The Never Rated Rodgers Thread

[PestiRed]

I wasn't overwhelmed by his appointment. However it started to look good in the second half of his first season. Last season convinced me that I was fully onboard the Rodgers train and believed that he would sort out the defence problems in the summer and, although with Chelsea and City strengthening I knew that a title was unlikely this season, I believed that we would consolidate a top four position with the ability to have a good run at the title in future seasons.

 

I am currently very pissed off with the fact that he failed to sort out the defence, the midfield has dropped off the radar and we have nothing upfront even allowing for the loss of Suarez

[King Emlyn]

I Still think he's a very talented manager. Sad to see the beautiful flowing football we played last season written off as getting lucky with the aid of a world class player in the form of his life. Sad some can't give him any credit for it .He's in a fix right now even his most vociferous supporters would have to acknowledge that, I just hope he has the answers and only time will tell, unfortunately I don't think he'll get that time given the revolving door policy we seem to employ these days.

[Ranxerox]

Now that we're confirmed mid table mediocrities, I can come out and admit that I never particularly rated Brendan Rodgers.

 

I've never been able to bring myself to sing his name. I always felt that he was a lucky manager, whose team performed scarcely better than Kenny's but lucked into an amazing run of form, fuelled solely by the best player in the world hitting the form of his life and dragging the rest of the team with him.

 

I gave him every chance. I was prepared to overlook the sub-David Brentisms and the embarrassing goings on in his private life. But even last season, when we almost won the title, there were major nagging doubts. The defensive frailities, the tactical naivety. This season's transfers just nailed it for me.

 

I feel much better to have gotten that off my chest. I surely can't be the only one.

 

 

I think he deserves credit for finding a way to get the best out of Sterling, Suarez, and Sturridge last year. Suarez is also on record many times complimenting Rodgers as a manager. Don't rate him fine, but to put all of last year down to luck is extremely harsh and doesn't bear scrutiny.

[Block109'er]

I'll be honest in that he never won me over in his first season and that was largely due to our defensive frailties and the 'pass to death' methodology that he started with.

 

Obviously that all changed last season and I was and am totally onside with him and liked what he was doing,

 

But the shit has really hit the fan now and things need a 100% turnaround and is he the man to do it?

 

Is he the man to drop one or two of the expensive players that he's only just brought in?  

 

Is he the man to maybe bring the curtain down on Steven Gerrard's Liverpool career because he's not an effective DM and people believe that he doesn't have 'the legs' anymore to play in his best position? (all of which remain to be seen).

 

Is he the man to realise that you can't be a successful football manager with a shite defence and finally give this the attention it needs? (unless you maybe have the World's best footballer in your team to paper over the cracks)

.

I honestly, truly am 100% behind him and I desperately want him to turn this around, really do.

 

If it's not to be then it's not to be and but I think as fans we need to do our bit now and support him rather than throw him under the bus.

[xerxes]

I Still think he's a very talented manager. Sad to see the beautiful flowing football we played last season written off as getting lucky with the aid of a world class player in the form of his life. Sad some can't give him any credit for it .He's in a fix right now even his most vociferous supporters would have to acknowledge that, I just hope he has the answers and only time will tell, unfortunately I don't think he'll get that time given the revolving door policy we seem to employ these days.

All fair comment.

 

But I think that his future is in his own hands, not those of a trigger happy Board. He should be able to squeeze out some results over the next few games to buy himself breathing space.

 

Stoke and Sunderand at home, Leicester away, are all games where we should come out with a decent points haul, pressure off. But defeat at Ludogorets, effectively ending our CL campaign and at home to Stoke would produce a feeding frenzy for blood.

[Tony Moanero]

I believe Rodgers is out of his depth and should be fired

I concluded that after he signed Joe Allen and Fabio Borini and am on record at the time on this here site

 

Would you like me to write to Blue Peter and ask them to send you a badge?

[Mook]

I never rated Rodgers at the start but after last season and coming to within a whisker of winning the Premier League he won me over.

 

I think a lot of fans were not that convinced at the start, given his inexperience it's not remarkable.

 

What is remarkable is the lack of class bringing it all up now in the way you have.

 

What he said.

 

Proper snidey thread this.

[Section_31]

I've always had a lot of respect for Rodgers despite my misgivings, but that will change if we continue to make excuses and throw people to the lions the way we have. Sacking scouts publicly was pretty shithouse, I don't know who thought it up but it was some snide, blame shifting shit, the comments about players not wanting to come to Liverpool were also pretty poor. It's a bad run, good players have left, fair enough, but you have to stand up and take the blame if and where it's due. 

[Jarvinja Ilnow]

What's wrong about starting a thread that helps Brenny through the wilderness?

[Russ Atmosphere]

Well this is news.

