For me, the jury's still out on AVB at Spurs. He took over a vastly superior squad of players at WHL, whereas the first job Rodgers had to do was offload some of the shite that Kenny had left him with. Only then could he start the job of trying to bridge the gap. His record in the second part of the season is better than Villas Boas. 36 points gained in 19 games. Same as Spurs but more goals scored & fewer conceded - Having brought in a couple of key players in the January transfer window, Rodgers team has played some good stuff. He's also sorted out the defence, which was leaking in goals left, right & centre up until February. 8 clean sheets in the final 13 games is testament to that. I actually feel that the defence is AVB's achilles heel. It was a weak point when he was at Chelsea, & I've not seen anything to change my mind whilst he's been at Tottenham.
You're absolutely right about the likes of Suso & Sterling only being selected out of need rather than choice. But in bringing in better players he's shown to the youngsters what sort of level they need to attain in order to become regular first-teamers. Nothing wrong with that in my book. I'd call it good management. Just in the same way he indentified Martin Skrtel as the weak point in Liverpool's defence. The same bloke that was Liverpool's player of the year the season before, & had City sniffing around last summer. He thought nothing of sticking him on the bench for long periods of the 2nd part of the season. He too now knows what sort of level he needs to be at, week in, week out, if he wants to be part of Liverpool's future.
Brendan Rodgers has slowly, but surely, lifted the standards at Anfield. Considering we only took 2 points out of the first 5 games, I'd be mightily disappointed if we can't add at least another 10 to last season's total.
