Brendan Rodgers

[Vermilion]

Someone has to break the London/Manchester monopoly going forward.

I just wonder if this is the best chance we'll have for a long long time is all.

[Fosterbloke]

Our transfer window didn't attract any amazing players but we certainly identified them.

Mkhitaryan: Secret pre-contract with Dortmund
Costa: Playing us for a better contract
Willian: Mercenary cunt

I think we'll have a decent New Year window and perhaps a greater Summer one.

[RichC]

Someone has to break the London/Manchester monopoly going forward.

I just wonder if this is the best chance we'll have for a long long time is all.

It is our best chance for a long time and if you look at my predictions for the league I think I said we'd be 3rd or 4th but it's going to be ****ing tight this season and someone is going to miss out

[Phoenix07]

I'd be happy with 6th. I still don't think we're good enough for 4th, and if we do finish in it, I don't think we'd be in the Champions League every year. There are still a number of positions that need sorting, as well as a defined system that we're aiming toward (4-3-3, 4-2-3-1).

[Tee]

Brendan Rodgers

I would be gutted if we finished 6th. After the start we have made we have given ourselves every chance of a top four finish and I am kind of expecting that now.

[Phoenix07]

I'd be gutted purely on the basis that with so much upheaval at other clubs, this is our shot at taking advantage of it.

Looking at it in terms of building a team, we're not a Champions League side yet. There are a number of positions that need sorting out, tactical issues to be resolved etc.

If we are in the mix come February, then I'd be expecting it, but we are yet to face the really tough tests bar Man Utd, and I would feel sorry for Rodgers if we're all expecting a wonderful season due to our start, and then it doesn't quite work out.

[ronanm]

I would be gutted if we finished 6th. After the start we have made we have given ourselves every chance of a top four finish and I am kind of expecting that now.

I hear you. But fear we'll both be disappointed. We'll know better in Jan, but draws like Newcastle (which I am still seething about!) will need to become wins if we have any chance.

[I, Ravel Morrison]

5th would be my realistic expectation, a CL place is the objective, while the title is the holy grail.

[Fosterbloke]

Every supporter has to expect the odd **** result. The key is not to get too worked up over them.

We could have won it but some good goalkeeping prevented that.

[little dave hedgehog]

"Considering we apparently need eight players we are doing alright"

[Mello]

I think 4th or above is the only expectation now. It's the only way to move this club forward and I'm sure the expectation of FSG and BR.

[poorscousertommy]

I think 4th or above is the only expectation now. It's the only way to move this club forward and I'm sure the expectation of FSG and BR.

[Cormack74]

Someone told me he was on TS this morning.

Did anyone catch it?

[Mostar]

I think 4th or above is the only expectation now. It's the only way to move this club forward and I'm sure the expectation of FSG and BR.

I disagree.

Imo we don't have enough of squad depth (compared to other top teams) or overall quality to shoot that high regardless of our start.

We also should not forget that we had the easiest schedule so far than any other team we are truly competing with.

If we are in close contention in early January (and if we bring 1 or 2 players in January too) I may think differently but personally 5th or 6th would be where I'd expect us to finish this season.

[muddym2002]

Rodgers

His legacy has been damaged: Classy riposte from Rodgers over Fergie's spiteful jibes over Gerrard and Henderson

As a bright young manager endeavouring to establish himself at one of the world’s biggest football clubs, Brendan Rodgers would not have taken on Sir Alex Ferguson with any great relish on Thursday.
He did so out of a sense of duty and a need to defend two Liverpool players Ferguson chose to attack, quite gratuitously, in his explosive new autobiography.
While Ferguson’s criticism of Steven Gerrard is utterly bizarre — a midfielder he once described as the most influential in the English game is now ‘not a top, top player’ — his assessment of Jordan Henderson amounts to the most morally reprehensible couple of sentences on any of the 402 pages.