[ZonkoVille77]

I was ambivalent about his appointment, give every one a chance.

But the Chelsea game was when I really began to doubt him. All he needed to do was setup for a draw. Any manager would do that if it meant they were close to the title.

He didn't though and it struck me as completely naive and overwhelmingly arrogant.

 

But I'm still ambivalent about his appointment and still think he deserves a chance. That chance has to include the caveat of him getting a big fuck off kick in the bollocks and being told to manage the team, not be pals with the players.

[bouncebrigade]

Tony Manero should get the job.

 

It would be boss if he was the boss.

[Neil G]

I was ambivalent about his appointment, give every one a chance.

But the Chelsea game was when I really began to doubt him. All he needed to do was setup for a draw. Any manager would do that if it meant they were close to the title.

He didn't though and it struck me as completely naive and overwhelmingly arrogant.

I keep hearing this and it's unfair. We didn't lose that game because we were too gung ho, we lost it because of a catastrophic individual error that couldn't be legislated for. After we conceded the first we had no choice but to push forward and were always going to be vulnerable to a second on the break.

 

If Rodgers had kept it tight and we'd lost 1-0 to a set piece, he'd have been hammered for abandoning the approach that had got us so close to the title. He has major faults with the defensive side of his management, but they weren't responsible for that defeat.

[Ezekiel 25:17]

I find it highly embarrassing that a grown man was too scared to previously air an opinion they held, waited for a time when they assumed they would get less back lash, and possibly some agreement, I find that highly embarrassing, I really do. It's embarrassing that when we were going into the Chelsea game last season and the title was in our hands the same people supported that manager and team, the manager that they now state they never liked, is right SD.

[Ezekiel 25:17]

I was ambivalent about his appointment, give every one a chance.

But the Chelsea game was when I really began to doubt him. All he needed to do was setup for a draw. Any manager would do that if it meant they were close to the title.

He didn't though and it struck me as completely naive and overwhelmingly arrogant.

 

But I'm still ambivalent about his appointment and still think he deserves a chance. That chance has to include the caveat of him getting a big fuck off kick in the bollocks and being told to manage the team, not be pals with the players.

 

 

You really began to doubt the manager when we lost a game but remained in 2nd with a slight chance of still winning the title ?? and the goal at the start of the season was top four ??

[Dr. J]

 

Sad to see the beautiful flowing football we played last season written off as getting lucky with the aid of a world class player in the form of his life. Sad some can't give him any credit for it

 

Ok, I'm in the 'it was largely Suarez' camp but have yet to hear any compelling reason on the pro-Rodgers side as to why things have gone downhill so terribly. He deserved credit for the nice football of last season? Ok, where the fuck is it now? What is wrong?

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

What a shitty thread. Only had to wait a couple of years to post it, too.

[Bjornebye]

Everytime I see Johnson's name on the team sheet my fondness of Rodgers does a little.

[Special K]

Now that we're confirmed mid table mediocrities, I can come out and admit that I never particularly rated Brendan Rodgers.

 

 

I've never been able to bring myself to sing his name. I always felt that he was a lucky manager, whose team performed scarcely better than Kenny's but lucked into an amazing run of form, fuelled solely by the best player in the world hitting the form of his life and dragging the rest of the team with him.

 

I gave him every chance. I was prepared to overlook the sub-David Brentisms and the embarrassing goings on in his private life. But even last season, when we almost won the title, there were major nagging doubts. The defensive frailities, the tactical naivety. This season's transfers just nailed it for me.

 

I feel much better to have gotten that off my chest. I surely can't be the only one.

I agree with everything here

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Everytime I see Johnson's name on the team sheet my fondness of Rodgers does a little.

I've got to be honest, seeing his name makes me want to punch everybody. Literally, all people.

[Section_31]

I find it highly embarrassing that a grown man was too scared to previously air an opinion they held, waited for a time when they assumed they would get less back lash, and possibly some agreement, I find that highly embarrassing, I really do. It's embarrassing that when we were going into the Chelsea game last season and the title was in our hands the same people supported that manager and team, the manager that they now state they never liked, is right SD.

 

You look like a tit though if you come out and say it when we're doing well though, and rightly so. I don't think it's about worrying what people will say, it's about being smalltime. When we were playing great football we were still all over the shop at the back, we used to laugh it off, 'they score three and we'll score four', but in all honesty that's not really the way to setup a football team and it was always going to go tits up. A lot of the match threads on here back then usually ended in the phrase 'thank fuck for that'. Sometimes things feel wrong even when you can't put your finger on why, like in The Matrix. 

