Brendan Rodgers

[dom9]

Don't know how people can say that.

We just going to lie down and let them piss all over us.

**** no.

Where did I say that?

[dww]

Wow, that was a bit left field el mat. i was going to say you had something of a point - I do think that the momentum of a win against united would be a big help in helping to build the team. Obviously though one result is not the be all and end all.

[el matador]

Where did I say that?

dom nobody gets a free pass. One thing I realise is that he needs time but its already beat us at anfield and we need to show that progress has been made since then.

stand up and be counted. Yes they've got a better team and the rest of that but we need to play smart.

[dww]

dom nobody gets a free pass. One thing I realise is that he needs time but its already beat us at anfield and we need to show that progress has been made since then.

stand up and be counted. Yes they've got a better team and the rest of that but we need to play smart.

To be fair that was one of our better games wasn't it. Without the sending off we might well have one it.

[dom9]

dom nobody gets a free pass. One thing I realise is that he needs time but its already beat us at anfield and we need to show that progress has been made since then.

stand up and be counted. Yes they've got a better team and the rest of that but we need to play smart.

You are a confused but funny man.

[Chris]

dom nobody gets a free pass. One thing I realise is that he needs time but its already beat us at anfield and we need to show that progress has been made since then.

stand up and be counted. Yes they've got a better team and the rest of that but we need to play smart.

We were brilliant that day to be fair but referees can change games as many times as they want and unfortunately the one we had was intent on getting Man Utd to win that match.

[el matador]

You are a confused but funny man.

that's what my therapist says.

Chris... Is that you ?

[dom9]

We were brilliant that day to be fair but referees can change games as many times as they want and unfortunately the one we had was intent on getting Man Utd to win that match.

that's what my therapist says.

Chris... Is that you ?

Chris is your therapist?

[chadrtc]

Wow, that was a bit left field el mat. i was going to say you had something of a point - I do think that the momentum of a win against united would be a big help in helping to build the team. Obviously though one result is not the be all and end all.

Of course it is, haven't you seen any match threads around here?

Win or lose it's always the end of the world!

[Big-Red-Ed]

It is mostly a numbers game. There are more children from the working classes and lower middle classes. So inevitably more of those kids are likely to be footballers.

It is also about opportunities. Sport is seen as a way out. The motivation to drag yourself out of relative poverty is bound to be higher in kids from poor backgrounds.

I also think that behind every successful sports star is a very supportive parent. It is a major pain ferrying your kids to training and matches and not all parents can or do.

Lastly I think some kids are just born with the psychological tools to make it. Professional sport is a brutal dog eat dog world and only those with the intense desire to make it will survive the test. So in that sense social background perhaps isn't so important.

[Red_Polo]

Chris is your therapist?

May the lord have mercy on his soul

[Shaggy]

Tony Barrett in The Times - Liverpool still in need of quality and consistency

Perhaps because old habits die hard rather than out of necessity, Sir Alex Ferguson still felt the need to indulge in mind games before Liverpool succumbed to their ninth defeat in their past ten visits to Old Trafford.

Not having given any prior thought to Liverpool’s league placing was as far as it went, though; proof that even the most fervent of firebrands can struggle to be antagonistic when a once-heated rivalry begins to run cold.

This was supposed to be the day when we discovered where Liverpool are up to under Brendan Rodgers and whether they are finally ready to start closing the gap on United.

After two schizophrenic halves in which Liverpool rallied only after the game was almost beyond them, no one is any wiser. No wonder Ferguson is at a loss about whether he should wind up Liverpool, patronise them or kill them with kindness.

What is known is that Liverpool trail United by 24 points, an incontrovertible fact regardless of Rodgers’s post-match attempts to muddy the waters by applying a value test to a bare statistic.

“We are 24 points behind but we are not 24 points behind in terms of quality,” he said. As the manager of a club who have long lived by the principle that the league table never lies, such sentiments are a difficult sell, particularly when it was a failure of the numbers to add up that brought him into the job in the first place.

