I think Oliver Kay has got it spot on here:
Oliver Kay on The Times - Rodgers has decided that speaking out may be the best way to remind Luis Suárez of his responsibilities to the club
Brendan Rodgers has decided that speaking out may be the best way to remind Luis Suárez of his responsibilities to the club, Oliver Kay writes
We are so unaccustomed these days to the sound of a manager rebuking his star player that our immediate reaction is to assume there is an agenda at work. Was Brendan Rodgers somehow preparing the ground yesterday for the eventual sale of Luis Suárez? Or was it an attempt to draw a line and persuade referees that any past preconceptions of the Liverpool forward need no longer apply?
None of the conspiracy theories seems appealing — neither does the idea that Rodgers, who has a far better grasp of the media than most, said it without thinking of the headlines that would follow the slightest criticism of Suárez — so we are left with a more straightforward explanation: that the Liverpool manager simply felt that, for the good of the club, he needed to condemn the off-hand manner in which his player spoke of diving “because we were drawing against Stoke at home and we needed anything to win it”.
Rodgers suggested at his weekly press conference yesterday that Suárez’s comments were “unacceptable” and would be “dealt with internally”. This is expected to amount to a conversation, manager to player, and a reminder of responsibilities, rather than a draconian disciplinary process, but perhaps the more relevant quote yesterday was Rodgers’ statement that “there is no one bigger than the club or the club’s image”.
The message to Suárez is about piping down a little and letting his football do the talking. The forward is undoubtedly, as Rodgers put it, “a real topic of conversation, football-wise and media-wise”. Whatever the Liverpool manager’s view of the “bad boy” narrative surrounding Suárez, there is a recognition that the player’s tendency to go off-message, when he speaks to the South American media, is pouring fuel on a fire that is already raging.
For Rodgers to go public in his condemnation of Suárez’s comments was surprising. It adds to that narrative. When Tony Pulis, the Stoke City manager, criticised Suárez after the match in question in October, Rodgers responded with a statement on Liverpool’s official website about the “vilification” of his player. When a furore followed Suárez’s handball goal against Mansfield Town in the FA Cup third round this month, Rodgers again sought to play down the incident, pointing out that the fuss would have been far less had Daniel Sturridge been involved in a similar incident.
So we are left to conclude that Rodgers has said this because, whatever his feelings about the “vilification” of Suárez, he feels that the player does not help himself — or his club. The obvious conclusion, one that is not discouraged inside Anfield, is that Rodgers has said this publicly because it has not got through privately.
Rodgers evidently feels that the noise surrounding Suárez is having a negative effect on Liverpool. Unlike last term, when there was the racial abuse case and its unedifying fallout, this season’s controversies have been outweighed by outstanding performances on the pitch — the same cannot be said of Mario Balotelli, for example — but the balance is still not what Liverpool would like.
Rodgers tried to position himself and Liverpool on the moral high ground yesterday. It is new ground for the club where Suárez is concerned. The question that arose, when Rodgers spoke about the value of Liverpool’s “ethics”, is why there was no condemnation when Suárez threw himself to the ground in such a desperate, almost comical manner against Stoke in October.
At the time, there were stern words in private but a protective arm in public — the Ferguson method, if we can call it that. The temptation is to state that Sir Alex Ferguson would never admonish one of his players publicly — unless, of course, there is an obvious agenda for doing so, as there was by the end with Ruud van Nistelrooy, for instance. But it would not be true.
Ferguson has also been issued public criticisms for diving — notably with Ashley Young last season and with Cristiano Ronaldo in the past when there was a Suárez-like hysteria concerning the Portugal forward’s penalty-box antics.
With Ronaldo, who always had the feeling that Manchester was dreary and that he deserved more respect than English football gave him on and off the pitch, there was always the feeling that criticism might hasten his departure to Real Madrid. But he went to Spain at the right time, when Real were re-emerging as a force under the presidency of Florentino Pérez, having grown during his years at United.
Just as it was clear that Ronaldo would not spend his career at Old Trafford, there is the same feeling with Suárez on Merseyside — and this would perhaps still be the case if Liverpool were a leading force in the Champions League, never mind in the early stages of a rebuilding project.
Suárez will not be short of offers if the time comes to look beyond Liverpool; Manchester City’s interest is already known, while nobody should be surprised if he appears on the radar of Bayern Munich, whose next coach, Pep Guardiola, happens to be the brother of the forward’s agent.
Rodgers’s statements yesterday were not about preparing the ground for a sale. They were designed to remind his player and everyone else, both for the short term and the long, that Liverpool Football Club does not begin and end with Luis Suárez.
