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Is Rodgers becoming a laughing stock?


Megadrive Man
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So we completely out play West ham and fail to put away chances and get a very debatable offside given against us ruling out a goal

 

And.....

 

Man United' date=' the league champions, get completely out played in every department and are lucky to scrape a draw with a very offside goal which was not ruled out

 

Give Rodgers a fucking break[/quote']

 

Man Utd are 15 points clear at the top of the table only losing 3 or 4 games all season.

 

Not even a comparison.

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Man Utd are 15 points clear at the top of the table only losing 3 or 4 games all season.

 

Not even a comparison.

 

We played the same team 2 weeks ago and pretty much handled everything they had and out played them

 

People were calling for Rodgers head after that game (as usual)

 

United were totally out played last night, with possibly their strongest defence, attack and midfield on the pitch

 

Just saying like....

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We played the same team 2 weeks ago and pretty much handled everything they had and out played them

 

People were calling for Rodgers head after that game (as usual)

 

United were totally out played last night, with possibly their strongest defence, attack and midfield on the pitch

 

Just saying like....

 

That´s what we do. We destroy opponents only to end up losing or drawing with them. Has been happening this season as well as most of the last season. Points only count. United know how to collect them.

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That´s what we do. We destroy opponents only to end up losing or drawing with them. Has been happening this season as well as most of the last season. Points only count. United know how to collect them.

 

I agree but its not going to happen overnight

 

We are getting consistent at destroying the opposition, win lose or draw, we batter them most of the time.

 

Sometimes the 11 on the pitch can convert chances and make mistakes but we don't have a strong enough bench to change things when that's obviously happening.

 

Give Rodgers time and funds and we will soon

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We played the same team 2 weeks ago and pretty much handled everything they had and out played them

 

United were totally out played last night, with possibly their strongest defence, attack and midfield on the pitch

 

Did that make you wonder how they are 31 points ahead of us?

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Where does this talk come from about us destroying the opposition but not taking our chances? It's an absolute myth. We destroy sides which are shite and don't fight back, everyone else lets us dink it around like dickheads then hits us on the break, what's great about that?

 

Rodgers is like the Wizzard of Oz, getting players to go for the throat and convincing people we're Barcelona in progress, when in actual fact we're a tactical mess.

 

Sorry to keep saying it but the Evans comparisons are glaring. Playing the mancs we used to pass them off the pitch at times but we'd still end up getting arse raped 3-1 and Evans would be absolutely baffled as to why. You'd sit there shaking your head all game watching balls getting floated over our fullbacks' heads while their wingers went wild and cross after cross came in to an unprotected James who'd flap and fuck it up. Felt the same watching our total lack of midfield aganst arse and we ended up drawing, yet people were like 'fucking good result that!'.

 

DwayneT.jpg

 

"I think they're going after the lights"

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I like our football, but I liked the football Forest played, I liked the football West Ham played in years gone by. We’ll probably lose Suarez, what’s certain, the replacement or replacements won’t be anything like. I want Brendan to succeed, I really do, but I don’t have blind faith. I just can’t describe properly what I think. We’re too nice now, that’s completely stupid isn’t it. But we were never a team the rest of the country particularly liked, doesn’t sit well with me now.

 

So for loads of irrational, probably stupid reasons, I ache for either Benitez or Kenny back. Because they were like Scousers, stood up for and said what they believed and fuck everyone else.

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Where does this talk come from about us destroying the opposition but not taking our chances? It's an absolute myth. We destroy sides which are shite and don't fight back, everyone else lets us dink it around like dickheads then hits us on the break, what's great about that?

Rodgers is like the Wizzard of Oz, getting players to go for the throat and convincing people we're Barcelona in progress, when in actual fact we're a tactical mess.

 

Sorry to keep saying it but the Evans comparisons are glaring. Playing the mancs we used to pass them off the pitch at times but we'd still end up getting arse raped 3-1 and Evans would be absolutely baffled as to why. You'd sit there shaking your head all game watching balls getting floated over our fullbacks' heads while their wingers went wild and cross after cross came in to an unprotected James who'd flap and fuck it up. Felt the same watching our total lack of midfield aganst arse and we ended up drawing, yet people were like 'fucking good result that!'.

