Brendan Rodgers

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[ame="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1facvn_brendan-rodgers-exclusive-part-1_sport"]Brendan Rodgers Exclusive - Part 1 - Video Dailymotion[/ame]

[ame="http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1fad8f_brendan-rodgers-exclusive-part-2_sport"]Brendan Rodgers Exclusive - Part 2 - Video Dailymotion[/ame]

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I suppose this is the best place for this.Its from RAWK.Saw it on twitter yesterday but only got round to reading it.Interesting insight from a coach into Rodgers Methods etc.

royhendo: Like the M.C. Escher tableau that shares its name, this article will depict something beautiful. From basic building blocks, we'll see patterns emerge, steadily (and phase by phase) morphing into visions of free flowing natural beauty.



We have a coach who, I'd argue, is a little like Escher. He's funny looking. And it seems he likes a self-portrait. But phase by phase, he's steadily assembling something beautiful. Something that's progressively more and more beautiful. And that's down to his fundamental approach to his coaching.

The question, then, is what's his vision for the end goal. With that in mind, over to our resident expert on these things, PhaseOfPlay. Let’s start with that question. Is it fair to say that, with his fundamental approach (periodised syllabus and so forth), we're seeing a gradual metamorphosis according to a structured curriculum?



PhaseOfPlay: Well, the first thing we have to talk about is how we see the bigger picture around the team. The traditional things that people look at are formations, and methods of attack. However, this would only scratch the surface of the issue. The key thing to look at are his principles of play - everything stems from that. So what do we know of his principles of play - his "philosophy"? Firstly, I think there's a great misunderstanding about his use of the phrase "Death by Football". Most people associate it with "Tiki-Taka" and "Barcelona" and "Possession for possession's sake". But I think this is the wrong interpretation. The more we see of Rodgers' team and ideas, the more it looks like he is only interested in his team looking to use "football" solutions to "football problems". In other words, as we have seen recently against Fulham and Swansea, when we need a goal, especially in the last minute to win or draw a game, he prefers his team to rely on skill and movement to create the chances, as opposed to just throwing numbers into the box and lumping ball after ball into the "mixer". So for the opposition, it's not so much "Death by Possession" - which seems to be the common interpretation of what Rodgers wants - but "Death by Skill". In short, there will be wave upon wave of attack putting pressure on the other team, but the percentages will more or less always favour Liverpool, because Rodgers wants us to control the ball at all times when it is in our possession - except in certain circumstances which we will get to later.

Secondly, if we look at the players who have nailed down a starting spot - especially in attack - we can see that the most consistent players are all good in 1v1 situations, and that's another important part of his philosophy. He always says, when asked, that his favourite goal of all time is the Maradona goal against England where he dribbled through the entire midfield and defence. That gives a huge insight into how he sees the game. So now we have to major points of reference for his principles - controlling the ball so that the percentages favour Liverpool (team skill), and 1v1 ability that allows the attack to take defenders out of the game at best, or at least allows the individual to retain possession. Already, we start to see some hallmarks that were present in another side that had success with attacking football.

The question to ask, then, is whether or not our progression was planned, or whether he's winging it and improvising - building the plane while it's in the air...



royhendo: The hallmarks, of course, being those held dear and recently (and increasingly) deserted by the mob up the other end of the M62?



PhaseOfPlay: Exactly. For all the image of the "purist" that he gives off, he seems to be a lot like the not-so-dear recently departed overlord up the road, in that first and foremost he believes in skill - but after that he's actually quite pragmatic. We only have to look at his myriad formation changes since he arrived: 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, 3-5-2, 4-4-2, 4-2-4, etc. When he had an overload of central defenders, he played all four of them. When he bought Sturridge, we went more counter-attacking and direct. When Coutinho was becoming marginalised on the left wing, and easily marked, he moved him inside to the engine room of central midfield. Ferguson, similarly, was almost Bowie-like in his willingness to look for trends before they became popular, and to tailor his tactics accordingly - from the basic 4-4-2 with two English cloggers at the heart of the defence and two pacey wingers left and right, to 4-3-3, to 4-4-1-1, to the 4-6-0 with Queiroz, to the more recent 4-2-3-1. But at the heart of it all was Ferguson's belief in speed, dribbling skill, and early crossing. Rodgers is similar - we could play a 3-4-3, or a 4-4-2, but at all times he will demand that his players value possession of the ball and high percentage play except for a few key patterns of play. So whether the team presses into the other half of the field and possesses in the attacking third, or sits deep and hits on the break, each player on the field will be detailed with having to take care of their possession and play with individual skill (which makes the Cissokho signing a tad surprising, though).

