New Assistant Manager

[Josef Svejk]

"I am extremely positive and excited about what we can achieve, as a group, going forward."

 

Ah, Brendan! It's been too long!

[skend04]

And here we have the first Rodgers quotes in ages, on the two new coaches:

Liverpool Football Club today confirmed the appointments of Sean O'Driscoll and Pepijn Lijnders to the first-team coaching staff.

O'Driscoll joins the club as assistant manager to Brendan Rodgers, while Lijnders takes on the newly-created role of first team development coach after 12 successful months at the Academy.

Rodgers said: "I have made these appointments because I want to take us in a new technical direction, in terms of coaching.

"I believe the entire first-team set-up will benefit and I am extremely positive and excited about what we can achieve, as a group, going forward."

O'Driscoll arrives at Anfield with a wealth of coaching experience, most recently as England U19s manager. He's also been at the helms of Bournemouth, Doncaster Rovers, Nottingham Forest and Bristol City.

"My admiration for Sean, as a professional, is well documented," said Rodgers. "He is someone with a clear vision and philosophy and has proved he has the ability to transfer that knowledge, through his coaching, to the players.

"I am looking forward to working with him and also learning from his experiences and gaining valuable knowledge from his expertise."

O'Driscoll added: "I am excited to be joining one of the world's most iconic football clubs. The hallmark of any successful club is its culture and that comes from the people who work there, from the chief executive and first-team manager to those people behind the scenes whose faces may not be known but who are the lifeblood of the club.

"From the moment I drove into Melwood last week and was greeted by Kenny the gateman, I could not have been made to feel more welcome. If you are going to have any level of success these people are as crucial as the players; from my experiences so far it is clear everyone wants to help this club succeed."

Lijnders, who held roles at PSV Eindhoven and FC Porto prior to joining Liverpool in 2014, oversaw the development of the club's U16 group last season.

He will continue to work with the elite talent at the Academy as part of his new brief, which has been created in line with the new technical approach to coaching undertaken by the club.

And the senior squad are now also set to benefit from his regular presence at Melwood.

Rodgers said: "This presents a fantastic opportunity for Pep and one I know he will grasp with both hands.

"He has excelled at the Academy and I believe this is the perfect time for him to make the step up to the first-team set-up and use his talents for the benefit of the senior squad.

"Pep displays a passion and enthusiasm for his profession that is truly infectious and I believe will have a positive impact."

Lijnders added: "I feel proud and honoured to work closely with Brendan and his staff. I couldn't think of a better attacking manager to assist.

"Everybody knows how I feel about representing this amazing club. The owners have a clear and strong philosophy which is based on developing top young players into elite - I want to thank them for giving me this opportunity.

"I had a great first year at the Liverpool FC Academy; Alex [inglethorpe] and his coaching staff are creating something unique there. Again, I am proud to be part of the team and we will give everything."

That's all just white noise...new direction...technical coaching...gaining invaluable knowledge and expertise (of the lower leagues)...elite development (of teenagers). All we need now is an ex-player from the recent past to come in as 1st team coach and this summer's PR campaign will have been completed.

[Paco]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/11720170/Liverpool-news-Buck-stops-with-Brendan-Rodgers-now-that-he-has-Sean-ODriscoll-with-him-and-no-more-excuses.html

[Dicko]

Right, so when Marsh & Pascoe were sacked by Rodgers we were told to wait and see who we replace them with before criticising.

 

So hands up who wanted Pep Lijinders & Sean O'Driscoll?

 

What a load of fucking shit.

[SilverSong]

"From the moment I drove into Melwood last week and was greeted by Kenny the gateman"

 

Kenny will do anything for our club. Love him.

[billypilgrimnz]

Right, so when Marsh & Pascoe were sacked by Rodgers we were told to wait and see who we replace them with before criticising.

 

So hands up who wanted Pep Lijinders & Sean O'Driscoll?

 

What a load of fucking shit.

 

At least Lijinders fits with the philosophy used when buying players: young, promising, room to grow (cheaper). I can see the logic in that at least the club has seen him, know how he operates, and think that he has what it takes to make the step up. 

 

O'Driscoll, on the other hand.... Not young, unlikely to have any real ambitions for a career above this, unlikely to learn as much or as quickly (i.e., will be more likely to be stuck in his ways), not experienced at our level, no real history of success......

[bonesman]

Intresting read If it is to be believed..

   

Liverpool news: Buck stops with Brendan Rodgers now that he has Sean O'Driscoll with him and no more excuses The real conclusion of Liverpool's post-season review was it was not a change of manager that was required, but a change from the manager

 

 

By Chris Bascombe

9:23AM BST 06 Jul 2015

11 Comments

 

The surest way to make an assistant manager appear the most important figure at your club is to sack him.

A number two never seems more vital than on the day he leaves, a fact Liverpool have discovered since it was announced earlier this summer Colin Pascoe was exiting Anfield.

Pascoe is a genuine, decent guy, who for five seasons was a loyal lieutenant of Brendan Rodgers. He arrived with the Liverpool manager from Swansea City where he evidently helped the Northern Irishman assimilate into the Welsh club (and the city) with some success.