 

DwayneT.jpg

 

"I think they're going after the lights"

 

I do have one or two concerns about Rodgers, but really come on, Section. Absolutely murdered City in both games and only individual fuck ups cost us. Even if Rodgers does tell his defence to knock it about, you can't legislate for Skrtel making the most basic of errors in not looking where he's passing. Nor can the fella be held account for Reina having an absolute mad one and going for a ball that was of no concern to him, especially since Aguero was being jockeyed by Skrtel.

 

Really should have beaten the Mancs at Anfield. It's not as if they played to their strengths as in the Evans era when they knew they'd have us on set pieces and knew they'd have joy whipping in ball after ball, but it's a different game if the referee doesn't make two scandalous decisions with the Shelvey red and the penalty.

 

The victory against Spurs was a relief but if I'm honest, I don't think the performance was anything special. Credit we kept going, but I thought Spurs were a lot better than us that day and I even remarked to my mate afterwards they were the best team I've seen at Anfield this season. I thought Dembele ran the show, Dawson and Vertonghen were excellent at the back for them and even though he was hardly sparkling, Bale still caused a couple of problems. It was great to win and not play well, but it compared to some of our performances it was lacking, even if it was great to finally show some character.

 

In comparison to both City games, Mancs at Anfield, 60 mins against Arsenal at the Emirates, even Spurs at White Hart Lane when chance after chance went begging, it was hardly a vintage performance from a footballing perspective.

 

Against the top sides, it's only been the first 60 against the Mancs at Old Trafford, Arsenal at Anfield and Chelsea before Sahin was hooked I've been bitterly disappointed with.

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I do have one or two concerns about Rodgers, but really come on, Section. Absolutely murdered City in both games and only individual fuck ups cost us. Even if Rodgers does tell his defence to knock it about, you can't legislate for Skrtel making the most basic of errors in not looking where he's passing. Nor can the fella be held account for Reina having an absolute mad one and going for a ball that was of no concern to him, especially since Aguero was being jockeyed by Skrtel.

 

Really should have beaten the Mancs at Anfield. It's not as if they played to their strengths as in the Evans era when they knew they'd have us on set pieces and knew they'd have joy whipping in ball after ball, but it's a different game if the referee doesn't make two scandalous decisions with the Shelvey red and the penalty.

 

The victory against Spurs was a relief but if I'm honest, I don't think the performance was anything special. Credit we kept going, but I thought Spurs were a lot better than us that day and I even remarked to my mate afterwards they were the best team I've seen at Anfield this season. I thought Dembele ran the show, Dawson and Vertonghen were excellent at the back for them and even though he was hardly sparkling, Bale still caused a couple of problems. It was great to win and not play well, but it compared to some of our performances it was lacking, even if it was great to finally show some character.

 

In comparison to both City games, Mancs at Anfield, 60 mins against Arsenal at the Emirates, even Spurs at White Hart Lane when chance after chance went begging, it was hardly a vintage performance from a footballing perspective.

 

Against the top sides, it's only been the first 60 against the Mancs at Old Trafford, Arsenal at Anfield and Chelsea before Sahin was hooked I've been bitterly disappointed with.

 

Too many ifs and buts in there for me, lots of other teams have players that make mistakes and cock ups the difference is the good teams make up for them by getting the win no matter what.

 

You can't excuse away how poor we've been this season and unless we go on a run now then it's a lot poorer then last regardless if we slightly beat its points total, we were in 2 finals last year and won a cup, since then we've spent £50 million to come off worse!!

 

We can play all the fancy keepy ball we like but it's results that matter and the results Rodgers style has yielded have been shite, he needs to drastically improve his game next year or we need rid

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So we completely out play West ham and fail to put away chances and get a very debatable offside given against us ruling out a goal

 

And.....

