Backing the manager

[Babb'sBurstNad]

Fair enough. We're still sore after last season, so he's going to need to show us something.  

 

Still, I'm hoping that he gets a small amount of breathing room to do that, otherwise what's the point? A bad result is definitely coming. So is a bad decision or two from the manager. 

 

It just feels like we're ready to choke him and kick him out, and if that's the case, it should have already been done. But instead the owners backed him. So since they did, then for me at least it makes sense to calm down a bit and wait to see what happens.

 

See, the owners backing him is probably part of the problem for some. Bear with me.

 

Rather than being perceived as a backing, it's seen as indicative of a club that's dispensed with direct accountability, or worse, the standards or vague notion that we should be better than we currently are. There was no grand open letter, no signal that somewhere around fifth wasn't good enough, just business as usual and a couple of coaches sacked amid articles from the usual club journos discussing par.

 

Now, that isn't on Rodgers, but it's easy to see why he's become somewhat symbolic for those with an already less than sunny view of FSG's blueprint for success.

 

I honestly think what we say has little relevance to anything though, but should a bad result come about - and the fixture list indicates it might - then what Rodgers says is of far more importance. If anything, I feel Rodgers underestimated how much most fans wanted him to succeed, and many of those same fans have been soured by the lack of forthright assessment of his own mistakes whilst he hurriedly laid down excuse after excuse.

 

We all prefer optimism (well, most of us) and I'll try to make a concerted effort not to repeat my negativity, but right now I just want a reasonable manager with a little humility who recognises that fans will get on his back more for shifting blame than for the act he might've been blamed for in the first place.

 

I think the breathing space you allude to can only be made by Rodgers himself.

[Babb'sBurstNad]

The Stoke game gets mentioned a lot but you can't judge him from one game.

 

I really don't think anyone is, that was just the perfect storm of every misgiving people had all wrapped up into one terrible day. It's not viewed in isolation.

[stringvest]

Towards the end of last season there was a growing feeling that Rodgers could neither organise or motivate the team. The only way back from that is to effectively buy a new team.

[Pureblood]

I really don't think anyone is, that was just the perfect storm of every misgiving people had all wrapped up into one terrible day. It's not viewed in isolation.

 

It's had a few mentions already.  It's his Klendathu.  

[Sangria]

My first real doubts about Brendan was the Chelsea game and it cost us the title but he gave me one hell of a season overall and I cut him some slack.

Last year he lost the fucking plot, ending in pretty much a sackable pile of shit, that people had to pay good money to watch, unacceptable, he got through by the skin of his shit, how and why I do not know but he did.

 

That said he is our manager and if he does not succeed then we fail,  so obviously I want him to turn it around.  I have been impressed with the signings and he is young, so I hope he gets his shit together and makes it work.  I think change for the sake of it is wrong, we all make mistakes, it is realising them and putting them right I hope he does that.

 

Fixtures have not been kind to him but yeah I am in.  I never want anyone to fail, least of all the manager of Liverpool Football Club, anyone not behind him is a wrong un.  He fails he goes and we move on but he gets our support, he is no Souness.

[el nino laff]

It's all his own doing, he's here four years now and has been given more money than any manager before him.

 

It's up to him to get the fans back onside and he can do this by a good season.

 

No one here wants him to fail as that would mean the team and club would suffer too. It's more a case of them not having faith in him which you can't blame them as they have had three seasons to judge him on. He shouldn't get a clean slate as that would mean we just forget everything that has happened before.

[Dante]

The Stoke game gets mentioned a lot but you can't judge him from one game. 

 

And the 3-1 defeat at home to Crystal Palace before it?

 

A 2-9 aggregate deficit to Stoke and Crystal Palace in the space of two games.

 

Shameful and he should have resigned on the spot after the Stoke carnage but he sacrificed his mate instead.

 

No faith in him at all.

[aRdja]

In the context of posting on an internet forum what does this even mean?

 

"Let's stop moaning about the manager for a while"

[boots123]

Eh, um, oh. This will go well.

 

But anyhow I agree with the sentiment. Everyone deserves a chance but sadly he'll come up short.

wev'e got a naff keeper and don't have what we always had in our sucessful years, a decent centre half, our defence is still our weakness.

[skend04]

Chucked his 'best' mate to save his own job. If you can back a man like that all the best to you.

[s(k)aturation]

Towards the end of last season there was a growing feeling that Rodgers could neither organise or motivate the team. The only way back from that is to effectively buy a new team.

 

His ability to motivate the team is my KPI for the start of the season.

That looked at rock bottom in the last 10 odd games last season.

We have some very hard fixtures up front, so the points may not flow thick and fast to begin with.

How the side goes about those fixtures, showing guts and balls and commitment to the cause, is what I'll be looking for.

If he can instil that in this team from the off, I'll be behind him as best I can.

If we get tepid, Villa semi-final type shit and "outstanding - wanting to win too much" sentiments to go with it, not anymore thanks.

He's our manager. I wish him well, hope he's on the job, and hope he has some luck too.

[Section_31]

He's had a fair crack of the whip and has been backed with plenty of cash, he's come up short and should have been sacked at the end of the season in my opinion. He's been given another chance and I really hope he can turn it around but I don't think he's up to it.

