Brendan Rodgers

[Buzzo]

yes i do want one more drunken season

PELEGRINI WON the league and people still want him gone . even though i am silly drunk i believe with proper strikers we will deliver

What's a drunken season?

[gratziani]

turn agaisnt your manager what a surprise that is . lets get into a manager that hasnt known our league

I wish we won everything again as always , year ago we were so close it makes me sick

if Brendan goes i will miss him ,

[peekay]

I'm not certain they will and that's my worry, I wouldn't be surprised if they go with their original idea of a DoF now.

I really don't see an issue with a DOF based approach as long as they have the right personnel in the right position. Most clubs in europe including Dortmund, Juventus operate on that model. I don't think having a DOF will be a deterrent to hiring quality managers from Europe as they are used to working in such an environment.

[Buzzo]

turn agaisnt your manager what a surprise that is . lets get into a manager that hasnt known our league

I wish we won everything again as always , year ago we were so close it makes me sick

if Brendan goes i will miss him ,

Think you might be in your own right now someone has to be accountable?

I think it's fair enough after losing 6-1 to Stoke after a 3-1 at home to Palace. 9 goals shipped in 2 games against complete also rans. And that's withou looking much further back.

[gratziani]

maybe so but how come Brendan is getting all the **** and even players who i rate have been severly lacking last couple of games, like they have giving up the ghost ,

i am sick we lost to stoke but what i have seem what did the players do totally **** themsevles and give up,

[marcus50bucks]

Tony Barrett has updated his article that I posted earlier

Liverpool ripped to shreds by Stoke City

Tony Barrett
Published 1 minute ago

Stoke City 6 Liverpool 1

As endings go, this was Hammer House of Horror rather than Mills and Boon. The pathway of petals that Steven Gerrard might have deserved as he made his way out of English football did not just fail to transpire, it was replaced by a bloodbath as Liverpool succumbed to their heaviest defeat in more than half a century. As their captain departed, so increased the potential for their manager, Brendan Rodgers, doing the same.

A 6-1 defeat by Stoke City means it is not just the mathematical accuracy of Rodgers pre-match claim that he is “150 per cent” secure in his job that is open to question. Yesterday, all of the numerical evidence was negative. Not since April 1963, when they were beaten 7-2 by Tottenham Hotspur, have Liverpool lost this heavily. Not since 1931 had they conceded five goals in the first half of a top-flight fixture. The only performance indicator that was in Liverpool’s favour centred on possession, yet it was they who suffered death by football.

Given Liverpool’s owner, Fenway Sports Group (FSG), is an advocate of statistical analysis, Rodgers will go into his end-of-season review with the numbers game seemingly loaded against him. What FSG now has to determine is what is acceptable for Liverpool. With no trophies to his name after three seasons in charge, having presided over a slump from second to sixth in the space of 12 months and with the signs of deterioration becoming endemic, Rodgers accepts that he is facing a challenge just to convince his employers that he deserves to continue as manager.

For all the progress and wonderful football that was played during last season’s unsuccessful title challenge, Liverpool have gone backwards at a staggering rate over the course of this campaign. There are mitigating factors, Luis Suárez’s departure and Daniel Sturridge’s frailty chief among them, but a club which spent more than £110 million last summer expected a great deal more than what has been delivered. The question now is whether the manager, transfer committee or both are held responsible.

Increasingly, though, the greater issue — and one which becomes more apparent as their own vision unravels — is how determined FSG is to be successful. Of yesterday’s starting line-up, only three — Gerrard, Lucas Leiva and Martin Skrtel — were not signed under its ownership. This is its team, its young manager and its strategy. The inescapable conclusion is that this is its mess.

As the crisis has escalated, one which has seen Liverpool win two of their last nine league fixtures, Rodgers has been engulfed by the tide, leaving critics to claim he is out of his depth.

A video replay of yesterday’s catastrophic events certainly would not reflect well on the manager. Emre Can, once again deployed out of position at right back, was hung out of dry for 45 minutes, playing a role in four of Stoke’s first-half goals before being put out of his misery at half-time. In attack, Adam Lallana was paired with Philippe Coutinho, a lightweight pairing that was predictably swatted aside by Stoke’s heavyweight defence.

All over the pitch, Liverpool were outmanoeuvred, out-fought and out-thought, a combination that Mark Hughes, the Stoke manager, believes was a consequence of him being in charge for two years and his players being at one with his methods. Rodgers has managed Liverpool for 12 months more yet those wearing Liverpool’s funereal black away kit performed as if they were totally at odds with his approach.

With Raheem Sterling left on the substitutes’ bench, Liverpool managed to give Aidy Ward, the forward’s agent, a much-needed PR boost by demonstrating exactly why his client is so determined to leave. The sound of the Stoke fans accusing Sterling of being “a greedy b*****d” won applause from the Liverpool fans but even those in the away end would be hard pressed to come up with many reasons why he should stay.

