Brendan Rodgers

[Exiled_red]

For me, Brendan's biggest problem is that no matter how amazing last seasons football was (and it was the most fun any of us have had in the last 25 years of watching lfc) what he has proved is that he can't be trusted with transfer funds. He has simply got it horribly wrong. For every Coutinho there are 5 or 6 balotellis, lamberts, borinis etc.....

Despite the club spending transfer funds last season - and in reality the 116m was actually about 35m when you consider sales - they are in a position to do so again. With Gerrard, Johnson, Toure and hopefully Enrique, balotelli, lambert, Borini all focking off, and maybe something like 50m for the sale of sterling coming in, then the club have a nice kitty to spunk on 3 to 5 good quality signings again. They probably have 100m again plus loads of freed up space on the wage bill.

The question they have to ask themselves is "do we trust Brendan to spend our money"..... And if the answer is "no" then how is he going to last to June the 1st???

When you consider that a new manager will possibly be able to attract new talent with him, then that is music to their ears. Especially if Brendan drops the words "Charlie Austin, Ashley Williams or Danny ings" into any conversation.

I think the only way Brendan keeps his job is if the owners decide that they will keep their powder dry this summer - maybe pick up a few free transfers and spend what they earn in sales - and give him the first half of next season to prove that this season was just a annus horribilus..... And if Brendan can talk them round that he is the man to get vast improvement out of Markovic, Ibe Emre can, Moreno - as well as introduce the likes of Harry Wilson, ojo etc - then you never know.

But if they have Klopps agent on the phone promising to tap the best young talent in Germany and surrounding countries (Poland / turkey) then it might be enough to give john W a non-Linda induced boner....

The question is who is responsible for the transfers Rodgers or the committee, Rodgers was clear in the middle of the summer that he didn't want Balotelli but we brought him in anyway, which suggests that Rodgers doesn't have the final say in transfers / others have alot of influence. If someone else is in charge of transfers it doesn't matter who the manager is if they stay and bring the players in that they want.

[tanner]

IMO the fact he has played well despite being played in a position he wasn't bought for.

I think he's done ok, no more than that.

The lad has potential though.

[frank the tank]

The question is who is responsible for the transfers Rodgers or the committee, Rodgers was clear in the middle of the summer that he didn't want Balotelli but we brought him in anyway, which suggests that Rodgers doesn't have the final say in transfers / others have alot of influence. If someone else is in charge of transfers it doesn't matter who the manager is if they stay and bring the players in that they want.

Well if he agreed to bring balotelli in then he may as well have suggested it. As manager if he plainly didn't want the lad, then he should have stood his ground. If it was any manager worth his sal, then he would have kicked up a stink about a player against his wishes. And Balotelli would still have been waiting for his debut.

[TheElephantMan]

I think we could easily sustain this level of achievement every season with Rodgers, we're exactly where we should be in the league given our financial position. We don't have billionaire owners like Chelsea and City and our ground's capacity can't compete with United and Arsenal. If we have any hope of competing at the highest level then we need a manager who can attract top quality players, get the best out of the players we have and establish a system that works and enables us to perform beyond our means. I don't believe that Rodgers is that man.

[marcus50bucks]

Liverpool owners put Brendan Rodgers on spot over transfer policy

Tony Barrett
Last updated at 12:01AM, May 20 2015

Although one position remains unchanged, another has been subject to a subtle but potentially significant adjustment. While Liverpool continue to insist that Raheem Sterling is going nowhere, the future of Brendan Rodgers, the manager, has become less clear. From being the only man for the job a month ago, he now has to demonstrate that he remains heading in the same direction as Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the club’s owner.

After Liverpool’s shambolic defeat by Aston Villa in the FA Cup semi-final last month, word emerged from Anfield indicating that FSG was not contemplating replacing Rodgers. In many respects that remains the same, but a crucial, potentially destabilising caveat has been added: the Northern Irishman needs to re-establish trust with Liverpool’s hierarchy to prove that they can work together.

While the future of Sterling continues to attract attention, a process of much greater significance is taking place behind the scenes at Anfield. Rodgers will effectively have to convince FSG that the strain that has weakened their relationship in recent weeks need not prove terminal.

Almost a year to the day since he agreed a new four-year contract, Rodgers finds himself at the centre of the kind of uncertainty that seemed unimaginable then.

