Gone a bit quiet over at Vincent Villas hasn't it? I wonder what his reaction would be if we actually did ok this season?
In fairness Mandy was playing well enough at the back end of that season giving top Prem defences (Chelsea and the bitters to name just two) a rough time. He then went and played decent for England. The minute Rodgers told the world he was surplus to requirements his value dropped even further. Is that not fair comment? Allen and Borini may turn into superstars but paying £26 mill for the two who offered nothing last year was grim and a total **** up...IMO. The Reina one we've been through and just have to agree to disagree. I posted the original point not to have a pop at BR who's done ok so far but for me the article lacks balance that's all No manager's perfect and I don't expect Rodgers to be but he has made mistakes and he will make more.
BRENDAN'S BUYS Rodgers' signings since becoming Liverpool manager... Summer 2012 Fabio Borini (£10.5m from Roma) Joe Allen (£15m from Swansea) Oussama Assaidi (£3m from Heerenveen) Samed Yesil (£1m from Bayer Leverkusen) not the most convincing of starts i'm sure you'll agree?
January 2013: Sturridge (£12m from Chelsea) Coutinho (£8m from Inter) Summer 2013: Toure (free) Migs (£9m from Sunderland) Aspas (£6.7m from Celta Vigo) Luis Alberto (£6.8m from Seville)
Im not oblivious to his errors but every manager starting at a new club makes a few - it's how you rectify and learn from them that counts and he couldn't have done a better job in January to persuade me. Carroll would have been worth 20 million tops after the Euro's so don't think much changed. I admire the guts tbh - LFC needs a new vision and a man who has that vision knew record signing Andy was not part of that. rather than shy away from that and keep him he actually had the bollox to go out a get rid of him. I'm just backing the bloke and hope he does the business for us YNWA
To be fair I don't actually disagree. I just have little time for articles with no balance. Whether Carroll had a future in Rodgers system or not was up to the manager and he lives and dies by these sorts of calls. Personally I think he got last summers decisions very wrong and we suffered for it. Basically I think getting the job almost took him by surprise. He then made two great decisions in Jan and we benefitted big time. He also learned to be a tad more flexible tactically which helped a lot of the players who had struggled early on. I really enjoyed watching us at times last season but we still have frailties that I'm not sure he's addressed. Next year the team will be his team (certainly after the Jan window) so he'll be judged a lot more on results then. Here's hoping he gets us flyin
He also had to make decisions without having any time to assess the squad (obviously he made his mind up about Carroll regardless of that ) because of the Euro's and Olympics.
More haste less speed There were reasons for some of his mistakes undoubtedly, naivety, replacing Kenny, inexperience, distant owners, wage slashing required, scouting network being up the wall, film crews under his nose etc etc. He was a young fella taking on a massively daunting job and he had little support when he needed it. I'm pretty sure his chase of Siggy and subsequent signings of Joe Borini were attempts to get some instant allies within the dressing room (can't blame him for that). Mistakes are understandable but it's a "ruthless" business. Another average season could cost him his job. I really do hope he can keep the improvements coming.