 

Man United, the league champions, get completely out played in every department and are lucky to scrape a draw with a very offside goal which was not ruled out

 

Give Rodgers a fucking break

 

tell me the last time a keeper played a blinder against man u, who make sure the keepers got no chance, as shanks said you make your own luck.

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Focus on philosophy hardly a factor in Liverpool's progress

 

 

For a club frequently mocked by rivals because of its supporters' supposedly unrealistic expectations, it's been surprisingly tough to ascertain Liverpool's Premier League objective during the past three seasons.

 

The 2009-10 campaign saw Liverpool finish seventh, a drop from second the previous season. In the modern-day English top division, with all of its financial inequalities, top sides rarely fall (or rise) so significantly within one season. When combined with Manchester City's new wealth and Tottenham's re-emergence as a genuine contender for the Champions League places, it was a significant blow from which the club has yet to recover. Liverpool finished eighth last season and appears set for seventh this campaign.

 

 

Each season, it has been difficult to form a consensus about the club's target. When Roy Hodgson took over in 2010, Liverpool had no more than an outside chance of finishing in the Champions League places. When Kenny Dalglish splashed out on English talent, the top four still appeared unlikely. Brendan Rodgers inherited a similar situation last summer. So, especially with the Europa League now regarded as a questionable reward, what was Liverpool playing for?

 

The key this season, more than Liverpool's final league position, or performance in cup competitions (which compensated for Dalglish's poor league finish last season), was obvious signs of improvement. Hodgson was a veteran coach who appeared to be a "minding the shop" appointment rather than a long-term choice, while Dalglish was a returning legend but wasn't going to drag Liverpool into the modern era.

 

Rodgers is different: He's young, he's media-friendly, he gushes about the current Barcelona and Dortmund sides who have built excellent teams from the bottom up.

 

Few current managers are as insistent upon a "philosophy" as Rodgers. At Swansea, he was utterly committed to ball retention, a successful strategy that resulted in an inexperienced group of players finishing solidly in midtable. Their stylish dominance of individual matches often appeared more important to Rodgers than the result, with the Northern Irishman aware of his potential to jump into a bigger job at the end of the season. Swansea was superb the first few times you watched it, then grew gradually more frustrating -- the team is significantly more efficient with Michael Laudrup's insistence upon more direct football.

 

The talk of a "philosophy" is strongly linked to the view that coaches should be given time at a football club. A philosophy is grander than "tactics" or "strategy," implying a complete revolution in terms of fundamental concepts. By casting himself as such an ideologue, it was easy for Rodgers to excuse early poor results and direct attention to possession statistics, insisting that Liverpool was learning a new style of play. His two major signings were technical players who understood, and had appreciated, his coaching style at former clubs. Joe Allen and Fabio Borini are probably not the individuals to take Liverpool back into the top four, but might have set an example to the rest of the group.

 

Liverpool's early fixtures this season were dreadful. Preseason, there was speculation about whether Liverpool would collect a single win from its opening five matches. In the end, it didn't. For Rodgers, this unquestionably was a difficult period: Even such a confident man would have been intimidated by the pressure of collecting a first win.

 

However, such a difficult fixture list played into Rodgers' hands wonderfully. Every club plays the same 19 sides home and away, and by facing the big clubs first, Rodgers could emphasize the importance of his "project." Was a 2-2 result against Manchester City more promising than, say, a scrappy 1-0 win over Norwich? Probably. Points were lacking in significance this season, and Rodgers is being judged on what he might achieve in the future, not on what he's currently doing.

 

By suffering at the start of the campaign, Liverpool is enjoying an easier end. Only two of its final nine games are against top-half sides -- Chelsea and Everton -- and both are at Anfield. The pattern of Liverpool's season has been about convincing performances against minnows but struggles against top opposition, so this is the period when Liverpool should be picking up easy victories and proving it's on an upward curve and carrying momentum into next season.