One way to show this is that when Lucas plays the deep midfield role, he is not expected to play long passes up and across the field, whereas it's clearly the main part of Gerrard's job when he plays there. That's because it isn't part of Lucas' skillset, but it's a major part of Gerrard's. Similarly, Cantona wasn't expected to run around pressing and harrying defenders for the ball at United, but Hughes was. They both played with skill, but they both had different roles within their skillsets. If there is one comparison to be made between Ferguson and Rodgers, it is their belief in the individual player being an individual (as opposed to Rafa, for example, who saw players as cogs in a machine who had to follow strict tactical guidelines). So there is a comparison to be made between the two approaches, for sure.



royhendo: It's a hot topic among the RAWKite chin strokers, this. This was a twitter exchange between myself and Degs in the latter stages of their 2-0 away defeat to Olympiacos.



Juan's been saying the same. When Konoplyanka was linked, his response was that it was inevitable we buy Andrei Kanchelskis. It's palpable, I reckon. So the question it begs is what that mode of play involves, how much of it is down to training and principles of play, and how much of it is down to consequent belief.

You said early in the season (or possibly in the close season, when we pursued Mkhtaryan and Costa) that if we added one more genuine attacking threat, teams (particularly those coming to Anfield) would start to fold, and we'd start getting inevitable late winners. Of course we never made those signings. But in Sterling, we've added exactly that player, haven't we?




PhaseOfPlay: Indeed. But like Ferguson, I think Rodgers wants more. At the point where United started to win the league, they had Hughes, Cantona, McClair, Giggs, Sharpe, Kanchelskis, Hughes, Irwin on free kicks and Bruce on headers from set-pieces. If the players on that list weren't scoring, they were at least creating space to score with their 1v1 ability. From that list, they had 4 natural attacking scorers, and 2 natural set-piece scorers. Compare that to Liverpool now, and we have two natural scorers, one potential top level scorer (Sterling), a set-piece specialist, a defender who can score (Skrtel), and three dribblers who can cause disruption in the opposition shape (Coutinho, Suarez, Sterling). Add in another dribbler, and you can start to see a similar template where the two main scorers are going to be afforded a lot of space to get unpressured shots because the dribblers take too many opposition defenders away from the vital scoring areas. This is on of Sturridge's strengths - he drifts into spaces where the shot/finish is inevitable. Add that to his speed, quickness and skill and you can see where just having him alone is a bonus for any team - but surrounding him with Suarez, Sterling, Coutinho, Gerrard, and one other attacking dribbler and we might see a reversal of the goalscoring charts with Sturridge supplanting Suarez as the "main man". You can see also how Borini might have a future with us, and why Aspas was at least looked at, even if we hadn't bought him in the end. Manchester United under Ferguson in the early days had no qualms about giving up "shape" for "opportunity", and this team is largely the same. Crucially, for comparison purposes, United in 93=94 made a huge jump in scoring from the previous season: 67 goals in 92-93 to 80 goals in 93-94. I would argue that the second title was the start of their dominance, rather than the first one - that one was just "getting over the hurdle". Liverpool under Rodgers, have made a similar jump in scoring. We just need to "get over the hurdle" for the first title.




royhendo: But of course (and I'm getting ahead of myself here), the abandonment of shape in favour of opportunity led to their lag in European terms, and it wasn't until their sides found some measure of control over shape and tempo in the middle of the park that they were able to assert themselves on all fronts. Do you think Rodgers is likely to allow our shape to remain as open?

That's the area I'm interested in. You've shown an uncanny predictive ability during his tenure at the club mate, in terms of inferring the aspects he'd tackle in the next coaching block, and the next coaching block. Do you think he's likely to tinker with anything else this season? Or do you think he'll simply rely on returning personnel to add the qualities that might help us get as close as we can? The Sakho return seems key to me, for example.



PhaseOfPlay: I don't think there are any more "new" blocks this season. With 11 games to go, it would be unwise to add "new" ideas - it's more about refining what's already there, and working less on the technical/tactical and more on the physical/psychological. I think you're right and that he will be looking at returning players to add their individual strengths to the defensive side of things. His comments after the Swansea game about our defensive lapses being due to things that aren't "coachable" was telling. He was clearly (to me) referring to a lack of common sense in individual actions - Skrtel and his shirt pulling, players losing their marks on set-pieces, and players turning their backs on the ball. It always seems to be the same culprits doing the same things, and there's a point when a coach will throw their hands up in the air and realise that the old dogs won't learn new tricks. Next season, though, if we haven't won the league this year, I could see a bigger focus on the defence. We'll know we can score goals, but we'll need to bring the goals conceded per game number down to 1 or lower. As I said earlier, he won't abandon his principles of attacking skill, so it will most likely come from bringing in a partner for Sakho. It wouldn't surprise me to see one or both of Agger and Skrtel on their way. They are great system defenders, but individually they have weaknesses that must grate with Rodgers. I would think Skrtel is more at risk. Agger could be up to whether he wants to be a bench player or not.

