Liverpool are likely to finish 5th and look back on 2014/15 as a nearly season. Two cup semi finals, a poor European campaign and just off the CL spots. Why? Here's my view: When Rodgers was hired a new era and style was proffered as reason to sack Dalglish even though he had won a cup. Why because his football was archaic, his backing of suarez distasteful and his work with comolli seen as vastly expensive. Our transfer windows tell a story: 1. summer 2012 Brendan Rodgers started his work and brought in his first tranche of players. Fabio Borini £10,400,000 Joe Allen £15,000,000 1 Oussama Assaidi £3,000,000 Nuri Sahin On Loan Samed Yesil He had a bit of a disaster with andy carroll and failed to get in a striker (clint dempsey) and ended up with suarez playing on his on his own upfront with a very young sterling and borini. None succeed and only allen could be consider a squad player the net spend is about 20million 2. January 2013: Brendan Rodgers pulls off a coup getting coutinho and sturrdige who improved the first team hugely but the damage that season had been done before christmas Daniel Sturridge £12,000,000 Philippe Coutinho £8,500,000 coutinho and sturridge become first team players The net spend is 20.5million we finish 7th 3. Summer 2013 Brendan Rodgers seeks build his squad Luis Alberto £6,800,000 Iago Aspas £7,000,000 Simon Mignolet £9,000,000 Kolo Touré Free Transfer Aly Cissokho On Loan Mamadou Sakho £15,000,000 Tiago Ilori £7,000,000 Victor Moses On Loan He goes for fillers in the main. He's got his front two in SAS but has no europe to play anyone in so doesn't need a huge squad. The net spend is 20million Aspas is a huge flop Alberto and Ilori to be kind are sent off on loan Mingolet and Sahko become frist team players 4. January 2014: We buy no-one. 5. summer 2014: after a great season Rodgers has CL to think about, we need a squad built up. suarez goes and bites another player. he is sold. Rickie Lambert £4,500,000 Adam Lallana £25,000,000 Emre Can £9,750,000 Lazar Markovic £19,800,000 Dejan Lovren £20,000,000 * Divick Origi £9,800,000 Javier Manquillo On Loan Alberto Moreno £12,000,000 Mario Balotelli £16,000,000 We see more youth arriving. But the final exist of agger and reina. the net spend is 38million 6. January 2015: We buy no-one. What happened then? Well This season LFC suffered from past failures in the market. We have bought a chunk of younger players who we have ended up loaning out, did not improve ourselves in Rodgers first year until January and then failed totally to improve the squad in his second year. One could contend he actually weakened it by forcing out some players. As this was the case as we entered the third year we didn't have the base from which to go forward without buying and we bought poorly. Even if every purchase last year was the right one chances are settling in times can affect you. It is my theory now that just perhaps LAST year was the year where rodgers failed to improve us and while we had a great year off the back of suarez and sturridge the conveyor belt of senior players coming in was broken For example those calling for us to play joe allen want him cos he's the best of a bad lot because he is busy and played well enough when not injured but he's never a op player. We are now looking at the buys of last year summer still struggling to settle in and getting dogs abuse. Lovern is a big brave lad who'd run through a wall. Lallana is a busy player too, lightweight and one paced though. Balotelli is a muppet... obviously. But just perhaps if we'd added a better player or two last year to the first 11 we'd be in a better place. I get the feeling that just perhaps in 12 months time can, markovic moreno, or even ilori might all improve us. Origi will have to settle in... but we have to add even mroe players again and they will have to settle in too. Today has been affected by failures 12 months ago. If LFC added a striker or a CM 12 months ago perhaps we'd be better now. After all... arsenal might have tried the youth policy but sanchez ozil and carzorla... and griodu show they have bought their way back to the top.
For me, the buck stops with the manager. His marquee signings is what cost us in terms of recruitment. Lovren and Lallana who have zero impact on the team, and signing Lambert was just nonsense - especially given we had just finished 2nd in the league. As much criticism Mario receives, he was not signed as a starter. We lost Suarez in the summer so one attacker would replace his spot in the team - and given Rodgers spent £25m on Lallana, and had set the team up with a lone striker for majority of the season, Mario was a back up option. Lallana was the man Rodgers brought in to replace Suarez. Then his insistence on playing the old guard, persistence with an awful formation, failure to fix the defence, merely masking the defence by compromising the attack. I think the players have also under-performed - but Rodgers is the biggest reason for why we have failed in arguably the worst PL in history.
Lambert signing was nonsense but Mario was okay as he was only ever a backup? As I said to you before, if we get taken back to summer 2014 and we have to sign one or the other I'd go for Rickie every single time for one reason; much cheaper mistake!