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Whenever a manager is appointed, they tend to bring with them someone they trust implicitly – the eyes and ears around an unfamiliar training ground – so Pascoe followed Rodgers to Anfield. His role was always one of deference to his boss, a low key assistant who was uncomfortable on those occasions he was thrust into the public eye, which tended to be when press conference duties were required in the early stages of the League Cup.

That is not to demean Pascoe’s contribution, but on the day both he and first team coach Mike Marsh left Liverpool their status was elevated to a level they were never afforded while still in the job. That can only be attributed to the timing of their departure, coming as it did after a season review which determined the best way to get the best out of the manager and players was to improve the standard of the support staff.

 

 

Transfer window closes in

56 : 10 : 52 : 47 Days   Hrs   Mins   Secs

 

“Thrown under a bus,” has been the recurring phrase to assess the dismissals, Pascoe and Marsh cast in the role of convenient scapegoats for a dreadful campaign.

It does not fit the conspiratorial argument that a change in the coaching staff had been under consideration long before the season review. It’s a cute notion that during the course of May’s two hour meeting with Fenway Sports Group president Mike Gordon and chairman Tom Werner, Rodgers unveiled a masterplan to ditch his pal Pascoe and not renew Marsh’s contract. The reality is somewhat less opportunistic. Indeed, the first tentative discussion regarding the addition of a more experienced coach was 12 months ago – after Liverpool finished second - when former Manchester United number two Rene Meulensteen was a genuine contender. Rodgers was not keen then. He did not feel it necessary on the back of such an excellent campaign. Few argued with his rationale at the time, and Rodgers was clearly empowered on the back of his new contract. Meulensteen would later wreck his chances of a fresh approach by publicly criticising Rodgers’s lack of an experienced number two.

As Liverpool’s troubles intensified last season the issue was revived, with increasing demands for more coaching expertise to be added. Calls for a ‘defensive coach’ proved especially irksome to the manager but after such a terrible run, something had to change.

Rodgers and chief executive Ian Ayre decided last January personnel issues would be addressed, even though those meetings coincided with an upturn in form. Rodgers was eager to hear fresh voices and ideas as he tried to come up with new strategies and formations to get the best from his squad. He was starting to feel the burden of having all the responsibility. The backroom question has now been dealt with as Sean O’Driscoll and the Liverpool Academy’s highly thought of Under 16 coach Pepijn Lijnders create a new dynamic.

^{Rodgers with Colin Pascoe (left)}

The arrival of O’Driscoll and Lijnders does not signal a change in philosophy at Melwood, but there will certainly be a shift in methodology.

O’Driscoll’s addition is significant because – like Rodgers – he is first and foremost a coach who has dedicated his career to ending the culture of ‘kick-and-rush’ overly physical football in the English game. That has been an especially tough gig in the lower leagues. Rodgers has identified and headhunted O’Driscoll from the Football Association. You don’t recruit someone such as O’Driscoll to ‘put out the cones’ or answer questions about which teenagers will play in the third round of the Capital One Cup. He has been brought to Liverpool to coach and will take sessions of his own.

Equally, Lijnders - the 'first team development coach' - will be trusted with individual coaching sessions with players.

Rodgers has always been a hands-on, tracksuit manager so it is a departure for him to have such a highly qualified and experienced assistant. During his three years at Liverpool he has never felt any compulsion to delegate responsibility - it is his vision he is seeking to impose and the idea of him standing on the sidelines while Pascoe or Marsh took training sessions was not on the agenda. Pascoe and Marsh may argue they felt inhibited – maybe Rodgers never fully trusted them enough – but after agreeing to the changes it was essential the Liverpool manager surrounded himself with those he believed could not only carry out his instructions but regularly offer ideas of their own, particularly during more testing periods.

Many Liverpool supporters wanted a higher profile, more authoritative number two – dare one say a number one in waiting. That would have been divisive and potentially destructive, carrying echoes of when Roy Evans was introduced to Gerard Houllier in the summer of 1998. You can’t impose a coach on a manager and expect anything other than volatility.

There are examples of managers who are quite happy to take a backseat during the week to allow others oversee coaching – under Kenny Dalglish it was very much the Steve Clarke show on a day-to-day basis at Melwood, while Sir Alex Ferguson let his assistants get on with it in his latter years at Old Trafford - but that is not how it has worked at Anfield under Rodgers.

^{Rodgers has shaken up his coaching team}

His approach was fine when Liverpool were competing with Manchester City for the title because there is a simple rule in football. When everything is going well, all those training ground habits are evidence of the small details we like to pounce upon to prove how good a manager is. When Liverpool were winning and playing scintillating football, how refreshing it was to have a coach whose meticulous training ground preparations kept him at Melwood from 8am until 6pm every day, who had all his staff under his charismatic spell.

Fast forward a year and the same characteristics become a whip with which to beat him. The ‘meticulous planner’ is transformed into a despot who only wants ‘yes men’ and refuses to delegate coaching responsibility. If the latest changes work, stay tuned for the episode in which Rodgers is praised for his move towards pragmatism.