At the heart of the matter is a strategic divergence between Rodgers and FSG about Liverpool’s transfer policy. For the many critics who believed that the introduction of a transfer committee to share the responsibilities would result in this kind of dysfunction, there will be a sense of vindication at this turn of events.

Rodgers’s preference would be to recruit proven, established Barclays Premier League players, such as Ashley Williams, the Swansea City central defender, and Ryan Bertrand, the Southampton left back. FSG remains unwavering in its belief that focusing on potential and recruiting players for the manager to improve through coaching is the best way to proceed.

Marrying those seemingly incompatible positions will be the objective when Rodgers has his end-of-season review this month.

The sense that Liverpool are at a crossroads under FSG’s ownership is inescapable. The question marks over Rodgers’s future are just part of an overall feeling of uncertainty that pervades the club at all levels.

Symptomatic of this trend is the ambiguity caused by Michel Platini’s announcement that Uefa is preparing to reduce the rigour of Financial Fair Play (FFP), the very rules that John W Henry, Liverpool’s principal owner, admitted allowed the idea of buying the Merseyside club almost five years ago to make sense.

Any relaxation of those regulations would not only carry the potential for Liverpool to find it even more difficult to compete with clubs boasting wealthier owners, as Henry has also acknowledged, but also keeping their own better players would become an even greater test.

Particularly illuminating is the symbolism of Manchester City, the one club that Henry hoped FFP would affect, looking to tempt Sterling away from Liverpool by offering the winger the kind of salary that FSG will not consider paying.

As was the case two summers ago when Luis Suárez agitated for a move to Arsenal, Liverpool can hold firm and refuse to allow Sterling to leave, regardless of how hard he fights to secure a transfer. That would at least represent a show of strength, a refusal to yield to those who may be able to wield petrodollars with renewed intent, but the likelihood is that, as with Suárez, it would prove to be only a short-lived one.

This time next year, Sterling will have only 12 months left on his contract and Liverpool will have little choice but to sanction his sale to ward off the possibility of him leaving on a free transfer.

What this says about the state of top-level football and the effect that money is having on it is a cause for concern, particularly if the kind of level playing field that Platini, the Uefa president, wrongly envisaged FFP would deliver remains an objective. But regardless of sporting fairness, Liverpool are having to confront the uncomfortable reality that their ability to compete at the highest level is diminishing. The one-time biters are being bitten.

It is against this troubled backdrop that their future must be mapped out. Like Rodgers, Steven Gerrard, the departing captain, believes that the time for signing players with potential is past and that this summer the focus must be on the here and now if Liverpool are to challenge for a place in the top four of the Premier League next season.
For that to happen, FSG, like Uefa, must accept that their transfer strategy should be abandoned or, at the very least, relaxed.

As things stand, there is little sign of FSG going down that route. Instead, its initial desire is to put right the mistakes that undermined the campaign, with the focus being the failure to integrate last summer’s signings into the team. That is where Rodgers’s input is crucial.

Unless the manager subscribes to the idea that the present strategy should be pursued, albeit with refinements, the changes at Anfield could become fundamental rather than subtle.

Decade of drama

2004 Gérard Houllier is sacked, paving the way for Rafael Benítez to take over as manager. Steven Gerrard has a change of heart and remains at Anfield after looking set to join Chelsea.

2009 Xabi Alonso is sold to Real Madrid and replaced with Alberto Aquilani. Off the pitch, Christian Purslow is appointed managing director.

2010 Benítez is replaced by Roy Hodgson during a summer that culminates in Liverpool being sold to Fenway Sports Group despite attempts by Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr to retain ownership.

2013 Luis Suárez attempts to force a move to Arsenal but is prevented from doing so after the intervention of John W Henry, Liverpool’s principal owner.

2014 After picking up a four-month ban for biting Giorgio Chiellini during the World Cup, Suárez wins his battle to leave Liverpool and joins Barcelona for £75 million, triggering a spending spree on nine signings.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/clubs/liverpool/article4445315.ece

[G]

The bit about Rodgers insisting on premier league proven players is enough for me. More ****e at top dollar, christ. Maybe that's why last summer the choice came down to Balotelli or Eto'o, cos they were prem proven. Sack him.

[marcus50bucks]

Barrett has certainly changed his tune in his recent article. I would love to be a fly on the wall in Rodgers impending meeting. He's got some explaining to do to win back fsg's trust going by the article. I think everything points towards a change in the player recruitment structure. I can see Rodgers being told a dof will be appointed and he will no longer have anything to do with player recruitment. If he can buy into the new structure (let's not forget he himself said he didn't want to work with a dof) he will keep his job, if not I expect an announcement that he has agreed to leave by mutual consent.