He declared an issue with Henderson’s ‘gait’, claiming that because ‘he runs from his knees with a straight back’, rather than his ‘hips’, he will have ‘problems later in his career’.
Ferguson wrote this with the sole intention of taking one last swipe at an old adversary in Kenny Dalglish, the former Manchester United manager’s argument being that Dalglish made a number of expensive mistakes in the players he signed during his second term in charge at Anfield.

Fair point, Ferguson might claim. But he did so with no regard whatsoever for the players, and in particular Henderson.
As Rodgers countered, it was a disgusting thing to say about an honest, hard- working 23-year-old footballer with the best years of his career ahead of him.

Ferguson thought nothing of the impact it might have on the young man, either now or later in his life if the day does arrive when he needs to find employment at another football club. ‘Damaging,’ was how Rodgers put it, and rightly so given the considerable weight Ferguson’s words carry.
Rodgers had clearly spent time digesting Ferguson’s words because yesterday at Melwood came an articulate, well-reasoned response. Brutal in some respects, yes. But classy and courageous too, never once surrendering the moral high ground to a man who, in this instance, has succeeded only in coming across as a dreadful bully.
The first question from a television journalist actually concerned Ferguson’s dismissal of Gerrard, but Rodgers came back with an answer that very quickly shifted the focus on to Henderson and an issue he clearly considered more serious

Gerrard, he no doubt felt, can take care of himself.
‘I’m not here to give more coverage to his book, but the one thing I was bitterly disappointed about was his comment about Jordan Henderson,’ Rodgers said before describing it as ‘inappropriate’.
Imagine how Ferguson might have responded had someone given such a damning, amateurish, medical assessment of a United player.

By Ferguson’s hairdryer standards Rodgers was extremely measured, explaining simply that all players have medical tests that then allow the appropriate specialists at a football club to iron out any weaknesses.
He used Gerrard, a player who had his own physical problems to overcome as a youngster, as an example. But then described Henderson as ‘a machine’; a ‘wonderful athlete’ physically capable of playing ‘two or three games on the spin’.
Henderson might have to wait an awfully long time, but Rodgers was also right to suggest that Ferguson owes the England midfielder an apology.

‘As someone who has worked with young players and understands the impact words can have on them, it surprises me he has said these things,’ Rodgers added. ‘Jordan is a great kid, a young lad making his way in the game and someone who will work and fight to be the best that he can be.’
As Rodgers says, Ferguson has probably damaged his own legacy to some degree; the greatest manager of a generation who signed off by dumping on some of those who played such an important role in his own success.
It is not an entirely fair reflection of the book. There are many generous words for players such as David Beckham and Wayne Rooney, too. But the shift in attitude towards Roy Keane is as staggering as that towards Gerrard. In his 1999 book Ferguson said he felt ‘privileged’ to have worked with Keane. That, however, is not how he remembers him now. Perhaps he has forgotten that performance in Turin, among many others.

Rodgers expressed ‘sadness’ at the damage Ferguson might have done to himself, as well as a fair amount of incredulity regarding his supposedly expert appraisal of Gerrard. ‘He is one of the very few, maybe even the only one who doesn’t think Steven is a top player,’ said Liverpool’s manager.
Ferguson took a swipe at Rodgers as well for being too young, at 39, to manage a club of Liverpool’s stature; forgetting he was only 44 when he took the reins at Old Trafford.
Not that Rodgers seemed too bothered. ‘Kenny Dalglish had won a number of titles by 39 when he was here,’ he said with a wry smile.
For Rodgers the main concern was the need to ‘protect the club’, and more importantly protect a young footballer who must be wondering how on earth he became a victim of Ferguson’s vindictiveness.
‘We’ll tell him to run on his hands and knees from now on,’ joked Rodgers, before making one mischievous dig in retaliation.
So, Rodgers was asked, is he eight players short of having a title winning team here on Merseyside?
‘That’s probably two short of what they need,’ he replied, and given that United approved the book before publication they probably deserved it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2475791/Sir-Alex-Ferguson-legacy-damaged-spiteful-jibes-Liverpool--Matt-Lawton.html