My view exactly.

[stringvest]

I'm not going to get on the man's back before the season starts.  He's in the job, the season starts next week.  Let's give him a chance.  That's not to say those having a pop at him now are wrong; I think he's extremely lucky to be in a job.  

[Paulie Dangerously]

The Stoke game was the head of the boil that was the latter half of last season which is why it sticks in people's mind.

 

Basically he's got to have a good start to the season. Anything less that 7 points after the first 4 games is going to see the pressure crank

[stringvest]

The Stoke game was the head of the boil that was the latter half of last season which is why it sticks in people's mind.

 

Basically he's got to have a good start to the season. Anything less that 7 points after the first 4 games is going to see the pressure crank

 

I'm not sure what the criteria are any more.  Any neutral who had witnessed the team basically lose all semblance of organisation and desire last year would be amazed that the guy who the players had given up playing for was still in a job this season.  So I'd hesitate to suggest success criteria or otherwise - it is impossible to tell what they might be.  Let's hope he gets off to a flyer, and we may never have to find out. 

[Special K]

Wait until we get beaten by Stoke next week

[stringvest]

I don't think we will, except if Lovren and Lucas play. 

[xerxes]

I believe all Reds, certainly myself, want LFC to succeed with Brendan as manager.

 

However the idea that the start of a new season means we forget about what has gone before is nonsensical. Brendan was VERY lucky that the season ended after Stoke. Humiliation in the league and serial underperformance in Europe would normally be grounds for a sacking, and rightly so.

 

I believe we have bought well this summer. Firmino is the unknown quantity, could be brilliant, could be shit. But Ings, Milner and Benteke are all solid, the latter could become a new Anfield legend.

 

But Balotelli has performed worse under Brendan than anywhere else, Lallana and Lovrens are shadows of their previous notices. Did Suarez make Brendan or Brendan make Suarez? Is Brendan up to it?

 

Whatever your view on Brendan, he starts with no defeats, and still in all competitions. In his fourth season, this is his team, he has been allowed to spend and make mistakes in the transfer market, what we will have is pure Brendan.

[s(k)aturation]

If we steel ourselves, and with those that played in the Stoke bumming leading the way in their steel, we will beat Stoke.  

 

Given our early fixtures, it will be a very important 3 points.

[Ginny]

I think Brendan will get it together this season. I'm excited for it. I will be backing him 100%. I have no reason not to - he's the Liverpool manager and it's not like we've got any 'world class' managers waiting in the wings is it? ... Or have we?

[Redder Lurtz]

It's a less enjoyable forum to use when the mood is negative all the time.

 

The campfire is looking pretty appealing right now.

This. The endemic negativity and cynicism and constant whinging on this site are becoming really fucking dull.

[Section_31]

I've got to admit, I've been shocked - in all honesty - at the venom aimed at Rodgers' direction. His teeth, his weight, his taste in women, his business interests, I just don't understand what any of that has got to do with anything, I must have missed the part where he was deified by the Pope. 

[Babb'sBurstNad]

I've got to admit, I've been shocked - in all honesty - at the venom aimed at Rodgers' direction. His teeth, his weight, his taste in women, his business interests, I just don't understand what any of that has got to do with anything, I must have missed the part where he was deified by the Pope. 

 

It's been excessive, particularly with regards his private life. But then I think that's a very small handful of posters.

 

In a weird way I think the fanbase was slightly different pre and post Hodgson; that era opened something up that's now hard to contain, seemingly legitimising the attacking of our own manager in every way possible as something that has a time and a place. Whilst he should've been the exception rather than the rule, he made it alright to hate a Liverpool manager, so there were always going to be some that didn't draw the line at just him. Before then, we always used to hear our own fans claiming how much we stand by managers, and it's something I haven't heard in a while. 

[Mil-ing Around]

I've got to admit, I've been shocked - in all honesty - at the venom aimed at Rodgers' direction. His teeth, his weight, his taste in women, his business interests, I just don't understand what any of that has got to do with anything, I must have missed the part where he was deified by the Pope. 

 

I couldn't agree with this more mate. I am shocked that Livepool fans direct such shite towards the manager of our club. Sure i understand people having reservations about him, after last season, but the things that people say about him and our players is fucking shocking at times.

 

Some fans want him and the players to fail just so they can be proved right, sadly that's the internet culture. I can't believe that every fan on here supports Liverpool. There are surely a few mancs/Evertonians etc on here who are just on the wind up. 

[Tyler Durden]

It's been excessive, particularly with regards his private life. But then I think that's a very small handful of posters.

 

In a weird way I think the fanbase was slightly different pre and post Hodgson; that era opened something up that's now hard to contain, seemingly legitimising the attacking of our own manager in every way possible as something that has a time and a place. Whilst he should've been the exception rather than the rule, he made it alright to hate a Liverpool manager, so there were always going to be some that didn't draw the line at just him. Before then, we always used to hear our own fans claiming how much we stand by managers, and it's something I haven't heard in a while.

 

You must not remember Rafas last days then, I'd say he took a fair amount of shite from some sections.