It's interesting in the comparisons between Rodgers and the Ferguson template - the progressions of his central defence pairings showed a greater emphasis on skill and ball-playing ability as the years went on. I think the progression can be shown by comparing his first league title first-choice defenders with his last league title defenders - Pallister and Bruce versus Ferdinand and Vidic. Staam was almost the "bridging" player, having both the physical qualities of the first pair, and the skill qualities of the second pair. My feeling is that we worked on defensive play and set-pieces early this season (and we reaped the benefits with the 1-0 victories), and then moved to counter-attacking play. For next season, given the shorter pre-season after the World Cup, I could see us working on pressing from the back, defensive set-pieces, and quick transitions. And then a return to circulation football in order to better control the tighter games where we get early 1 and 2-0 leads but aren't playing particularly well. Given that we play a counter-attacking or all-out attacking game, I can't see anything other than a new central defender coming in who has the pace to snuff out the inevitable counter-attacks - Ilori might be that player, so we shall have to see. But I think a clear transition is coming from the old style defenders we've been used to (Agger and Skrtel) to something more "Continental", but no less physical.




royhendo: The work you list as likely for next season seems sensible, particularly given it looks likely we'll qualify for the Champions League. That's the adjunct really, isn't it? We'll have less training ground time, so bedding in work already done and consolidating our repertoire would seem sensible.

So how do the periodised blocks tend to work then? A block is what? 8 weeks of tactical work on some distinct element of our play? And would you think the reserve and youth squads are now working off the same basic syllabus?




PhaseOfPlay: Blocks can be 4, 6 or 8 weeks, usually, depending on the number of available sessions, what the blocks are building on, and what phase of the game is involved (set-pieces would typically be the shortest blocks, playing out of the back might be a short block too; playing through midfield might be a medium block, and creating and finishing chances in the attacking third might be one of the longest blocks (because it is the most difficult one). Within the blocks, there might be more detailed work (such as 2-man combinations to break the offside line, set-up passes to create shots, short-short-long combinations to switch play), so the detail is there, but it might be part of a larger block and might build on other areas, which would explain why we see things as supporters in games that aren't being done, and then a few weeks later we start doing them. For me, the best evidence that this might be so is in the fact that we were average to dreadful at attacking set-pieces last season, and this season we are top scorers from them. Rodgers probably had the plan to first establish the possession game, get the shape right, make sure the players had the possession mentality needed, and then build on that. As for the reserves, youth teams, etc. - I can see them following the same methodology, but the details and order of the blocks will probably be different for them, based on their observed needs.

To add to that, Ferguson worked somewhat the same way, depending on what assistant coach was with him. Meulensteen, for example, would use more small sided games with dual themes (what gets worked on for the attack also teaches the defence how to react), whereas McLaren would be more on the FA block method side of things. What's interesting is the core principles of Ferguson's football - changing the pace of the attack, changing the direction of the attack, changing service, and never giving up. Add to that, the "rule of thirds" - less risk in the back third, moderate risk in the midfield, and then do what needs to be done in the attacking third. A comparative picture starts to appear.




royhendo: In your tactical review last March (where you looked at ten games from the first home game against man City - the 2-2 - to the Spring of 2013), you highlighted three areas on the park where our development would be intriguing - in old parlance, inside left, behind the right wing back, and the space in front of the centre halves. We had Downing, which meant blunted goal threat but steady shape. We had what appeared to be a Coutinho conundrum, and we had a kind of defensive mid/right back/centre halves/goalie kerfuffle. Things have changed since then, of course. And in recent days Rodgers has hinted at the issues being down to individual errors and lapses of concentration, rather than anything systemic or coaching-related. I suspect it's both down to personnel and to set up though (albeit the vulnerability does have a habit of drawing teams out and on to us - a happy by-product). Do you think personnel changes alone would shore everything up?




PhaseOfPlay: Again, to bring the United comparison back into the equation - my first thought would be "What was Ferguson's defensive system? And generally the answer would be an almost flippant "Ferguson had a defensive system?" - because the truth is that tactically, United's years of domination were built on tactically bog-standard back-fours. There was nothing different, or special, or interesting in how they were set up, as opposed to say, a Sacchi back four, or a Rafa back four, or even a Mourinho back four. Their tactical set-up is something that could be coached to 12 year olds in the space of a week. What they did have, though, was very good individual defenders, who were positionally sound, didn't take many risks, were aggressive, and could pass to a good level (with the possible exception of David May ) Their defenders could read the game well, and signing someone like Staam, or Blanc, for example, while it might have seemed a bit strange at first, actually made sense if you consider that Ferguson looked at players 1v1 abilities first. Contrast this to our current central defensive partnership of Agger and Skrtel - Skrtel is good when the ball is coming at him, but gets lost positionally when he has to front a player, preferring to retreat in almost every instance, even when he has covering defenders and could/should step into the ball. He also has a habit of leaving his position to challenge a ball that already has a challenging defender, and that leaves gaps at the back where he should be. Agger is positionally better, and good in 1v1's, but physically gets pushed around a bit too much for a centre half in England. Toure is positionally sound, but makes individual errors and maybe isn't as strong in the air as someone of his physique should be. Sakho is almost the complete package, and you could see Sakho being a big player in one of the best of Ferguson's teams. Ilori reminds me a bit of Ferdinand in his pomp, so you can see where his signing came from in terms of 1v1 ability in defence. So for me, Rodgers is looking at players who can be left alone to defend without too much training on the specifics of every situation. What he was left with, though, are a centre half pairing that are better as "system" players, where the principles of the system dictate their movements and actions, rather than an individual reading of the game. For me, Sakho and AN Other would probably see our defending change immensely. Ilori might be that other, but I'm not sure if Skrtel will be.



royhendo: Are there blocks to master yet?



