Brendan Rodgers

[Tee]

It's about the mentality. It's about wanting it. About being ready and up for it, etc.

In the '88 cup final, Steve McMahon got done early on and he was quiet as a mouse. Wasn't up for the battle. And he was as hard a player as there was in that era.

The point Rodgers was making, was that at Liverpool he expects players to come in every day and fight for their life's, just as he is willing to do. If they don't battle, they're out the door, young or old. Against Oldham players let him down, and he's made his point.

On the subject of size of players, clearly we couldn't have a team of midgets. But we haven't. Even Barca have players like Busquetts and Piqué in their side. They also have small players like Xavi & Iniesta. It's about balance.

[el matador]

Disagree about 'size' and physicality in the PL.

I look at players like Ramires at Chelsea. Skinny but a fantastic athlete, and thats what you need to be at the top level in the PL, an athlete. Just like our own Stevie was an immense athlete at his peak.

We don't need a physical presence in midfield IMO, we need our CMs to be more athletic and fluid in posession, perfect example was Gerrard on Sunday fro 30 mins. Infact we need to be more fluid all over the pitch, just too much stop start footy.

re Ramirez - Chelsea have other big lads in their team to make up for his lack of height. Cahill, Luiz, terry, Mikel, Torres, lampard, ivanovic, ba are all over six foot.

Against Oldham we had skrtel coates Henderson and the rest were all under six foot. A couple of smaller players is fine but a team of midgets relatively speaking isn't.

[DannyMan2006]

I bet Wisdom isn't under six feet tall, Sturridge isn't far off six feet.

On all honesty, we could have had a tiny team all we need is decent size full backs, a tall keeper, two good sized CB's and someone in midfield with a bit of size. We had all that.

In the final third we tend to keep it on the deck, so we don't need a giant up top.

We lost to Oldham because certain players weren't up for it. In particular, Coates, Skrtel, Robinson, Sterling & Borini.

[G]

Mascherano had plenty of aggression and fight in him and he's not tall.

Height has **** all to do with anything, not for the first time plenty of our squad hid in the face of a physical challenge.

They're pussys.

[Muddled]

Mascherano was quite stocky and had bags of tenacity, our current crop of players are more slight and delicate.

Maybe Rodgers wants a team of slender midgets, that are nimble, agile and can outmanoeuvre instead of outmuscle opponents?

[Galb]

Strange, I vaguely remember him having a long sit down with forums, fanzines and blog writers (maybe a month or so ago) where he accepted that he'd made quite a few mistakes. Maybe I imagined it. But hey, I think he should tell Barrett, Evans and Co how crap he thinks he's been. Makes perfect sense

Its easy to come out and say Ive made mistakes after a few victories when things are going ok. Its clever PR - it makes you look down to earth and copped on. It also helps to lower expectations.

Its when you're coming off the back of an embarassing result (where, arguably, the team he's picked was as much a mistake as some of the other things that have gone wrong) that I think its bad to be blaming others in a way that tries to shift everything away from you.

[Sarb]

Its easy to come out and say Ive made mistakes after a few victories when things are going ok. Its clever PR - it makes you look down to earth and copped on. It also helps to lower expectations.

Its when you're coming off the back of an embarassing result (where, arguably, the team he's picked was as much a mistake as some of the other things that have gone wrong) that I think its bad to be blaming others in a way that tries to shift everything away from you.

When he spoke to the forums, our results were pretty inconsistent. In fact we've been inconsistent all season.

Just a question, when you saw the team he selected, did you expect us to struggle to win that game? I didn't. I thought we'd score a few goals and win quite easily, bearing in mind how poor the opposition were prior to that game.

Sure in hindsight he probably should have started with 3 proper midfielders and maybe Carra at CB, but I can't see Carra playing 2 games in a week. The team he sent out should have won the game. Their attitude and effort was piss poor. They are paid handsomly and he has praised them plenty to the press. They deserved a public slating in my opinion after that. He chose to give it.

Personally think there are a lot of people who jump on every single thing he says and sometimes a lot of misinterpretation/misrepresentation goes on

[G]

Mascherano was quite stocky and had bags of tenacity, our current crop of players are more slight and delicate.

Maybe Rodgers wants a team of slender midgets, that are nimble, agile and can outmanoeuvre instead of outmuscle opponents?

Maybe he does but aggression doesn't strike me as an attribute you'd want your team to be lacking in when playing in England.

It's all in the mind,people can have slight frames and still not be afraid to mix it.

Lucas isn't exactly a big lad but he can crunch with the best of them, at least pre injury he could. Gerrard, tall but skinny most of his career, not afraid to get stuck in. Jay spearing small and not much to him but can tackle like an ox , shame that's all he's good at.

The players are mentally weak imo, physical attributes aren't the main factor in being able to fight fire with fire.

[Sarb]

Maybe he does but aggression doesn't strike me as an attribute you'd want your team to be lacking in when playing in England.

It's all in the mind,people can have slight frames and still not be afraid to mix it.

Lucas isn't exactly a big lad but he can crunch with the best of them, at least pre injury he could. Gerrard, tall but skinny most of his career, not afraid to get stuck in. Jay spearing small and not much to him but can tackle like an ox , shame that's all he's good at.

The players are mentally weak imo, physical attributes aren't the main factor in being able to fight fire with fire.

[Neil Young]

What sackworthy gaffes has he made since I logged off last night?

[G]

He said dogs are the scourge of the earth and should all be shot

[Neil Young]

It had to happen sooner or later. He's said everything else.

[calvoboy]

He said that it was like Gerrard had been dropped from Heaven when he came on last weekend. Using phrases like that he's clearly one of these religious nutters like Glenn Hoddle - sack him now before he starts picking on the disabled.

[Muddled]

Maybe he does but aggression doesn't strike me as an attribute you'd want your team to be lacking in when playing in England.

It's all in the mind,people can have slight frames and still not be afraid to mix it.

Lucas isn't exactly a big lad but he can crunch with the best of them, at least pre injury he could. Gerrard, tall but skinny most of his career, not afraid to get stuck in. Jay spearing small and not much to him but can tackle like an ox , shame that's all he's good at.

The players are mentally weak imo, physical attributes aren't the main factor in being able to fight fire with fire.

Very true, especially the last sentence.

If we had a team of nimble midgets that were full of spunk and chutzpah, then as long as the ball was on the deck, we'd be in for the win. I still think tackling is an overatated attribute and as football changes it will be slowly eradicated from the game.

Lucas has a great ability to win possession by reading the game, much like Alonso did and Henderson has shown (on the odd occasion), perhaps Arn is/was a visionary and we'll be at the forefront of the *new* football era.

[Chazza]

From the Echo web chat when asked about a falling out between Rodgers and Skrtel

Rodgers and Skrtel haven't fallen out but there's no doubt the manager hasn't been happy with some of the centre-back's recent performances, hence why he was dropped for the Norwich game. It was interesting on Monday when Rodgers spoke about Matt Smith for Oldham causing the same kind of problems that Benteke did for Villa. The only centre-back to play in both of those games was Skrtel. Rodgers was furious at the way his centre-backs failed to match Oldham physically and got bullied. But it shouldn't be blown out of proportion. Rodgers had a pop at Downing and Enrique earlier in the season and look at how they responded. Hopefully Skrtel will do likewise.