Brendan Rodgers

[The_weatherman]

Which is why I said we dropped the ball in the Summer. Left with Balotelli after not securing who we wanted to come in.

Hopefully we don't make the same mistake but until we've done our business this Summer we wont know.

That's still the managers job, to plan for the season. If he was counting on Sturridge to stay injury free the whole reason I'd file that under ridiculous.

[Alex]

Who else was out there though. Realistically?

Sanchez would have been nice, but this summer the big moves were tied up before things happened and the only real option was Mario.

[Bender]

Who else was out there though. Realistically?

Sanchez would have been nice, but this summer the big moves were tied up before things happened and the only real option was Mario.

complete waste of time/effort and Money

[The_weatherman]

Who else was out there though. Realistically?

Sanchez would have been nice, but this summer the big moves were tied up before things happened and the only real option was Mario.

That's not my job, but I refuse to belive Lambert and Balotelli were the only available ones. Griezman went for 20 million, West Ham found Sakho and Valencia at lowish prices, Southampton found a couple of attacking players as well. We're maybe just not scouting enough? We bought three players for 50 million from a single club.

[danperkins]

That's not my job, but I refuse to belive Lambert and Balotelli were the only available ones. Griezman went for 20 million, West Ham found Sakho and Valencia at lowish prices, Southampton found a couple of attacking players as well. We're maybe just not scouting enough? We bought three players for 50 million from a single club.

that's what we pay the scouting department for.

[RichC]

That's still the managers job, to plan for the season. If he was counting on Sturridge to stay injury free the whole reason I'd file that under ridiculous.

Easy to criticise not so easy to offer solutions hey & fwiw whilst it's the managers job to get the team ready for the season he's certainly not the only one involved in that.

The recruitment for me is where our main issues are but whether that lies with the strategy, scouting of the players or the people involved in implementing it all I'm not too sure it could be a combination of all of them.

I do think we should have done better last Summer but as Alex has said I'm not sure who was out there that would have on paper been any better, you mention Greizman but he's not a striker.

This summer attacking options should be better with the likes of Lacazzette, Icardi and Vietto all potentially on the move and whilst they might not join us just by seeing some movement in the market will likely see some other good strikers become available.

[Red_Polo]

that's what we pay the scouting department for.

Although I'd add, it's not just a case of finding quality but the right type of player. We had absolutely no plan for how to get the most out of Lambert or Balotelli, and have failed abjectly in the final third as a direct result of that in Sturridge's absence. We mustn't sign players who don't fit with our plans! We'd have been better off not signing either of them, frankly. It's been an absolutely terrible waste of talent and money.

[danperkins]

Although I'd add, it's not just a case of finding quality but the right type of player. We had absolutely no plan for how to get the most out of Lambert or Balotelli, and have failed abjectly in the final third as a direct result of that in Sturridge's absence. We mustn't sign players who don't fit with our plans! We'd have been better off not signing either of them, frankly. It's been an absolutely terrible waste of talent and money.

that's exactly it mate. Once we have a plan,a way we want to play.. then go after players to suit that way. Seems we had got a clue what we were doing last summer and it has cost us.

[DannyMan2006]

the perception that Brendan had Balotelli forced upon him or that it was "Balotelli or nobody" is a bit convienient for the manager as well. So much so that he seems to bs dropping that hint himself. In reality he still had tk sanction the deal. He had his 3 hour meeting with the lad. He needed to give the whole thing the thumbs up. And he did. So the buck stops with Brendan. If Balotelli wasnt the right type of player for LFCs system, then ****in dont accept him.

What is strange when you look at his whole tenure is that the acceptance of balotelli into the squad directly contradicts the treatment of Andy Carroll when brendan first arrived.....

His options by that stage were Eto'o or Mario. Makes you wonder why we bother employing scouts when they are your final two options. The biggest mistake the club made was gambling on getting Sanchez. We should have held on to Suarez until we had a replacement in. I guess the club thought that with Remy lined up, it wasn't so much of an issue.

