Balotelli is scoring goals every week now. Benteke is not doing too bad either. So maybe that says more about Liverpool than those individuals.
Liverpool always do that anyway. They replaced a pacey striker in Owen with Peter Crouch. They replaced Torres with Andy Carroll. And then finally they replaced Suarez with Balotelli. Liverpool and slow "target men" don't go together.
Problem for Rodgers is he went away from his key core principles and brought in forwards like Lambert and Balotelli. In his time at Liverpool he went from a possesion based style of play to a more counter-attacking one which he implemented from Jan 13 onwards with the signings of Coutinho and Sturridge, when you look at that 18 month period for us that side had pace, movement and excellent 1v1 ability.
In 14/15 he was left with two target men up top, he completely abandoned what had worked so successfully for him and decided to play with a target man despite having no clue how to get the best out of one i.e. crosses in to the box, MF runners picking up second balls/knockdown, MF runners beyond the striker etc. Summer 15 he brings in another target man as his primary striker signing and once again fails to get the best out of him. He would have gotten more time if there was a semblance, a hint of a style of play coming in to motion, but there wasnt the result of what he did is literally build a squad geared towards pressing, movement, 1v1 talents and pacy runners in behind and then stick a big lad up front, no wonder it was so impotent.
You cant even point to the TC/Rodgers disconnect because thats negated by the fact he still failed to set up the system for his signing, it might not have worked but showing the fans/board he had a plan but just needed more efficient working parts would have bought him more time. But he couldnt do that because he didnt know how to set up that way. His best run of form post 13/14 was the 3-4-2-1, it gave him the stability at the back by virtue of numbers that he couldnt get with a back 4, once again he had issues between what he wanted, he had two defenders dropping deep in Johnson and Skrtel and two pushing up in Lovren and Moreno, with an ageing Gerrard in front.
Dont get me wrong, behind all the ridiculous stuff he says theres a talented coach in there, he just needs to implement a core style of play and iron out his defensive defeciencies.
And as for Benteke and Balo doing well elsewhere, yeah no shit playing in a team that plays to your strengths and a system geared to maximise them will do that.
As for your other posts about Klopp Firmino et al, I wont bother with, everyones entitled to an opinion.
