, and in the 5 transfer windows leading up to the 2014-15 season, Brentan had spent over £200 million bringing in a squad of average wingers and strikers to cope with the departure. It turns out that overpaying for a couple of shite defenders and a crap keeper doesn't solve defensive woes though, and Liverpool now find themselves languishing in 10th, 2 points ahead of Stoke, and that team from Birmingham that didn't score for an entire month.
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:lol: re: the bolded part!

It seems as thought the stars aligned for them last season for the reasons that you outline above. Now that things are not going so smoothly, then he is looking increasingly unable to turn things around.

I would not say he is a bad manager, but I agree with what you have written in that I don't think his record bears close scrutiny. I think he falls quite a way short of the level of manager that he believes himself to be. He comes across as insufferably arrogant, but the problem is that his arrogance only serves to come back to haunt him. His comments about Tottenham come to mind - either about how they wasted the Bale money by buying mediocre talent (sounds familiar), or how any team who spends over 100m should be challenging for the league. Also, his 'warning' to LvG after the preseason game smacked of hubris. These statements were all ones that only work if they are uttered by someone who has been a serial challenger for the league and is always up there in contention. Not someone who appears to have had a freakish season - which is what last season is looking like having been for Liverpool.
 
Brophs said:
He's a good manager - albeit one with weakmesses, like most - in a bad run. Like most managers once the pressure is on he's making more poor decisions. I don't like this modern idea of dealing only in absolutes. He's not the finished article but with time and patience I imagine he'll prove a good manager.
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Agree with that. My only concern is has the form/performances/confidence reached the point of no return?

KiD MoYeS said:
Are the decisions he's making all that poor? It's just he's been scrutinized a lot more due to their form. He was probably right to drop Mignolet. He was probably right to go with Sterling up front too.
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No, those decisions have been fine. It's the stupid political games that he's playing with Sakho that bothers me.

KiD MoYeS said:
He's not a ninety minute player though, and it's not as if he's set the world alight.
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He averaged over 80 minutes a game last year for Southampton in the league and he's played well in nearly every game he's played for us so far.

Rossa said:
Don't you also think he should have gone for a bit more quality over quantity as he spunked too much cash on quantity?
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He has said that's what he tried to do but they wouldn't come.

Theonas said:
Guardiola rarely has a plan B. Sir Alex vs Barcelona in those CL finals didn't have a plan B. I can name many other examples where you could say the same thing. Rogers is clearly a good coach, anyone who can get a team to play with the intensity, pace and power without top players like his Liverpool last year must be good at something. Unfortunately for him though, being a good coach alone doesn't make you a good manager and it looks like he maybe comes short when it comes to other aspects of management like man-management. Or this simply could be a bad period that he will get over. The point is just because he comes across like an insufferable tool, doesn't mean he's bad at what he does.
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Spot on.

Theonas said:
Yes we gave Moyes hell because he couldn't motivate our players and that is exactly what I meant when I said that Rogers might be lacking on other aspects of management. He might be bad at man-management, motivation, identifying the right players to buy or whatever. But as far as coaching goes and the ability to teach a team how to play, I thought what he did last season was the work of a well coached team and not simply a confident team.

I really disagree that attacking is easy to do. Defending is easier as all it takes is put numbers at the back. Even Liverpool looked strong defending when they went to Madrid simply because they had 8 or 9 men behind the ball at all times. The tricky part is to manage to do both to an efficient level which is extremely rare to achieve. Even Chelsea this year, I wouldn't say they are as good going forward as Liverpool were in the second part of last season. In fact the only team I can think of who managed to defend and attack equally well was City last winter for 2 or 3 months. Liverpool relied on a high risk game where they took the lead and could afford to sit back and commit numbers. When that didn't happen like against Chelsea last year, they had to come forward and that is what is happening to them this year.
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Once more, spot on.
 
These things with fall from graces always bothers me.

I don't know what happened to be exact, but a solid manager who almost won the league shouldn't be performing these bad the next season (including Klopp, who have quite a few years building that dortmund side), it's more than a simple blip.

All the great managers of the past may have a bad season or two, but never this catastrophic.

I firmly believe that Rodgers is a charlatan who gets extremely lucky last season, believing his own hype and brought back down to earth.

LVG, Ancelloti, Scolari, Hiddink etc have "stability" in their reign, they don't always win but they don't have blips as often as Rodgers. Even Mark Hughes, Bruce, Pullis et all have stability (although their stability is at midtable).