[G]

FSG need to wake up and smell the coffee regarding their own view on transfers too I must say.

[cream]

Barrett has certainly changed his tune in his recent article. I would love to be a fly on the wall in Rodgers impending meeting. He's got some explaining to do to win back fsg's trust going by the article. I think everything points towards a change in the player recruitment structure. I can see Rodgers being told a dof will be appointed and he will no longer have anything to do with player recruitment. If he can buy into the new structure (let's not forget he himself said he didn't want to work with a dof) he will keep his job, if not I expect an announcement that he has agreed to leave by mutual consent.

But that article suggests Rodgers has nothing to do with transfers and FSG want to carry on buying players such as Can, Markovic, Moreno, Aspas, Illori, Alberto etc...

Our whole transfers committee thing is ****e, if we want to carry on buying young potential for the manager to develop, we need to find better players and we need to find a coach who is willing to work under that policy.

[frank the tank]

i think Klopp would work under that policy.

I think Benitez would come back to Liverpool under that policy, get some success the first 12 to 18 months and then give out about the policy and challenge authority......

I think Rafa would like to be our Fergie / Wenger - in that he would be the focal point of the club, the boss from top to bottom - and in total control. He would probably buy into the whole "lets spend big on younger players that we can make better" because he purchased the likes of Alonso, Mascherano, Torres, Arbeloa, Reina, Agger, Skrtel, Lucas - all of who would fall into that category.

[baitman]

Rodgers is preparing a thousand page dossier and a eight hour presentation to bore the owners into submission.

[Phoenix07]

Liverpool's owners to scrutinise club's transfer committee after misplaced spending

Ian Herbert Chief Sports Writer

Two key members of Liverpool’s transfer committee who oversaw the misplaced spending of £110m last summer are under threat in an end-of-season review where the club’s American owners will seek explanations for a disappointing campaign.

With Brendan Rodgers’ position thought to be under no immediate threat and no preliminary soundings having been made to alternative managerial candidates, the fiercest scrutiny is thought to be falling on the club’s head of recruitment, Dave Fallows, and Michael Edwards, the director of performance analysis.

Their statistically driven approach to recruitment has been a key factor in a transfer market strategy which saw the club spend lavishly last summer on players who have not materially improved the squad.

Fallows was brought in from Manchester City, where his role entailed assigning scouts to targets, preparing recommendations based on their work and building a database of players. Edwards was hired by Liverpool as “head of analytics” by Damien Comolli, the director of football who was released in 2012 and had worked alongside the Frenchman in a role as head of performance at Tottenham.

The two men running the player acquisition department and chief scout Barry Hunter do not take sole responsibility for the disastrous summer of spending.

FSG are thought to feel the same point of principle applies to the retention of Raheem Sterling at Liverpool as when Luis Suarez was agitating to leave two years ago. The owners are prepared to make Sterling a marginal part of the next campaign, on his current £35,000-a-week salary if necessary.

But while Suarez’s desperate desire to play football ensured that he knuckled down, the owners could not be as certain about any such response from Sterling.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/f...-10265360.html

[marcus50bucks]

But that article suggests Rodgers has nothing to do with transfers and FSG want to carry on buying players such as Can, Markovic, Moreno, Aspas, Illori, Alberto etc...

Our whole transfers committee thing is ****e, if we want to carry on buying young potential for the manager to develop, we need to find better players and we need to find a coach who is willing to work under that policy.

But we know Rodgers has a say on transfers. Whether he always gets the players he wants is another story.

[gratziani]

This is starting to sound like when King Kenny was pushed out the door to me.

People are rightly being made accountable for the 120 million spent and going backwards.

No matter how you look at it we still spent 25 million on Lallana and 20 million on Lovren,20 Million on Markovic, with better scouting that kind of cash could have improved three starting players in the team.

When not one of them has made the step up to even be worth a place.

[The Birdman]

So nothing new then.
Rodgers buys **** players
But we don't actually know who signs who from the committee
Rodgers plays **** football
Last season was our best for 25 years
Rodgers is an amateur, he'll never win us the league
We finished 2nd last year
Rodgers doesn't know his best formation
We're tactically flexible enough to play 4 or 5 different ones.

And so on, repeat until there's clarification one way or the other.
Only FSG know what will happen in the meeting, lets wait until after then shall we