PhaseOfPlay: For defending? I really don't think so, in terms of the central partnership, at least. I think controlling the space in front of the back four is something that will probably be worked on, plus how the fullbacks defend and attack in the flow of the game. Cissokho is an interesting one (and I'm in the Cissokho fan club, so I'm a tad biased), because for all the criticism he gets for what he can do on the ball (which doesn't seem to be very much), he does his defending job very well - simple, uncomplicated, fundamental defending. If you could mesh the attacking instinct of Johnson, with the physique of Enrique, the youthful energy of Flanagan and the defending skills of Cissokho, you'd probably get one of the best fullbacks around. It took him a while to adjust, but now that he has, you can see that he just plays within himself, and keeps his job basic and simple. I think we'll see more of that from signings that Rodgers has an influence over. Not to get all transfer-window-y, but if in the summer there are rumours of a bid for Ryan Shawcross or James Tomkins, someone of that ilk, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. Rodgers is, at heart, a fundamentals coach.



royhendo: Do you think we've mastered the basic tools needed to play a more controlling brand of football when we need to next season?



PhaseOfPlay: In terms of controlling the ball, I think we're maybe one or two players short of being able to put 11 players, and three subs, out on the field to do that. In terms of controlling space, I think we need another defender to partner Sakho to be able to push up the pitch comfortably and squeeze the play when we can. A lot also depends on the left back situation, I think. In midfield and up front, though, I think we have the players to do that, but Rodgers probably wants at least one more natural goalscorer in that part of the field who can supply a different option for goals when we are controlling the ball or the space - probably someone quick with a good long range shot, which is why Konoplyanka and Mkhitaryan were looked at (and to a lesser degree, Aspas).



royhendo: What do you mean by the term ‘fundamentals coach’?



PhaseOfPlay: By "Fundamentals" I mean that he wants players with good basic technique, and he understands that you have to improve the fundamental techniques of a player to develop them into a good attacking player. You can see that a little in how he quickly replaced a willing but technically raw CIssokho for a half-fit but technically better Johnson. Ferguson was the same in terms of what he looked at. He was obsessed with players playing on the balls of their feet, which is a fundamental part of technique you teach kids. If you look at the coaches he brought in (McClaren, Queiroz, Meulensteen), you can see a clear technical streak in the kind of coach he looked at (Meulensteen was a Coerver coach, McClaren had a reputation for being innovative in his technical training). A Rafa, or a Sacchi, on the other hand, look at the game more tactically, and see the players off the ball a lot more than the player on the ball. In one of the threads/posts from last year, I said that some managers see the game as an expansion of 1v1, while others see it as an expansion of 2v1 - they either see the ball as the main point of focus, or they see the space. Ferguson's teams were tactical, but you knew they would eventually beat you with a moment of skill or speed. Rafa on the other hand, for example, would beat you with tactics and control first - taking lesser teams and bringing them to greater levels. I think Rodgers is more in the skill and speed camp - he can and does think tactically, but a moment of individual brilliance is just as likely to be a hallmark of his wins as anything in terms of shape. I look at the recent goals we've scored in quick succession that involved a through-ball (the Gerrard one, the Coutinho ones, the Sterling one) and the way they were executed, and you can't help but believe that it's something Rodgers has worked on in training - especially when you see the common technique used for each pass (outside of the foot spin). So for me, Rodgers is a "fundamentals" coach, in that you could take a typical session of his and you could run it for Under 8's and it would be a good session - whereas with Mourinho, Rafa, and other tactical coaches, you could see a typical session of theirs going over the heads of a group of 8 year old kids.



royhendo: Beautifully explained, thank you. So his fundamentals for a centre half, for example, would be:
- Concentration and avoidance of error
- Positional soundness
- Aggression
- Base competence in passing
- Reading of the game
- Ability 1v1
Or would that extend to all position, when you think about it?

Also, it’s interesting that you didn’t mention a defensive midfielder in your wish list of additions. Do you think the left back and centre half additions would fix the ‘space in front of the centre halves’ issue without a specialist addition there? I like that idea – the idea of no real specialist. It’s very holistic. It’s all very holistic.