The way I see it, Brenda lost his way this season, he doesn't believe in his own philosophy visible from the way he chop and change for the sake of it, without any major reasons. Most successful managers believe firmly in their philosophy, they tweak it one or twice in their career. Our own SAF have shifted his ways of working along the years, but you always knew what his principles are. I can't see anything solid with Rodgers
 
Theonas said:
Guardiola rarely has a plan B. Sir Alex vs Barcelona in those CL finals didn't have a plan B. I can name many other examples where you could say the same thing. Rogers is clearly a good coach, anyone who can get a team to play with the intensity, pace and power without top players like his Liverpool last year must be good at something. Unfortunately for him though, being a good coach alone doesn't make you a good manager and it looks like he maybe comes short when it comes to other aspects of management like man-management. Or this simply could be a bad period that he will get over. The point is just because he comes across like an insufferable tool, doesn't mean he's bad at what he does.
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It's easy to say this in retrospect

But for plan B to work, they'll need a new sets of formations, a different approach, preparations, another set of player, and in real life games it's not as simple as clicking "Set to X formation" as in FM.

Pep and SAF are winning most of their matches, it's not always they have to come out with plan B.

Our match against Barcelona for example. There's not much you can do to alter a formation during the match, you can prepare for x,y,z but during the game where the game is played in real life, the clock is ticking, you'll be gambling with every decision you made, and it's not like SAF can yell "PLAN B" and all of a sudden the whole teams plays a different set of formation.

Hence why plan B normally are just quite a simple thing of putting your defender up top, changing a player or two, you simply can't change the course of a jumbo jet in a matter of minutes.
 
coolredwine said:
Markovic and Henderson as wingbacks? Taking Lallana off at HT instead of Coutinho? Brad Jones?
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I understand why he sacrificed Moreno for another attacker. I would have done the same. Don't agree with his handling of Lallana at all. I wouldn't have taken either him or Coutinho off. Jones was a good decision and I'm glad he's finally made it.
 
The decision to sell Suarez and not use the opportunity to get rid of Gerrard and buy a top midfielder is one which might cost him his job. He's been too halfway house this season and afraid to make big calls. His signings have all been questionable too. None of them seem to have it in them to reach a world class level.
 
Will he be "sacked in the morning"?

I can see Brendan being sacked because he spent a lot of money and by each passing day it looks like the money was spent very badly and because he don't have any idea what to do to turn things around. He looks clueless right now.
 
Barney said:
I understand why he sacrificed Moreno for another attacker. I would have done the same. Don't agree with his handling of Lallana at all. I wouldn't have taken either him or Coutinho off. Jones was a good decision and I'm glad he's finally made it.
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Are there any changing room unrest?

Been hearing some whispering about them not liking Balotelli, droping Mignolet seems more about political than rather just performance wise
 
Jerch said:
Will he be "sacked in the morning"?

I can see Brendan being sacked because he spent a lot of money and by each passing day it looks like the money was spent very badly and because he don't have any idea what to do to turn things around. He looks clueless right now.
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I think they'll give him until the end of the season, and then assess where they're at. Anything outside the top 7, and he'll need a new job.
 
Raees said:
The decision to sell Suarez and not use the opportunity to get rid of Gerrard and buy a top midfielder is one which might cost him his job. He's been too halfway house this season and afraid to make big calls. His signings have all been questionable too. None of them seem to have it in them to reach a world class level.
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It's not his decision to sell Suarez, and to be fair to him, Madrid made an offer they can't refuse.

I wouldn't be critical about his signing, lalana, Balotelli, Lovren, Sakho, even Lambert can do a good enough job under a more capable manager (in capable I would say someone how knows how to play them in a team, rather than expecting them to simply do the job on their own). Look at our own LVG, he made use Valencia, Young, even McNair, Blackett accordingly, and they do a "good enough" job.

I'd say that most of his signings were mismanaged from day one, he seems to be not playing to their best positions and style of play, rather he bought them and tried to shoehorn all of them into his last year formation instead of creating a new sets of formation that suits Liverpool post Suarez
 
Sky1981 said:
Are there any changing room unrest?

Been hearing some whispering about them not liking Balotelli, droping Mignolet seems more about political than rather just performance wise
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That could just be the standard media nonsense though because it's the most obvious story to go with.
 
Sky1981 said:
It's not his decision to sell Suarez, and to be fair to him, Madrid made an offer they can't refuse.

I wouldn't be critical about his signing, lalana, Balotelli, Lovren, Sakho, even Lambert can do a good enough job under a more capable manager (in capable I would say someone how knows how to play them in a team, rather than expecting them to simply do the job on their own). Look at our own LVG, he made use Valencia, Young, even McNair, Blackett accordingly, and they do a "good enough" job.

I'd say that most of his signings were mismanaged from day one, he seems to be not playing to their best positions and style of play, rather he bought them and tried to shoehorn all of them into his last year formation instead of creating a new sets of formation that suits Liverpool post Suarez
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Good thing they decided against that offer and went for Barcelonas half-way offer then.
 
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