[Ezekiel 25:17]

You look like a tit though if you come out and say it when we're doing well though, and rightly so. I don't think it's about worrying what people will say, it's about being smalltime. When we were playing great football we were still all over the shop at the back, we used to laugh it off, 'they score three and we'll score four', but in all honesty that's not really the way to setup a football team and it was always going to go tits up. A lot of the match threads on here back then usually ended in the phrase 'thank fuck for that'. Sometimes things feel wrong even when you can't put your finger on why, like in The Matrix.

 

The thing is though Sect, it's a results business and whilst we were getting them it's very difficult to have an issue with how we were getting them, we were the most entertaining team in the league, you cannot play football like that without conceding aswell, it's impossible. All I could see was a manger that was giving of great football whilst rising up the table, eventually falling at the final hurdle.

 

 

 

As far as last season goes there probably was a couple of thank fucks but they were heavily outweighed by 'poetry in motion', arsenal, spurs, Everton, norwich, and the rest of the demolition jobs we handed out. It's hard to envisage how anyone could have disliked or not rated Rodgers 40 minutes into Arsenal at home ?? I know you haven't mentioned Suarez but for those who say it was his doing, what was he doing the three seasons previous when we finsihed 8th 6th and 7th ?? Just don't see how we appoint anyone with more ability than Rosgera right now.

[Stickman]

Personally I don't think he will ever fix the defence it's like Keegan at Newcastle in 96, they were arguably the best team and certainly the most attractive to watch but and it's a big but if you ship goals it don't matter who you have upfront you ain'y going to win the league or even cups for that matter if your defence and midfield is set up wrong and has huge holes in it.

 

I don't want to see him go at the minute I think last season even if you think it was all down to Suarez or Roger's getting the best out of certain players he deserves time due to the incredible feel good factor that was around for a good few months last season. I work in the city centre and the whole place was buzzing between games you genuinly looked forward to going the game because of what was going to be served up and that hasn't happened for a while..Chelsea might have won the league last season but who would have give a fuck with the shit on a stick they dished up, even City winning it was a meh so what......But the attacking play we produced from the new year was incredible and is something we can be proud of one day even if it failed in the end.

I hope that after yesterday and him admitting that it is down to him maybe makes him change tack, his next couple of selections and tactics will indicate if he can change for his sake he needs to.

Last season surely means he deserves a bit more time

[Rotpeter]

Ok, I'm in the 'it was largely Suarez' camp but have yet to hear any compelling reason on the pro-Rodgers side as to why things have gone downhill so terribly. He deserved credit for the nice football of last season? Ok, where the fuck is it now? What is wrong?

He created a system that got as much as possible out of some pretty special players. Gerrard as DM is absurd, but it worked. And this system, you have to remember, is not something he'd implemented elsewhere, that he could just pull out of his back pocket, he doesn't have the breadth of experience for that, he was inventing, tweaking, stumbling all the way along. But he got there.

 

He had to abandon quite a few of his core principles and fundamental beliefs. But he did finally realize that death by football wasn't for us and managed to get us to a pretty special place. Slowly, for sure, because he's a rookie but get there we did.

 

And so that brings us to now. Teams have spent the off-season analyzing the ProZone season summary DVDs and they've got us pegged as a counter-attacking team. What worked great against teams that were prepared to open up, doesn't work so well now. Take Suarez and Sturridge out of the mix and hey presto.

 

So where are we now? We are back to where we were a month or so into trying to do death by football. Waiting for the penny to drop that tweaking and stumbling is not what's called for here. He needs to screw up the plans and start again. Alas, he's a rookie, and so it will take longer for the penny to drop and longer to craft a alternative.

 

The upside of course is that he does have a proven ability to fuck up in ways that would seem pretty easy to avoid and then fix them. Come the end of the season, we'll know if it's a talent or not.

[dennis tooth]

Agreed. The inability or unwillingness to fix blatant problems always worried me but obviously, while we were doing well you couldn't say it, all the same flaws were there though, defensive chaos, no organisation, naive tactics. The capitulation to Palace last season was no difference to the way we got mugged against arsenal the season before, nobody in midfield, no lessons learned. Every time we entered the transfer market we made no attempt to correct it, instead seemingly just collecting more attackers and stacking them up for the same position.

 

Have said from word go we needed experience, we needed someone who'd achieved things and managed in big games, and that Liverpool was not the place to learn your trade. 

 

 

That.

A good DM instead of shoehorning Gerrard in would turn us round. He wont do it tho anymore than Evans would fix the defence or Houllier ditch his counter attack ethos. 

All he does is sign AM type players, its Arsenic and old lace.

 

His record in the cups alone should see him sacked. Not even a john west tuna cup in his career its smoke and mirror form he cant cope with the constant games or competing in more than one comp is too hard. His fans can point to 2nd place but thats as good as he can do and entailed us going out every cup at the first opp. Oh and then theres lovren. fuck me