PhaseOfPlay: They would apply to all positions, I think - with additional fundamentals for each separate unit too (for example, forwards taking higher percentage shots rather than less-than-half chances). I would imagine that a lot of the coaching points Rodgers makes in a session relate more to body shape, first touch, contact through the ball, etc., than they do to what's happening to the space on the field with every movement. I always wish I had some sort of portal to a session in the 60's with Shanks, Paisley and the rest of the bootroom, because I could easily imagine Shankly saying more things along the lines of "turn your hips out", or "get your body over the ball" than I can imagine him saying "flood the zone" or "overload the fullbacks". I would say that was probably more Paisley's style (in more simple language though). I think VicGill would probably have more insight in to that, but I would imagine I'm not far off with that assessment. Shanks was also a fundamentals coach, and when you look at how he trained the team (and there are a ton of similarities between Shanks' training and Rodgers' training), it was very technical rather than tactical - the Sweat Box, the 3v3's, the passing patterns, etc - you can see how the image of the 60's Liverpool of a dashing, all-out attacking team that will out-pass you, out-run you and out-dribble you was very much a product of the training.

As for the "Defensive Mid" question - I think the position becomes less important as a specialist spot the more we play with aggressive, technical central defenders. I would really like to see Sakho and Agger in at least one game this season, just to see how different the midfield behaves when they have two strong 1v1 front-foot defenders behind them. Skrtel is doing a good enough job, but he's essentially a man-marker or a sweeper - he tends to follow his man, or back off the approaching attack. Toure is compensating for his age and decreasing agility, and Ilori isn't at the club. So a central defensive pairing that are both comfortable stepping up to the opposition attack would probably negate the requirement for a pure defensive midfielder. You only need that position when the defence has a lower restraining line, even if it is 10 yards inside their own half. The more compressed the defensive line is to the midfield line, the less you need a specialist there - which is how Sacchi saw the game, I think, as well. If you can compress the lines, and if every player on the team can play "in the little boxes", then there is no real need for any specialist defensive players in midfield, because every midfielder is potentially the defensive midfielder. If you look at the team through this framework, you can see why Rodgers wanted Allen so badly because he is very much a non-specialist midfielder. I would say - to bring the United comparison back into view - that Ferguson's best central midfields were when he had two central defenders capable of pushing forward and condensing the space and handling their own 1v1 battles.




royhendo: I was talking about this with my nephew yesterday. He’s setting out on his rugby coaching career, and is committed to helping players solve problems in match situations, having been on the wrong end of many a dry drill that didn’t give him anything he could take with him. I think maybe that’s an aspect of the body position and bearing of a marker’s weight that Rodgers is installing into his players, particularly the younger ones - honing what was there already. Sterling’s the best example. He seems stronger and more balanced and with a lower centre all the time.

The point on aggressive, technical central defenders is the kryptonite to the notion of that specialist role. But then if the great sides have taught us anything, it’s that aggression and technique and the tools to solve problems in all positions render any kind of specialist less necessary. Oh my days have I wanted us to move towards that kind of mode of football. But I think we maybe didn’t anticipate just how aggressive Rodgers needs his players to be capable of being.

Now. I’ll ask a cheeky question. An archetypal player in each position we need. Who would be on your wish list if you were Rodgers?



PhaseOfPlay: I think Konoplyanka is a good target, and I'm glad we looked at him. Having seen him more closely against Spurs, I could see him flourishing under Rodgers and with a team like ours - he was surrounded by some lemons in the games with Dnipro, I think. They didn't take risks when he had the ball, and if they did, they might have won, or at least drawn.

I think for central midfield, Hughes or someone young of his ilk would be perfect. I don't think Henderson is going anywhere, and I don't think Allen is. Or Coutinho. And Sterling looks like he can play attacking midfield and all - not to mention the return of Suso. So we really need to replace Gerrard/Lucas at the bottom of the midfield, with a more rounded player. I don't think Lucas' has long left at Anfield, as much as we all love him as a player. By "long left", I mean within the next two seasons.

Central defence, I think Ilori shows promise, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a Tomkins, or a Caulker come in (and Tomkins' brush with the police might just class him as a "Moneyball" type signing). Right footed central defenders who are happy to push forward and also use the ball. Matip would be a possibility. I think overall we're looking at someone in the physical mould of Ilori, but with more maturity and experience.

For the fullback positions, I think Clyne or Shaw would be great. Flanagan will do a job for us, but I think Cissokho will return to Valencia, and Enrique will probably be gently moved on, as will Johnson, possibly. So Flanagan and another fullback will be required, at least. I can see where the Ashley Cole rumours would spring from - his type of play is perfect for a Rodgers team, and that kind of versatility. I also like the look of Elmohamady. He's an under-the-radar type of player, but he would probably fit into Rodgers' way of playing.

Up front I don't see much to tinker with. We'll have Suarez, Sturridge, Sterling, a returning and refreshed Borini, and possibly a more adjusted Aspas (although I could see him being sold). We don't seem to have much to change, and of course we could go all Fantasy Football and put together a Dream Team - but for me, we don't have many adjustments to make (for league play anyway). What we need to do is increase the depth of quality to be able to handle the extra games, rather than buy system-defining players to step up a level.



royhendo: It's quite a thought, us being that close to something genuinely and deeply strong. With more coming through from the reserves and youths, it's exciting.

