Brendan Rodgers

[RichC]

I disagree. The players seems much more assured, confident and comfortable on the ball. This would point to them being more mentally 'better'

Good examples of this are Enrique, Henderson and to a lesser extent Downing

[Arn]

I disagree. The players seems much more assured, confident and comfortable on the ball. This would point to them being more mentally 'better'

In attack yes but not in defense. So far Rodgers is more a Roy Evans than a Rafa.

[Robbie-9-Fowler]

Perhaps and I can't be bothered to get into yet another Rafa debate so perhaps we should look at Ged's first season instead as you can only really compare first seasons in charge.

You can't go back that far, quality of the league changes and so does the quality of our squad.

[Norbs]

I doubt very much that City want Rodgers but it would be interesting to see what FSG would do if they offered us around £10m in compensation.

Rodgers would probably turn them down so FSG would need to say yes to City and by that way force Rodgers out.

No chance I would say.

Why? One thing that holds clubs back from signing young managers is the fear that the may not be able to step up to the expectation of a big job. Rodgers has passed that test with absolute flying colours so far. It's not daunted him, he's not arse licked and he's stuck to his guns entirely. His end of year report should read A* in that respect.

It's easy to forget that we played the first half of the season without Lucas and with only one striker. In the period that Rodgers would've wanted as much support from senior players as possible he had to rely on bedding in kids. Did he buckle? Did he ****. He's risen to the challenge and I think we have a gem at the helm.

I would think that there's a fair few teams above us that wish they had made such a brave decision. If Rodgers stays here he'll improve us long term. I honestly think we can reach the point where we're challenging in the next year or two, and not because we've spunked £100s of millions on marquee signings either.

If he was at Man City he'd turn a team of individual top class players in to a team. I'm more concerned that United will come calling than City.

[red g]

In attack yes but not in defense. So far Rodgers is more a Roy Evans than a Rafa.

Glad he did that way first....Let sjust hope he knows how to sort the defense out in the summer.

[Neil Young]

Hmmm. Not at all convinced that is a valid comparison though.

It is though. It's a distinction between feeling good and being good (where good in this case means the jumper or whatever doesn't feel old). It's a fabric conditioner - how it makes clothes feel is, as I belatedly realised, the whole f*cking point!

And football is there to be enjoyed, whether it's the pleasure that comes from winning trophies or from banging in six at Newcastle or seeing a great goal or tackle or piece of skill or whatever. It's subjective of course but that's ok.

It's no more subjective than any analysis that has to rely on a choice about which season to use as a benchmark or whether a trophy win is worth more or less than an improvement in league position or whether more big scoring wins is better than being able to hold on for a dour nil-nil when it's really needed. And really it's got to be more useful than remote sensing of the team's collective psychiatric strengths when divided by the amount of money supposedly spent on transfer fees, factoring in guesses about savings on the wage bill all multiplied by a random figure plucked from nowhere about how much time a manager needs to justify himself when set against the fact that more clubs have more money to spend and there has been a change in the tax laws in Spain making clubs there less attractive but now Guardiola has gone to Bayern that will etc...

There's progress as measured by league position and trophies. Even with those there are subjective judgments to be made about weighting and value. And everything else is inevitably subjective. Why should how it feels be excluded?

There's one other thing: if it feels like that to us, perhaps it feels like that to the players who are, despite appearances, human beings. And if they feel like there has been progress then that IS progress.

[~LFCHistory~]

We have made progress in attack but not in defense. We are **** defending crosses.

The mentality bit isn't better either.

We have made progress but is it enough progress considering how much money we spent on new players? I would say no

Can't agree with that part at all, several times this season we've come from behind to win, last season that would never, ever have happened, to me that shows an improvement in mentality.
Agree with you about our defence though.

[Norbs]

In attack yes but not in defense. So far Rodgers is more a Roy Evans than a Rafa.

I think its harder to get his methods understood by defenders than forwards. We may never see a defence as solid as in Rafas era but is that such a dreadful thing? We still have more than a dozen clean sheets this season, in a team where both full backs want to be wingers and one centre back has little pace or height

[RichC]

I think its harder to get his methods understood by defenders than forwards. We may never see a defence as solid as in Rafas era but is that such a dreadful thing? We still have more than a dozen clean sheets this season, in a team where both full backs want to be wingers and one centre back has little pace or height

We also haven't worked on bringing in players to improve our defence, it's essentially the same players that haven't been good enough the previous few seasons.

I fully expect this summer to see us improve on our defensive players that perhaps better suit what Rodgers wants from them.

[Mattshark]

In attack yes but not in defense. So far Rodgers is more a Roy Evans than a Rafa.

Still had 14 clean sheets this season, only 12 last season.
Only city have kept more clean sheets this season with 15.

[RichC]

Still had 14 clean sheets this season, only 12 last season.
Only city have kept more clean sheets this season with 15.

[ric.williams]

he has added some real quality to the squad and has generally got more out of the players he inherited (except skrtel?). attacking wise we really have improved. in years gone by we have been clueless going forward.

defensively there has been some improvement. once lucas is back to his best and we have decent cover i think we'll be ok

tough summer ahead though as we need two top centre backs one of which is going to have to take over the job of organising the back line which carragher clearly does so well. we also need cover for lucas and another winger/wide forward.


one of those centre backs need to deal with the basic centre forward that has caused us so many issues this year (kenwyne jones, carlton cole, matt smith etc)

[Corndog]

i think we have improved this season, but so have others around us i.e spurs and Everton.

Comparing Muddled stats shows imo how much easier it obviously was to qualify for the top 4 before the emergence of spurs and City as good sides and to a lesser extent Everton.

Hopefully next year we take far more points off the other big boys because i dont think our tally fairly represents how we played in many of those games.
e.g we should have had 3 against city when Gerrard scored that stunning volley to put us ahead.

The last season we actually challenged for the title, if i remember correctly, we had an excellent record against all of the other big teams. stating the obvious here but drawing against those sides may be seen as a good result but we cant realistically expect to get in the top 4 without taking more wins off them.

Our starting XI can compete with any of them for ability imo, but in terms of mentality across the board, im not so sure. not saying they don't try or aren't arsed about winning but i think some of them may doubt themselves more than their opponents in those big games.

[Norbs]

I'm still getting used to 2012/13 Mattshark being so much more positive than the previous season's one

[Norbs]

i think we have improved this season, but so have others around us i.e spurs and Everton.

Comparing Muddled stats shows imo how much easier it obviously was to qualify for the top 4 before the emergence of spurs and City as good sides and to a lesser extent Everton.

Hopefully next year we take far more points off the other big boys because i dont think our tally fairly represents how we played in many of those games.
e.g we should have had 3 against city when Gerrard scored that stunning volley to put us ahead.

The last season we actually challenged for the title, if i remember correctly, we had an excellent record against all of the other big teams. stating the obvious here but drawing against those sides may be seen as a good result but we cant realistically expect to get in the top 4 without taking more wins off them.

Neither Spurs or Everton have improved IMO, Chelsea have though based on league position. When Bale leaves Spurs they're going to have problems