 

So here is the question: Has Liverpool actually gotten any better this season? Two consecutive 0-0 draws against West Ham and Reading have been a setback, but again, not decisive in terms of Liverpool's achievements this season because points are of little consequence. Against Reading on Saturday, in Rodgers' terms, Liverpool was superb: They dominated possession, they "won" the shots count 26-6, and they forced Alex McCarthy into one of the most remarkable goalkeeping displays of the season. Rodgers spent most of his postmatch news conference praising McCarthy (whom he'd known in his brief spell at Reading) -- the implication, of course, was that Liverpool had played brilliantly.

 

But isn't this precisely what Liverpool was doing under Dalglish? Dominating games, leaving its supporters complaining about the woodwork, goalkeeper heroics and marginal offside decisions? As frustrating as the continual near-misses is the insistence from Liverpool's manager that everything is going swimmingly. Rodgers is a relentless optimist, and in time that will serve the club well, but there must come a point when he finally snaps and insists, no, it's not enough to dominate games without winning. The most successful sides pick up points they don't truly deserve, not the reverse.

 

Oddly, Liverpool have a habit of winning games comfortably: 4-0, 3-0, 3-0, 5-0, 5-0, 4-0 in the past four months. The Reds also have a habit of not turning up: 3-1 defeats to Stoke, Aston Villa and Southampton, all bottom-half clubs.

 

Crucially, Rodgers' attacking options are significantly stronger than at the start of the campaign, when he was forced to depend upon Suso (surely at least two seasons away from being ready) and Raheem Sterling (technically and physically ready, but precisely the type of player who mentally needs to be eased into the first team). The immediate impact of both Daniel Sturridge and Coutinho, who both impressed within their first two appearances, has been crucial in demonstrating progress.

 

Luis Suarez, Sturridge and Coutinho are all highly versatile attackers, while Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing, two men revived by Rodgers (although they've just returned to somewhere approaching the form that convinced Dalglish to sign them) also have been used in various roles. It's difficult to predict precisely where they'll play in any given match. It can confuse the opposition; it can also confuse Liverpool.

 

 

Again, this is something that happened under Dalglish. Suarez was played upfront, then off Andy Carroll. Downing was used on the left of a three, then the right of a four, and so on. Liverpool used 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1. The inconsistency was infuriating.

 

Rodgers is still at the stage of hopeful experimentation. In Saturday's draw at Reading, Henderson spent most of the game to the left, but Suarez, Coutinho and Sturridge were given license to rotate on the right. Patterns of play became clear: A consistent theme was Sturridge darting into the middle from the right, then Suarez running around into the space created when Reading left back Stephen Kelly was dragged inside. The majority of chances came from this method.

 

But then Rodgers spoiled things. Introducing Downing for Henderson shouldn't have been a problem, as Downing's natural position is in the left-sided midfield role Henderson was playing. But Rodgers meddled: Coutinho came to the left, Downing went to the right. Suarez and Sturridge were now up front together.

 

Liverpool had further chances and should have won. But again, two points wouldn't have made much difference -- Rodgers' focus is on the future. Wouldn't it have been better to persist with a strategy that looked consistently dangerous?

 

Some scoffed at Rodgers' intention to bring a new passing style to Liverpool this season. Dalglish played passing football, they claimed; Liverpool has been playing passing football for decades. That's true, but misses the point. Every top club passes the ball.

 

It's far more complex than that: What initially appears to be sporadic brilliance from fluid Barcelona players given freedom of movement are actually rehearsed patterns. They work beautifully because players are regularly deployed in the same positions and have formed reliable combinations. That's what Rodgers is supposed to be building, but his constant switches -- both in the format of the midfield triangle, and the positioning of the attacking players -- are holding Liverpool back.

Liverpool has improved during the course of the campaign, but mainly because of £22 million worth of extra attacking talent, and the quirks of Liverpool's fixture list, rather than a significantly increased understanding of Rodgers' style.

 

Focus on philosophy hardly a factor in Liverpool's progress - ESPN FC

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I think people are too fixated on giving managers a set amount of times. For me' date=' the manager must earn their time. You make your decision on how much time they get by the decisions they make and also - and this is important - their history.