In the opening 45 minutes, Stoke delivered five reasons why he should depart as Liverpool, tactically inept with numerous square pegs in round holes, were torn apart. Marko Arnautovic took Can to the cleaners for Stoke’s first and second goals, both of which were scored by Mame Diouf, before the befuddled German headed Charlie Adam’s deep cross straight to Jonathan Walters, who scored at the second attempt.

Adam then took advantage of a mix-up between Mamadou Sakho and Lucas to add a fourth which threatened to be Stoke’s best goal of the game only for Steven N’Zonzi to claim that mantle with a wonderful curling effort on the stroke of half-time. “The level of performance in the first 45 mins was exceptional,” Hughes said. “Most teams would’ve have struggled with the quality and intensity of our play.”

The goal that Gerrard craved on his final appearance for Liverpool arrived in the 70th minute as he latched onto a flicked header from Rickie Lambert, the substitute, and fired a low shot past Asmir Begovic into the far corner. It was No 186 of Gerrard’s Liverpool career but the circumstances in which it came were memorable for only the wrong reasons. One of Gerrard’s former team-mates, Peter Crouch, emerged from the bench to complete the rout with a header from Diouf’s cross.

The last time Liverpool won the league title in 1990, they ended the season with a 6-1 away win. Their descent from perennial winners to also-rans has been lent a symmetry. Where they go now remains to be seen.

Ratings

Stoke City (4-2-3-1): A Begovic 7 — G Cameron 7, R Shawcross 7, M Muniesa 7 (sub: M Wilson, 71min), E Pieters 7 — S N’Zonzi 9, G Whelan 7 — J Walters 8 (sub: P Odemwingie, 67 6), C Adam 8, M Arnautovic 8 (sub: P Crouch, 80) — M Diouf 8. Substitutes not used: J Butland, S Ireland, S Sidwell, P Wollscheid. Booked: Adam, Whelan, Shawcross, Pieters.

Liverpool (4-1-2-1-2): S Mignolet 4 — E Can 3 (sub: K Touré, 46 4), M Skrtel 4, M Sakho 4, A Moreno 3 (sub: J Ibe, 46 4) — L Leiva 5 — J Henderson 5, J Allen 4 — S Gerrard 6 — P Coutinho 4, A Lallana 5. Substitutes not used: D Ward, D Lovren, R Sterling, L Markovic. Booked: Lucas, Skrtel.

Numbers that point to decline

5 Goals margin of defeat for Liverpool, their biggest in any competition since losing 7-2 away to Tottenham Hotspur in the league in April 1963.

8 Years since Liverpool previously conceded six — a 6-3 defeat at home to Arsenal in the League Cup.

3 Stoke goalscorers with Liverpool links: Peter Crouch and Charlie Adam played for them; Jon Walters was born near by on the Wirral.

8 Liverpool points in final nine games of the season; they gained 25 points in the previous nine.

Season review

Stoke City

This term A second successive top-ten finish achieved with a record points tally indicates stability, progress and a cause for great satisfaction.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/football/premierleague/article4449748.ece

[Gazzla]

We will not have the managerial talent avaliable to pick from without having to pay compensation again as we have this summer, Klopp is one of the best managers in Europe, a proven manager with pedigree and a history of winning trophies and he's avaliable. We are in a huge mess, Klopp is our opportunity to show a statement of intent and get back in the elite, I hope to god we don't screw this one up

[G]

We've finished higher than 6th just once in the last 6 seasons since Rafa's title challenge. Last season was the blip, not the start of something new or the signs of progression. The whole club needs a clearout from top to bottom and to re focus itself on what it should be about and make bloody sure we have a better go at getting ourselves back there and we won't do it with youth and potential, either in the playing squad or in the managers office.

If Klopp's not arsed then it has to be Rafa. The ****houses employed by the club will run a mile from him though cos he'd expose their failings.

[marcus50bucks]

@Musker_LFC: BR: "There has been a lot happened this year to make the job difficult, but we've kept fighting right to the very end." Kept fighting?

[Robbie-9-Fowler]

@Musker_LFC: BR: "There has been a lot happened this year to make the job difficult, but we've kept fighting right to the very end." Kept fighting?

Wow.

He comes out with some ****e and if he's said that he may be mentally unwell.

We gave up weeks ago, probably after United.

[Leyton388]

Fighting?

I've seen Audley Harrison put up more of a fight than LFC this year.

[Gazzla]

He doesn't help himself coming out with **** like that. Getting ****ted by Palace and Stoke and taking 8 points from 9 games is not fighting to the very end

[Robbie-9-Fowler]

He doesn't help himself coming out with **** like that. Getting ****ted by Palace and Stoke and taking 8 points from 9 games is not fighting to the very end

Why does he opening his ****ing mouth time after time though?

Does he think we're stupid? The press have given him an easy ride, honestly they wouldn't have to try very hard to rip him to pieces.

[G]

He meant fighting with each other in the dressing room.

[TheElephantMan]

He just talks too much and it's usually complete bull****. Rodgers looks like he has lost the dressing room and he has lost the fans. FSG need to do something positive to end this now, it was a gamble with a young manager and it hasn't worked.