This will likely divide opinion but before you jump down my neck, this is not a knee jerk reaction.....nor is it a Rodgers thing.....I really badly wanted him to succeed.....but I think his time has come and gone. There are too many questions over his ability to manage players and teams now. I want him gone this summer. It is now clear that the brilliance of Suarez raised everyone's game by 20%.....but that's not my beef. Not at all....you can't blame him for that....but it most definitely papered over a lot of cracks. What I can blame him for is his lack of tactical nous, against top half teams. His inability to manage players effectively......His awful judgement in the transfer market.....and his glaring inability to get a team 'up for the job' for an FA cup semi final That, for me was the final straw. He's way too one dimensional for me, great at managing the media but not so great managing the team imo. In that respect, I find him naive beyond words. As for players; We need men, strong characters, players with an opinion.....Leaders. BR seems to avoid these type of players.....in fact he sheds them.....our players are meek from top to bottom. This is his team now, mentally fragile players who are frightened of FA cup semi finals!! Scary. It's not just him though......off the pitch, our revenue growth may be hiding a multitude of sins. It's not hard to grow in a growing market!! There appears to be too much back slapping going on. Are we growing at the same rate as our competitors? If not, we're losing market share despite our own growth......and while we are congratulating ourselves for our latest deal with Dunkin Donuts, we are ignoring and thus eroding the value of our best assets. This is madness. Personally, I've always thought Sterling is some way off being great.....now I doubt he ever will be - just another half decent winger.....maybe......but we should have still protected his value to the club. Same goes for Henderson.....show me a club that lets their so called best players contracts run down like that? FSG themselves have stumped up the money and must wonder what they've bought. Where is the strategy in our transfer signings? Love him or hate him, Mourinho improves his team at nearly every transfer window. What do we do? Throw as much crap at a wall and hope some sticks....£20m for Markovic?? Look, every big club makes a big money transfer cock-up from time to time......But 4 or 5 in one window?? So whether it's being unable to find a team balance, or being able to motivate players for a big game or having no leaders in the changing room or letting contracts run down or our awful transfer dealings.....it's now blatantly obvious to me that we are being mismanaged in many ways. Time for the curtain to fall for this set of chumps now. We can't afford not to make a change imo.
I am thinking FSG are thinking that too, that they cannot afford to not make a change now. Making wholesale changes and keeping Brod will set us back to square one. They might be thinking might as well replace Brod too. He's a decent manager, his tactics were decent but the players he bought to employ said tactics have been disasterous and it has eroded the team's confidence. For the last 3 years, we've leaked goals like a sieve, Suarez offset that last season, it was not a #fluke. We scored far more than we conceded but said leakiness did cost us the title, he never addressed it and I don't think he can. We were the away side yesterday even if we were a better side on paper, we should still have approached it as an away game, and it's the FA cup, team standing goes out the window, see Reading and Arsenal and Brod totally disregarded that, he's done that more than once, sometimes you have to go away from home and be solid first and go from there, he never seemed to get that. FSG are at a crossroads, have we progressed enough at this point? with the fees spent, no probably not. As for the singings, it's a tough one, look at United, Moyes and Fellaini, he looked a tragic buy, vG coms in and Fellaini has been one of their most important players in their hunt for 4th. Same can happen with Markovic, but the truth is, it is up to Brod to get hte best out of them, he cant, Moyes could not get the best out of Fellaini, but vG could.
If I'm honest, I don't think his tactics have ever been decent. I think he is very naive. Good players will make a system work though and that's what happened last year and for parts of this year....maybe i'm being too hard on the guy but I've had enough of the BS. I can see he's not good enough and I think he knows that too now.
As much as I'm very disappointed with the performance yesterday I'm not sure starting again is the best option. What is the greater risk though, starting again or giving Rodgers another Summers transfer budget? I see where we are and don't think we're a million miles from a very good team as I've said a few times add quality and experience to this group of youngsters and we may well have a top team. You have to remember that no team has 11 world class players on the pitch and 1 or 2 class players can improve the players around them, like the OP says with the Suarez situation. Rodgers has to bring in quality and experience 2 or 3 players max this Summer right down the spine imo and we're a different prospect, will he get the signings right?
My view has been clear since august. I could see where a sacking could occur. My view is strongly that we've had 4 piss poor transfer windows in a row. Only can perhaps satands out as a good buy from last summer's debacle and perhaps from the previous summer only ahko stands out. There were many singings each summer. borin, aspas, lambert for example as forwards each year... those were never ever even good enough to play prem at the standard required so can't be squad players In the end there's three things i do not like 1. He can find a way... they can be good, highly effective. It takes him 3 months at least and when its found out there is no plan b. 2. He has a terrible eye for a player and i am sorry but i am not listening to crap about him v committee any more they are one and the same. he is a full part of it as are they. He just seems to pick a lallana for every can and a balotelli for every coutinho.. ok that would not be so bad but his hit record must be 1 in 5 or 1 in 6 at best 3. he's a mouth piece who keeps mouthing off about wonderful technicians and the history of the club sounding completely hollow. there is two things i do like 1. he's given youth a chance consistently and its paid of most of the time he's done it 2. his style of football when working is far more enjoyable than man as far back as houllier. the thing is if LFC want to be a big successful outfit they have to change if they want to be the west ham of the prem generating players for others and playing nice stuff till it all goes wrong finally they stick with rodgers
I totally get your thinking but I don't think BR is the man to (a) get the right type of players in (b) make them work (how many formations yesterday? This far in and he's clueless as to his best set up) and (c) win anything with his naive approach; pretty football wins you nothing. If he stays, I hope he proves me wrong but for me, the horse has bolted and the stable has burnt down. I have no faith in him at all.