“It was a very simple decision based on results,” Ian Ayre, Liverpool’s managing director said after Kenny Dalglish’s departure had been confirmed last May. “To be 37 points off the winner, 17 points off fourth, having suffered 14 losses [was not good enough].”

With 17 league games still to be played, that 24-point gap cannot be anything other than significant, even if Rodgers maintains that progress is being made and that improvement will follow.

As things stand, everything about Liverpool under Rodgers is under debate. His detractors question his pedigree, his signings and his ability to set up a team so that they are able to withstand pressure. His admirers hang on to the word “philosophy” in good times and bad, maintaining that even in defeat Liverpool are playing the right way. Against United there was more than enough to satisfy both opinions: rarely have a team and a manager been so difficult to fathom.

As a work in progress, a mid-table outfit that is once again in the process of change, perhaps this is to be expected. That it is now mid-January and Liverpool are yet to record a single victory against a team above them in the Barclays Premier League is indicative of their mediocrity.

Had they begun yesterday’s game in the manner that they ended it, that unwanted record might have been put to bed, but starting badly is a recurring problem that has also cost Liverpool points against Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, Arsenal and West Bromwich Albion.

Doing so at Old Trafford did not simply increase the chances of defeat, it made it almost inevitable, which makes Liverpool’s insipid first-half performance all the more inexplicable.

“I was very proud of the fight that the team showed in the second half after we went 2-0 down. Other teams might have crumbled,” Rodgers said, taking his search for positives into the realms of mental fortitude and never-say-die spirit. In doing so, he was entirely justified.

After Daniel Sturridge was introduced to offer much-needed support to the previously isolated Luis Suárez, Liverpool were a team transformed in attitude, endeavour and belief.

“When you play an opponent in this rivalry, which is massive, you need to have courage to play and you need to have the belief and I felt we were a bit too tentative in the first half,” Rodgers said. “We wanted to pass the ball but you have to be aggressive. At half-time we had to reinforce the mentality, to remind them that they are really good players.”

That they needed reminding at all is telling. The garish mix-and-match kit made them look like an amateur outfit and although it would be pushing things somewhat to suggest that they played like one during the opening 45 minutes, nor could they claim to have acquitted themselves anything like a Liverpool side should at Old Trafford.

The reminder from their manager, when it came, was too late at a venue where they have won only once in the Premier League era after going behind.

All of the positives for Liverpool came in the second half, with the greatest cause for optimism being provided by Sturridge, who showed that he has the ability to be in the right place at right time and the pace to stretch defences, even if his finishing was erratic.

In only two appearances, the forward has already made a tangible impact and offered something that neither Joe Allen nor Fabio Borini, Rodgers’s two other big signings, could yet claim with any great conviction.

Even in defeat, Liverpool remain only nine points off Tottenham in fourth place, meaning that their distant hopes of achieving Champions League qualification are still intact.

The reality is that they are neither here nor there, a team who almost defy categorisation unless written off and excused as a work in progress.

Until that changes, Ferguson will have his work cut out trying to determine what kind of mind games he should use against United’s fiercest rivals.

[Chazza]

Brendan Rodgers

I'm not sure Barrett is a fan of Rodgers.

[Gibbo]

I think the Being:Liverpool program, while being insightful and interesting, changed a lot of opinions on Rodgers.

I know it did for me. And while I want him to do well I'm still finding it difficult to warm to him as a manager.

This doesn't mean that I'm going to attack him everytime he does something wrong, or fail to acknowledge him if he does something right. It just doesn't seem quite right yet.

[G]

He's learning on the job. Not ideal but is what it is, much like Allen.

We either give him the time to learn or we change again in summer. How long does he need is the worry for me and would it be even possible to upgrade if we finish worse off then last year which if it happens will give the owners a legitimate question to answer after Ayres unequivocal reasons for getting rid of Kenny.