I thought of you this morning having read this from Ian Ayre.

“One of the things I really like is that Brendan works with the team and sets the season out into little chunks so they have four or five game runs.

“So they focus on a short number of games - they don’t focus on the entire season. And it’s worked well for them."

Two or three chunks to go. How do you think it'll unfold for us?



PhaseOfPlay: I'll answer with a story.

About 7 years ago, I became the head coach of a youth academy team. Under 18's age group, playing in a regional league. There was no relegation, and this team was the bottom team three years in a row through U15/16/17 age groups. I became the head coach, and straight away looked at the league programme to identify games we could win, games we'd probably lose, and games we could draw/win or lose. The aim was to finish at least 8th and make the regional cup (only the top 8 teams from each regional division made it). This team conceded 70-something goals the season before, and only scored 15, winning 1 game the entirety of the previous season. So a lot of mentality needed to be changed, as well as tactics and training. So I divided the programme into blocks of games, and set minimum results based on previous performance, my knowledge of the opposition, and the tactics we were going to employ (and I must confess, we ended up being quite Pulisesque at times). The first block of games, we did okay in. We won the first game on a narrow and hard-fought 1-0, then lost the next game heavily though, to a big team, and shipped 6 goals. But we drew the next one against another big team, missing out on the win in the last minute with a tremendous save from their keeper on a 1v1. We then lost the next game 1-0, to the team that eventually won the division. After that, though, we won two in a row, before losing to a top 8 "rival" My aim for the first block of 6 games (out of 18) was to get at least two wins, and we got three.

So confidence was high, and mentality was starting to change. The next block of 6 games, though, was the tricky block. We faced teams that we could win, lose or draw against. Our first game was a local derby, against a team that put 21 goals in total on the team in the previous season, over two games. We drew 3-3, losing the 3-2 lead to a last minute direct free kick. After that, we won another against the only team they'd beaten the season before in a very possession-dominant but rain-sodden and mistake-laden 2-1 win. We then played the team that ended up in third place, who hammered us, and then two of the "either-way" teams. We lost both. Mentality completely absent in the games. We needed a big team meeting to go over our goals for the season again, and put the controllables back into the players minds (i.e. their own performances). That took us to the, by now, worst team that season. Another rain-sodden, mistake laden game, but another win. Players were starting to believe, because now we'd more than doubled the number of wins in a season for the past 5 seasons. It was on. We approached the last block of 6 games with confidence and enthusiasm. We knew that there was one team in that block that were going to hammer us, no matter how well we prepared. We knew, because I had coached all their players when they were kids, and I knew how good they were. So we wrote that game off. We needed three wins from 5 of our last 6 to guarantee 8th place, and the last game was a home derby. So we had a two-game margin of error.

We played the first game and got destroyed 7-0. You would think that this would have dented confidence, but no - it made them more determined, because they knew they had 5 games to get three wins in. And that's what happened. They blew the next opponent away 4-0 in a game of such measured aggression that it bordered on illegal. Nothing dirty, but the opposition team knew they had been in a battle. Their coach also made a point of telling the players that they used to hate playing my team because my team were dirty (the reputation they had), but now they hated playing them because not only were they not dirty, but they were actually good. This boosted their confidence no end. We played another top 8 rival in another soaking, muddy game, and narrowly lost to two of the clumsiest mud-bath goals I've ever seen live. But again, players remained confident because their eyes were on the prize. We played the throw-away game next, and as predicted, the other team didn't even get out of second gear to get their 5 goal win. We didn't panic though, as we used the game to work on our defensive shape. Our next opponents, who had beaten us 4-0 at home, would be difficult at their ground, and had a very fervent and vocal home support. We prepared our set-pieces, we prepared our defensive shape, and we prepared our counter-attack patterns. Then we got some good news on the grapevine. Their keeper had been injured in training. The keeper was excellent, and their second keeper not so much. We played a tactically perfect, Rafa-esque away game, and won 1-0 off an early goal. We pressed like champions, and they couldn't get near our goal, and what they did get forward, went straight to our keeper or over the crossbar.

This brought us to our last game, the home derby, and we needed to win. Anything other than that, and not only our local rivals, but two other teams (including the team that beat us in the 3rd game by 6 goals) could overtake us and take that 8th spot. We would have had a great season either way, having jumped off the bottom of the table and got us comfortably mid-table for our efforts. But the players wanted more. The hunger was there. There was no need for a team talk. We simply said "we won't get another chance this season to make a bit of history", and away we went. It couldn't have gone any better. 1-0 up at half time on a lightning fast counter attack that our Albanian forward assisted with the same kind of outside-of-the-foot pass that Liverpool are becoming handy at. 2-0 up just after the half with a well-rehearsed corner. Then the denouement. Having used their three subs, their keeper got sent off for swearing at the referee, having got a yellow seconds earlier for handling the ball outside the box. They put an outfield player in goal, and 5 minutes later we get a penalty. Just before the final whistle, with their defenders nowhere to be found, our first scorer sets up the player who gave him the assist, and we make it 4-0. 250 supporters making it a bit of a party in the stands. We make the regional cup, and knock a few pre-season "favourites" out of contention. We got knocked out in the quarter finals, but that wasn't going to dampen the mood of the season. The players had set out an objective, and had achieved it with some aplomb.