I still don't see why the club didn't just sign Sanchez & Remy. Had we gone for both, we'd have quickly realised Remy wasn't capable and could've targeted another in the event Sanchez spurned us, which was odds on all the time. He never once said he was interested and never even actually bothered speaking to us.

I think that actually might be the difference between Rodgers and someone like Benitez. Rafa has a ridiculously good record of making at least the semis in Europe virtually every season. He could show that to a target and they'd sign on that alone. I think even in that shockingly bad final season under Rafa, we still made the semis of the Europa, going out on an away goal to the eventual winners, Atletico in extra time.

[DannyMan2006]

that's exactly it mate. Once we have a plan,a way we want to play.. then go after players to suit that way. Seems we had got a clue what we were doing last summer and it has cost us.

Lambert was a plan B that we had to bring of the bench.

Sanchez or Remy were going to be the replacement for Suarez. I think 433 was probably the formation Rodgers wanted and either could play wide or in a diamond up top with Sturridge. We ended up signing Mario, and Lambert is too much like him to make it worth having a plan B, when it's completely the same as Plan A.

Signing Mario instead of a tricky / speedy player is why Lambert has played so few minutes.

[danperkins]

Lambert was a plan B that we had to bring of the bench.

Sanchez or Remy were going to be the replacement for Suarez. I think 433 was probably the formation Rodgers wanted and either could play wide or in a diamond up top with Sturridge. We ended up signing Mario, and Lambert is too much like him to make it worth having a plan B, when it's completely the same as Plan A.

Signing Mario instead of a tricky / speedy player is why Lambert has played so few minutes.

So we just had a plan A basically.

[Red_Polo]

Kinda agree, in that there's nothing wrong with a plan B so long as it is actually a plan

Signing two similar players like that was less of an issue in my mind, we could have played either of the two with a direct forward off them and encouraged midfielders to run beyond but we have not developed that way of playing. We tried it for a while, far too late on, and did so in vain. We seemingly ****ed the idea off altogether in favour of either playing neither of the two, or expecting one to fill a role they are never going to perform in.

[DannyMan2006]

Kinda agree, in that there's nothing wrong with a plan B so long as it is actually a plan

Signing two similar players like that was less of an issue in my mind, we could have played either of the two with a direct forward off them and encouraged midfielders to run beyond but we have not developed that way of playing. We tried it for a while, far too late on, and did so in vain. We seemingly ****ed the idea off altogether in favour of either playing neither of the two, or expecting one to fill a role they are never going to perform in.

If Sturridge stayed fit we stay afloat tbh. Him & Mario caused havoc together when Danny was fit & firing. Admittedly that was only the one game against Spurs But I do remember that game, Mario could've had a hat trick, since then I barely remember him having a chance. He's had 59 shots in the league, I'd say most of those were attempts in desperation. I don't know why we didn't try the diamond with Raheem & Mario with Couts in the hole.

[Red_Polo]

If Sturridge stayed fit we stay afloat tbh. Him & Mario caused havoc together when Danny was fit & firing. Admittedly that was only the one game against Spurs But I do remember that game, Mario could've had a hat trick, since then I barely remember him having a chance. He's had 59 shots in the league, I'd say most of those were attempts in desperation. I don't know why we didn't try the diamond with Raheem & Mario with Couts in the hole.

Agreed

More broadly...

Someone said earlier, and I very much agree, things would've looked very different had we signed Sanchez.

My concern is that the way we play and the level we're at, these are the only sorts of players that will move us forward. How the **** we get them I don't know. Fingers and toes crossed for a transfer policy that acknowledges that.

[SK]

The problem is we only have one style of play, and that is to press and force teams to make mistakes. When it workes, it lookes great but even with all the right personnel last year, it often didn't work out when teams either dug deep or pressed us up the pitch. We need more that that.

The manager(whoever it may be) needs to build a team larger that a sum of it's parts. Not having the amount of money the likes of chelsea, city and utd. do is a minor problem imo. We still have a lot of money to spend. Think about it, how many clubs have a budget of 100mil pounds. That with the right scouting should be more than enough to build yourself a very strong team. And with the euro dropping in value it's even better if you're looking for players on the continent, instead of oveinflated(price wise) english ones.