What Rodgers now has at his disposal is a skilled former manager and up-and-coming future manager capable of overseeing training sessions on those days a fresh voice needs to be heard. An ex-player to remind the current crop of what it means to be a Liverpool footballer will eventually complete the new look backroom team.

The Liverpool manager, who relishes getting his boots dirty, will not be transformed into a master delegator, surveying the Melwood turf from his lofty office while O’Driscoll and Lijnders put his charges through their paces. But for the players who may seek a different point of view there will now be at least three, possibly four, office doors to knock on rather than one. Will it work? They’ll need to hit the ground running.

The real conclusion of Liverpool’s post-season review was it was not a change of manager that was required, but a change from the manager. Today’s confirmation of a new backroom team is further proof that when a club appoints a 39-year-old boss – as Liverpool did in 2012 – you can not expect the finished product. Once you’ve taken that decision you have to be prepared to let him evolve in the job rather than panic and rip up the long-term plan when there is whiff of trouble.

That said, Rodgers needs his new look bootroom to yield instant results. He has been granted the kind of second chance his predecessors (and his outgoing backroom team) were denied after a poor season. And he knows if there is not a vast improvement immediately, next time the buck will not stop at the door of the assistant manager.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/11720170/Liverpool-news-Buck-stops-with-Brendan-Rodgers-now-that-he-has-Sean-ODriscoll-with-him-and-no-more-excuses.html

 

 

[Stu Monty]

On the contrary it's pretty obvious why people are angry with this decision

I don't understand why you can't see that even if you don't agree with it

 

Well, if you mean it's obvious that they don't want Rodgers as the manager and as such are going to be angry about everything from here in, then yes, it is obvious. Not sensible but obvious. 

 

If you're starting from a position of Rodgers being shite and having to hire someone to make up for that then your logic is going to be all out of whack from that point onwards. 

 

It's just laughable the points people are making to criticise this. Giving the club grief and then holding up Rene Meulensteen as why we are so unambitious. Apart from doing fuck all with Brondby for six months his CV when he joined the United coaching team had nothing on it of any merit. He had spent years coaching reserves and below. It just turns out that the person who hired him knew him and rated him as a coach.

 

Or maybe we should go for a lad that's done nothing apart from be an assistant in the championship for two years? Like McLaren when United took him on?

 

Pretty much all of the people that are really bothered about this have, at the core of their comments "Well, because Rodgers is shite..." and it's just over-the-top hysterical nonsense.

[WhiskeyJar]

[ritchie]

The Bascombe piece basically gives the perception of Marsh and Pascoe as having no remit beyond putting the cones out and, frankly, a bit of a waste of space beyond being nice lads. So Rodgers has been allowed to get rid of them and trusted to handpick his own staff for a second time.

 

Questions there, would be why isn't Rodgers responsible for the abilities and remit of Marsh and Pascoe as he fucking well appointed them in the first place as his coaching staff? FSG wanted another experienced coach on the staff last year and Rodgers told them to do one last summer. Now he's decided actually he will change his staff to save his own hide but of course the coaches coming in need to be less experienced and successful than him, so that means no trophies or European pedigree as a coach or manager.

[Russ Atmosphere]

[Anubis]

The UEFA Cup!

 

Oh, hang on....

[Anubis]

 

"Red cones go on the right. Yellow cones go on the left. Have you got that? Repeat it back to me so I know you've got it."

[Anny Road]

I have an envelope in my pocket you know.

[Jairzinho]

 

"Brendan, it's fucking pissing it down. Can I not put some trackies on?"

 

"Have a bit of respect for who you're replacing, Sean. Have a bit of respect, yeah?"

[Tony Moanero]

 

Intresting read If it is to be believed..

 

 

 

 

Chris Bascombe has shit hair.

[stringvest]

It's his thing

[skend04]

I'm betting that it's an ex-player. O'Driscoll has been a bit of a PR disaster so they need to get fans back on side.

Well with the Gary Mac rumours abound tonight could this poster be correct?

[Paco]

Well with the Gary Mac rumours abound tonight could this poster be correct?

an ex player replacing an ex player.

 

who'd have thunk it.

[skend04]

an ex player replacing an ex player.

 

who'd have thunk it.

Well I suppose he has experience of playing and winning in Europe, things are looking up!

[manwiththestick]

Excellent news, welcome back Gary Mac.

[skend04]

Excellent news, welcome back Gary Mac.

Excellent player for us, probably the main reason we bagged the treble and got back into the CL. But his record as a coach and manager isn't the best.

[Redder Lurtz]

Excellent player for us, probably the main reason we bagged the treble and got back into the CL. But his record as a coach and manager isn't the best.

 

He's an improvement on what we had.

[JermainePennant]

Excellent player for us, probably the main reason we bagged the treble and got back into the CL. But his record as a coach and manager isn't the best.

I might be forgetting somewhere he's worked but at Coventry he was doing well as manager but quit for family reasons and he wasn't at Villa long working as GHs number 2.

 

If we were looking for a coach with experience of LFC I think he is the best choice, experienced guy with a good attitude and he won't be looking to take the managers job if things go wrong.

[Russ Atmosphere]

Unambitious? Don't want him.