 

Mine and many people's fears over Kenny where three fold. One, that he'd been out of the game a long time, two - his ability to handle pressure, and three his 'recent' transfer record, at Newcastle it'd been disastrous. Both of those things came to pass at Liverpool towards the end of his last tenure. The transfer dealings were abysmal, probably the worst in our history, and he also changed from being the jovial figure of his early return to someone who was obvioulsy feeling the heat and was not able to deal with the press without looking like he was going to strangle them.

 

When deciding whether or not he should have gone, those were the factors that went through my mind. Was he fulflling those concerned expectations, and he was.

 

With Rodgers the concerns were his inexperience at every single level, from his ability to deal with the media, the way he handles players, transfer dealings and most importanly - his tactical knowledge. All of those concenrs have proven well founded IMO.

 

With Houllier and Rafa (especially Rafa) the situation was different. They had excellent, relatievly recent pedigree and they both had a truly outstanding first summer's transfer business. Someone like Rafa, who'd broken the Barca/Madrid strangle hold, had a history of unearthing top players, he could have had the worst Liverpool season on record early doors and you'd still give him that time, because there was every reason to think they'd turn it around. With Dalglish, and much more obvioulsy - Rodgers, there's no reason to think that at all.

 

If someone quite clearly is floundering and the club's image and prospects are becoming damaged, I don't see the point of having this magic number in your head of how long they should get.

 

The main problem we will always come back to here is that the players, especially the midfiled, aren't good enough. We saw this most in the Evans era. Inconsistency isn't always down to attitude, it's to do with average players being able to raise there game now and again, but only for so long until they run out of steam and revert back to what they really are. You'll get the odd chest thumping moment or flash of brilliance, but by and large many of them aren't capable of standibg toe to toe with decent players.

 

The most glaring example of this was last year's FA cup final. The real heartbreaker wasn't that we didn't try, it was that we did but still looked shit. Our central midfield was busting a lung for most of the match but it took them 12 pases to do something the chelsea lads could do in three.

When you have a midfielder like Mascherano he 'coasts' because he can see moves coming a mile away, even on a bad day he's going to look shit hot, players like Allen, Henderson, Downing etc have to pull out all the stops to look anywhere near capable - and nobody can keep that up for 90 minutes every match.

 

The best cure for inconsistency is having good players.[/quote']

 

Good post that.

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Where does this talk come from about us destroying the opposition but not taking our chances? It's an absolute myth. We destroy sides which are shite and don't fight back' date=' everyone else lets us dink it around like dickheads then hits us on the break, what's great about that?

 

Rodgers is like the Wizzard of Oz, getting players to go for the throat and convincing people we're Barcelona in progress, when in actual fact we're a tactical mess.

 

Sorry to keep saying it but the Evans comparisons are glaring. Playing the mancs we used to pass them off the pitch at times but we'd still end up getting arse raped 3-1 and Evans would be absolutely baffled as to why. You'd sit there shaking your head all game watching balls getting floated over our fullbacks' heads while their wingers went wild and cross after cross came in to an unprotected James who'd flap and fuck it up. Felt the same watching our total lack of midfield aganst arse and we ended up drawing, yet people were like 'fucking good result that!'.

 

"I think they're going after the lights"[/quote']

 

It's actually mental that people don't see this, every week, whether it be at Anfield or in the pub it happens and I end up shaking my head at how they just don't see how naïve he is being with his tactics. Chelsea, corners again. For fucks sake!

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It's actually mental that people don't see this, every week, whether it be at Anfield or in the pub it happens and I end up shaking my head at how they just don't see how naïve he is being with his tactics. Chelsea, corners again. For fucks sake!

 

Corners is frustrating, and we've always been at bit shit at defending from them and scoring from them.

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Corners is frustrating' date=' and we've always been at bit shit at defending from them and scoring from them.[/quote']

 

Well, yes. My old man and I joke about corners most weekends. Another is how easily teams walk through our midfield most weeks and an exposed defence concedes. I don't mind Rodgers having his system, he doesn't have the players for it yet so why use it? His tactics some weeks are mental.

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