The car's not starting? Let's replace the wing mirrors (ESPN article)

by Dave Usher for ESPN

Brendan Rodgers may have kept his job -- for now at least -- but the staff room at Liverpool's Melwood Training Ground will still be without a couple of familiar faces next season. First-team coach Mike Marsh and assistant manager Colin Pascoe have both been relieved of their duties, leaving Rodgers in what looks to be an almost untenable looking position. While the decision has been reported as being "mutually agreed" by Rodgers, chairman Tom Werner and the club's principle owner John W. Henry, it's difficult to believe Rodgers could have been happy about it.

After all, it was the Northern Irishman who promoted Marsh from the Academy to his first-team coaching staff three summers ago after he impressed with his work on the club's preseason tour of the United States, while Pascoe is one of his closest friends as well as long-time assistant. It's therefore almost impossible to imagine Rodgers pushing for their dismissals. Indeed, some feel that it's surprising he didn't resign in protest, especially after the axing of his loyal number two Pascoe.

These latest developments would certainly appear to be ownership-driven and Rodgers was presumably given a choice by Fenway Sports Group to either accept it and keep his job, or leave with his friends.

As soon as it was announced that, despite presiding over the most disappointing of seasons, Rodgers would stay, it was inevitable that there would be cosmetic changes lower down the food chain. The powers that be at Anfield knew that they couldn't just carry on with everything as it was and expect the club's increasingly disgruntled supporters to buy into it. They had to be seen to be doing something, and Marsh and Pascoe made convenient "fall guys" for the failings of others higher up.

Just for the sake of argument, though, let's say they were completely terrible at what they did. Exactly how much impact would that have made on Liverpool's season anyway?

Pascoe and Marsh had nothing to do with the absolute abomination of a transfer window last summer that looks to have set Liverpool back. They didn't pick the team or decide on the tactics throughout the season and they didn't make the substitutions. The Reds did not freeze against Aston Villa at Wembley because of how Marsh put the cones out in training that week and they did not concede six at Stoke because the players were dazzled by the glare off Pascoe's bare legs.

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