So what is this long-winded, self-aggrandising story about, and what does it have to do with Liverpool? I think it exemplifies that when teams follow the SMART goal-setting rule (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-sensitive), great things can happen. We have two blocks of five left, but I suspect it's actually the two games of a block of five, another block of five, and a block of three, in Rodgers' mind. Everything leads up to the Chelsea game in his mind, I think. As I said on the forum - we'll either be playing that to solidify a top three position, or we'll be playing it with a chance to win the league. If it comes down to a case where winning that game puts us indisputably first with games against Palace and Newcastle left, then I think we'll win the whole thing. Because when you break the season down into chunks, it makes it easier to keep things in perspective. You end up seeing that you can only control your own performances and games, not the games of others. As long as you satisfy your own goals, you are having a good season. It's like people who enter marathons who have not ostensible chance of winning the marathon - but they have a personal best to beat, and by doing so, it at least gets them closer to winning-pace, the more they train and work and run to achieve that goal in the long term. Whether or not we win the league, we've had a great season, and I think Rodgers will be reminding them of that. But always with an eye on refocusing the goals of the team depending on the circumstances. People laugh at Houllier's "Ten games from greatness", but there was a method to it. It kept the players focused on the big picture, while reminding them of how far they'd come. No matter the final outcome, the players were focused for the run-in, and believed in something greater than themselves. I think Rodgers has that right now, and even a slight hiccup won't derail the season. They'll just refocus, look at the bigger picture, and push forward with renewed momentum. This current block probably has the United game as the "centre-piece", although the Sunderland postponement changes the dynamic a little. But the principle remains the same. We've prepared for this game to come, and we will put everything into it, and then start again with the next block. So instead of one big daunting challenge, the players have a series of smaller, more realistic challenges. Those are so much easier to meet, and so much more contextual than "one game at a time". Because with that philosophy, you're only as good as your last game, and if you lost your last game, you must be "doing something wrong". Which removes the context from the mentality. The technical/tactical stuff is already done for the season, bar a few formation changes. It's all about managing the mentality now, and the smaller chunks of games will help that enormously.



royhendo: I don’t think there’s anything to add to that. Thank you, and over to the RAWKites for their take on things. Pleasure talking with you as always.

http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=312499.0

[Yozza]

Bollocks if I'm reading that on my phone....

Summary anyone? Probably along the lines of Rodgers is the money I think....

[BigChief]

Just finished reading it. Brendo is like Ferguson and Shankly in his management style...names a few players we should bring in and we should let go...a long story about his (PhaseofPlay) U-18 achievements which could have been omitted.

[Vermilion]

Brendan Rodgers Exclusive - Part 1 - Video Dailymotion

Was this for LFCTVGo ?

[Yozza]

Just finished reading it. Brendo is like Ferguson and Shankly in his management style...names a few players we should bring in and we should let go...a long story about his (PhaseofPlay) U-18 achievements which could have been omitted.

Cheers Chief

[Norbs]

Was this for LFCTVGo ?

[Norbs]

Barca looking at Brendan. So they should but I think he knows he's cementing his place is history right here, right now

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/barcelona-eye-liverpool-boss-brendan-3247304

[Fredo]

Not a chance he'll go there. Not now anyway.

[shanks69]

Barca looking at Brendan. So they should but I think he knows he's cementing his place is history right here, right now

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/footba...rendan-3247304

we must be playing manu today.

[Shaggy]

http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/how-brendan-rodgers-moved-times-transform-liverpool-new-barca-new-dortmund#cf78b0Vm8k2F7CjE.01

How Brendan Rodgers moved with the times to transform Liverpool from the new Barca into the new Dortmund

13 March 2014

Hassan Cheema assesses how European football has changed tactically over the last decade, and how Liverpool are morphing with it....

A couple of months into Brendan Rodgers’ tenure at Liverpool, left-back Jose Enrique said he should be given backing as he wanted “to bring a style of play like Barca’s to the club”, and that it wouldn’t be achieved overnight. And, over the course of Rodgers’ first season, that was the vision he had for the team.

Much was made of the progress that Liverpool made; philosophy became the most overused word when referenced by the fans or people related to the team. Liverpool were going to rely on their youth teams and produce the British version of Barcelona – Rodgers had done it Swansea and now he was going to take it to a bigger stage. After all, tiki-taka was the way to play football.

This is the 'correct' way to play football, we’ve been told. The term 'tiki-taka' was coined by Javier Clemente – the godfather of up-and-at-‘em style in Iberia – and it was supposed to be disparaging. Instead it became, much like Total Football, a term to define the style that brought you moral high ground. Its rise came about in the second half of the noughties, as crises affected all the major clubs in Europe; the exceptions to that being the English Big Four and Barcelona.