I still think that as Rodgers entered season 2 he had no Europe and really thought he had enough in what he had a d then just filled in gaps with loans and young lads he bought in while did poi g of other he had no time for This was short sighted in that Utd imploded but had they not our points tally before the major run was enough for 4th To think we then failed with salah and konoplyanka bids that January meant we rely did not set ourselves up as a club for champions league I think if ayre is to be believed we broke even on the year so perhaps fsg have to be asked were you running this to break even or get cl and sustain it Then with a larger net spend with cl, almost 20 Mil which is increase cl revenue we are supposedly on to break even again. That would suggest we can expect 20 Mil net spend this summer. The question is does this last 12 months set us up for next season and the answer to my mind is a resounding no Out second line forwards like lallana and markovic are nothing special so we are reliant on coutinho there. Sturridge is on his own as a striker so we have 3 years if dirt in aspas borini lambert and balotelli to shut of I can only conclude we need another 3 years to get closer to being up there. Would Rodgers get that?
I rather we signed neither of them! But come on - I rather take a 24 year old who has played at the highest level for both club and country, at least has shown (limited number of times) his ability to destroy defences (most notably the German defence a few years ago) and has a burst of pace. There is absolutely no logic in signing Rickie Lambert.
True but context is lambert arrived early so seemed to be plan b for 20 mins run out and as such was poor buy Balotelli still makes zero sense to me as he simply fits no logical rational reasoning I can come up with bar being this supposed last minute compromise
Rodgers did well to build the attack around Suarez last season - great credit. But for a so called 'attacking manager', I find it very startling how the whole attack has capitulated once Suarez had left - the very least I would have expected was high pressing, energy and movement - but that all went out the window. If Rodgers had truly implemented a style of play, then we wouldn't have regressed that much (in terms of performances alone), which is why I maintain Suarez carried this team last season. And the defence has not improved (well marginally I suppose) but it's still not good enough, and he's relying on the same poor players who have achieved very little at this club i.e. Johnson. I genuinely don't think he has a clue on defenders - his reluctance to use Sakho, to waste £20m to replace Sakho, to spend £20m on a worse defender, to think Flanagan was crucial last year, thinking Johnson is still a good player. His defensive record throughout his career has been poor - and there seems to be no signs of notable improvement.
Fits the target man role and if used correctly, he can be effective. Problem is, Rodgers shoe-horned him into a 'Suarez/Sturridge' like role instead. Another example of forcing players into a system, rather than the other way around.
That was my point. Both shouldn't have been signed, difference is, Lambert only cost us a fraction of what Mario did!
But I have at least given you reasons as to why we might have signed Mario. There is absolutely no logic with Lambert - it was embarrassing. We jsut finished 2nd, lost Suarez, got CL and we sign Rickie Lambert??
I don't need to give logic why we should have signed Lambert or Mario, we shouldn't have signed either They are both shocking but one is worse (signing) than the other because he cost a **** load more!
I'm just impressed with seeing a (lengthy) MITO post with no spelling or grammar abortions. Do the right thing - stop with the smartphone and stick with that keyboard!
I think that something everyone get agree on. Sometimes reading a Mito post is like working at Bletchley Park. I've no problem with buying younger players, but there are two things that need to happen with that. You have to keep said players when they actually reach their potential and you have to have the squad in the first place in order to let them develop.
Then it that case, we can talk about Lallana being arguably worse than all of them. Anyways - let's not make this about Mario again. Rodgers is the biggest single reason as to why we have failed this season. We had a great chance to consolidate our place in the top 4 given the strength (or weakness) of the league. I really question Rodgers's ability to identify players, but also his ability to attract. Is he a manager that players want to play for? I'm not so sure, and why would any target want to join us after this embarrassing season? 3 years on, £200m spent - and this team has no identity, still relying on the old guard, players out of position. That's unacceptable - even if a big name manager came in and did the same, it's not good enough.
I'm sorry but Rodgers cannot talk about energy and pressing and go out of his way to lose liverpool 16 million on carroll (right to move him but not the way he did imo) and then sign two very similar target men in season 3 Makes zero sense..... Balotelli is a crazy decision and lfc will pay for it next year the same as we've paid big time this year
A lot of the local journalists are saying Benteke is a number 1 target. He hardly fits the bill of energetic, hard working etc.
Nope Plays for what 10 games max a season so far? It's like Rodgers has just dropped any pretext of wanting a high press and is just looking for a game he's just not capable of delivering Ffs with lambert and borini and balotelli and 3/4 supposed wingers we've scored what 1 or 2 off crosses We have coutinho and lallana who are 1-2 type players and we need runners in Behind not target men
In any event..... borini, aspas, lambert, balotelli The sequence is why now we are seriously struggling for goals
There have been mistakes but at this moment I don't think we're far off being very, very good. Rodgers has built a young squad and the signs are that those players will improve. Add down the spine and we will be a different team the problem is we have to rely on Rodgers to buy top notch players and if he doesn't get the right players in he'll be gone. 1 Center Back 1 Midfielder 1 Striker No youngsters, all need to be experienced and quality, put them in the team and the younger lads will benefit from them and all improve. Will Rodgers get it right? I don't think so and we'll need a new manager and that person needs to understand where we are and qucikly add that experience and not look to rebuild. I could be wrong but I don't think Rodgers will last much longer and I think we're in for a frustrating transfer window. With a bit of luck his targets alone will make the owners dump him.