I think the players are too tactically rigid, as in he tells them what he wants them to do and gives them no freedom, or said players haven't got the intelligence to recognise when there is a danger, like Delph yesterday, someone should have thought, I'm gonna nullify hom when he tries to get at us down the left to outnumber us there. Almost amateruish like. We played like amateurs against United at Anfiled too, no flexibility. Bord's tactics can leave us open to being overrun and 45 minutes of that can just destroy the team confidence and mentality in a match, that happened yesterday, the players were totally ratled and didn't know how to deal with the problem with how they were set up.
the 4 poor transfer windows for me has been a huge factor and the main one that will get him the sack.
I said when he was appointed he was a salesman, and that his ego was worrying. I said a couple of years ago that he appears to be great with young players and actually seems to only want them, and that I felt he couldn't manage top, top experienced players. I said before he was appointed that it was a big, big ask, and that if he ever did get sacked then I worried what squad he would leave behind and how useful that would be for the next manager. I said ages ago that Suarez was propelling us much higher than we realistically were in terms of ability, and I also started a thread in the close season on his transfer record! All depends now on who we can get though?
have to ask yourself... If you took a good european manager who knows how to basically organise a team and has a good european palyer knowledge would this "group of youngsters" not benefit hugely. We've seen southampton change their man and thought it mad, they instantly rose in prem had him poached and went and got another. We've seen rafa change our own team outlook radically in previous era. Surely if we were to say hey... we have henderson a willing runner, we have can a player who can organise and has a bit of physicality and game to him... we have sterling and ibe for pace, we have coutinho for no 10. we have sahko...... **** lets get a manager who can build on this.
I agree.... FSG have given him lots. two januarys in a row where nobody arrived is forgivable especially if you only buy for buying sake but the problems last jan were ****ing crystal clear and we didn't move. the were created during prior two summers where despite adding "depth" or so called "depth" we faield to actually bring in players good enough. I mean 25 mil on lallana i still shake my head. I just don't see why he'd even get in an england squad cos there are many players just better than him
Good point regarding youth but my critical head starts to question the logic.....so playing devils advocate... Has Sterling actually improved this year? I don't think he has. Has his finishing, final ball, decision making improved? The youth system he inherited was a vision of Rafa. Has he merely just benefited from this....wouldn't every manager have been able to do this?
Thing is Luv, with or without BR, starting again is exactly what we will be doing with next season.....except this time without a Suarez, Carragher, Gerrard et al.........He may not even have Sterling or Henderson for that matter!!
I think a huge difference though, is that Southampton have a very, very good youth system that produces a conveyor load of gems. But also, at least in the last few years, those young players could be given the time and playing time to develop, it is hard to get the balance right when the pressure to win every game is on. We have had a lot of players knocking on the door, but whether it comes down to them just falling short of the required quality, or not quite getting their development just right is open to debate I guess? We could do worse than go after Koeman, who seems to have found a good balance, and can identify targets that don't cost the earth as well as work with what is already at his disposal?
no he was given his chance and i think has reached his level... he will get better with experience but we've seen lads like him before. His attributes are not vision or decision making. coutinho naturally has instinct that is just not there at all in sterling. Sterling is a pace, player, got physique that lallana could only dream of be has zero instinct for just reacting and scoring. he just is another mcmanaman. nothing wrong with that of course but he is just not driven to run at guys and the do something. I do agree that many of the talents he gave a go to were bought in rafa's regime but we also have to say rafa was a cautious man who would not give them a go par se. Stelring, ibe, wisdom.... suso... the thing i do have to worry about at the club is deicsion are being made on players without actually thought to first locking them down. Like suso. he should never ever have been let out on a loan to spain wihtout a contract signed. His breakthrough was decent but he didn't really find a good role. in many ways he reminded me of a joe cole... you have to ask where do you actually play lad? Rodgers gave them all every opportunity. even flanagan as greez would harp on about. We should give him credit for doing this as others may well not have.
They produce decent players... not sure gems is quite right. They have put a careful academy in place but have some sort of massive amount of pitches where they can play on the same type of gras and size of ptich of each opposition. they have taken what was learned and tried to apply it. however. LFC are not just jokes. if you look through our academy we have actually tried at least to put men in place with actual qualifications. Our seniors in marsh, pascoe and rodgers are actually the least qualified of all of our coaches! yet.......... our youths stand accused as ibe was of not knowing the basics when sent on loan. they seem to need to learn how to play when out on loan.
Hmmm......I think most managers would have given Sterling a chance tbh but you're right that BR hands out opportunities far more than Rafa did.....but then, what did he inherit?? It's all relative. Didn't kenny blood Flanagan? It matters not of course. Fact is that most of these players were here before BR......am not sure all will be here longer than him though!!
To counter all the knee jerks (yes they are, no one would be talking about Rodgers out if the linesman didn't wrongly rule out Balotelli's goal and then we went through on pens) Rodgers has shown several times he can adapt and change things. Klopp couldn't change things so when it went bad he quit. Rafa couldn't change things so his title challenge suffered a death by 1000 draws we all saw coming 4 months in advance. Rodgers didn't make Gerrard a legend and even until yesterday there were still a lot of pundits and fans talking about how he should start. I don't think any other manager would have handled him any better. Rodgers is young and our players are young. There is lots of time for the signings to come good (the only one I'm currently writing off is Lovren). Rodgers didn't make Gerrard slip. People say Suarez inspired (a lot of it from the bench while banned) and yes he played a big part but good players don't equal a title challenge (see Pellegrini this season) and Rodgers has improved every player he's put time into which is the most essential requirement for a manager who can't afford to buy the finished world-class article like LFC.
I am not knee jerk, as bad as the season has been my biggest and consistent criticism has been the signings. 1 in 4 turn out to be decent. That is the primary reason we've been ****