Brendan Rodgers has decided that speaking out may be the best way to remind Luis Suárez of his responsibilities to the club, Oliver Kay writes
We are so unaccustomed these days to the sound of a manager rebuking his star player that our immediate reaction is to assume there is an agenda at work. Was Brendan Rodgers somehow preparing the ground yesterday for the eventual sale of Luis Suárez? Or was it an attempt to draw a line and persuade referees that any past preconceptions of the Liverpool forward need no longer apply?
None of the conspiracy theories seems appealing — neither does the idea that Rodgers, who has a far better grasp of the media than most, said it without thinking of the headlines that would follow the slightest criticism of Suárez — so we are left with a more straightforward explanation: that the Liverpool manager simply felt that, for the good of the club, he needed to condemn the off-hand manner in which his player spoke of diving “because we were drawing against Stoke at home and we needed anything to win it”.
Rodgers suggested at his weekly press conference yesterday that Suárez’s comments were “unacceptable” and would be “dealt with internally”. This is expected to amount to a conversation, manager to player, and a reminder of responsibilities, rather than a draconian disciplinary process, but perhaps the more relevant quote yesterday was Rodgers’ statement that “there is no one bigger than the club or the club’s image”.
The message to Suárez is about piping down a little and letting his football do the talking. The forward is undoubtedly, as Rodgers put it, “a real topic of conversation, football-wise and media-wise”. Whatever the Liverpool manager’s view of the “bad boy” narrative surrounding Suárez, there is a recognition that the player’s tendency to go off-message, when he speaks to the South American media, is pouring fuel on a fire that is already raging.
For Rodgers to go public in his condemnation of Suárez’s comments was surprising. It adds to that narrative. When Tony Pulis, the Stoke City manager, criticised Suárez after the match in question in October, Rodgers responded with a statement on Liverpool’s official website about the “vilification” of his player. When a furore followed Suárez’s handball goal against Mansfield Town in the FA Cup third round this month, Rodgers again sought to play down the incident, pointing out that the fuss would have been far less had Daniel Sturridge been involved in a similar incident.
So we are left to conclude that Rodgers has said this because, whatever his feelings about the “vilification” of Suárez, he feels that the player does not help himself — or his club. The obvious conclusion, one that is not discouraged inside Anfield, is that Rodgers has said this publicly because it has not got through privately.
Rodgers evidently feels that the noise surrounding Suárez is having a negative effect on Liverpool. Unlike last term, when there was the racial abuse case and its unedifying fallout, this season’s controversies have been outweighed by outstanding performances on the pitch — the same cannot be said of Mario Balotelli, for example — but the balance is still not what Liverpool would like.
Rodgers tried to position himself and Liverpool on the moral high ground yesterday. It is new ground for the club where Suárez is concerned. The question that arose, when Rodgers spoke about the value of Liverpool’s “ethics”, is why there was no condemnation when Suárez threw himself to the ground in such a desperate, almost comical manner against Stoke in October.
At the time, there were stern words in private but a protective arm in public — the Ferguson method, if we can call it that. The temptation is to state that Sir Alex Ferguson would never admonish one of his players publicly — unless, of course, there is an obvious agenda for doing so, as there was by the end with Ruud van Nistelrooy, for instance. But it would not be true.
Ferguson has also been issued public criticisms for diving — notably with Ashley Young last season and with Cristiano Ronaldo in the past when there was a Suárez-like hysteria concerning the Portugal forward’s penalty-box antics.
With Ronaldo, who always had the feeling that Manchester was dreary and that he deserved more respect than English football gave him on and off the pitch, there was always the feeling that criticism might hasten his departure to Real Madrid. But he went to Spain at the right time, when Real were re-emerging as a force under the presidency of Florentino Pérez, having grown during his years at United.
Just as it was clear that Ronaldo would not spend his career at Old Trafford, there is the same feeling with Suárez on Merseyside — and this would perhaps still be the case if Liverpool were a leading force in the Champions League, never mind in the early stages of a rebuilding project.
Suárez will not be short of offers if the time comes to look beyond Liverpool; Manchester City’s interest is already known, while nobody should be surprised if he appears on the radar of Bayern Munich, whose next coach, Pep Guardiola, happens to be the brother of the forward’s agent.
Rodgers’s statements yesterday were not about preparing the ground for a sale. They were designed to remind his player and everyone else, both for the short term and the long, that Liverpool Football Club does not begin and end with Luis Suárez.
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