Myth busters

The Bosman ruling resulted in the rise of player power and superclubs, the result of which was that you never had a squad together long enough to enact philosophies. That led to broken teams – attackers attacked and defenders defended, and that was that. But the increasing turn away from football as a contact sport meant that you could no longer rely on reducers and scary defenders to protect yourself, and thus we saw the rise of pressing by the late noughties. Barcelona’s style was ideological as much as practical – theirs was descended from the Dutch school.

The English too relied on that, except in their cases it was a British style where you harried opponents and closed them down, like you always had. It was still pressing, but without the hipster glasses and ideological paeans it wouldn’t receive the attention it deserved. It was something the British were stereotypically capable of, but the structure brought by the best coaches in the game meant that their huffing and puffing was now part of a system.

Some of the greatest wins of that era were the result not of s**t-on-a-stick bus parking, but the sort of pressing that would make Rinus Michels proud: Liverpool destroyed Real Madrid at Anfield by pressing them high; Chelsea were up 3-0 within 20 minutes against Barcelona in 2005 because they started the match like a pack of hungry wolves. And the longest stretch of excellence on the continent by Sir Alex Ferguson came about as he often lined up with two, if not all three, of Carlos Tevez, Wayne Rooney and Park Ji-Sung as part of the front four.

Ferguson was never credited as the greatest of tacticians but he never fell behind the latest tactical trends, and his deployment of Park (much like Benitez’s deployment of Dirk Kuyt) was a quiet revolution: you defended from the front, often with players whose main job was to win the ball as high up the pitch as possible. You couldn’t ask for a better trio to press than Park, Rooney and Tevez, and Ferguson realised this even as the continental giants kept acquiring attackers who only attacked.

But for all three of these teams, as well as Barca, pressing was a secondary tactic, a way to regain possession and hold onto it as long as possible. As contact in football reduced, possession became the greatest defensive tactic (for you could not concede without losing the ball) and the greatest attacking tactic (as the opposition got tired chasing the ball around, unable to apply the reducer they could have two decades earlier). But what they did with the ball remained their primary focus.

Hard Pressed

Enter Jürgen Klopp and the next age of pressing, with a team that relied so completely on it that their work without the ball was secondary to their work with it. As Borussia Dortmund fought their way to a surprise Bundesliga title in 2010/11 the doubters kept asking when they were going to collapse - after all, they were young, too young in fact. When they won the title they were the youngest team to have done it in Germany’s history – but what was considered a weakness turned out to be a strength; young minds malleable and egoless enough to listen, and young legs fresh enough to follow up on those instructions. They became that rarest of teams, one that became completely reliant on their work out of possession.

They pressed up high, and broke immediately until they had a chance or lost the ball; and then they did it again, and then again. Over the years their style has become more nuanced, gegenpressing if you will, but they are still a team that relies on pressing and verticality (two rather hipster terms but easier to elaborate than most). In a way, they are the team that has come closest to perfecting the English style, or rather the style the English think they do (or ought to) play.

Perhaps the greatest compliment to them was paid earlier this season when they took on Pep Guardiola’s Bayern. Pep – one of the finest tactical minds around – decided to have his defenders lump long and pump diagonal balls for most of the game's first hour to neutralise Dortmund’s pressing; he realised that if his defenders didn’t have the ball long enough, Dortmund couldn’t press. Pep abandoned tiki-taka because he feared Dortmund’s pressing. And lo, the hipsters did weep.

Dortmund are the model now, perhaps even more Barcelona. Atletico Madrid under Diego Simeone, for instance, are evolving towards that style, combining their previous expertise in pure counter-attacking to the Dortmund style – both relying on directness; and in Diego Costa they have perhaps the best forward in the world when it comes to both styles. And it is also this style that Liverpool have increasingly adopted this season.

Barca-loners

We were told that Liverpool would become Barcelona. Through most of Rodgers’ first season, the possession stats were thrown at us, as if those are the lone signifiers of the quality or entertainment of football a team plays. Dortmund, for example, finished last season’s Champions League with more possession in only three of their 11 matches, yet it would be hard to find anyone who would claim that their style was boring. And Rodgers, to give him credit, has realised that the personnel that he has are built different from a style that he spent years peddling.

He may still have his Brentian moments, but Rodgers has shown the tactical flexibility (a variety of formations, all with the specific aim of maximising the opportunities of his front duo) and humility to change his team’s style. Liverpool have gone from dominating possession charts (and fighting for European places) to being ninth in the possession table, but challenging for the title. The rise of Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge has meant that rather than trying to fit them into his system, Rodgers has adapted his own systems.

In the Premier League this season no team has a higher number of through passes per game, no team has scored more goals on the counter-attack, and no team has attempted fewer crosses per game than Liverpool. This is a team that is direct and relies on the break. They play at a tempo which means they're at their best right at the start of a match (the first half against Arsenal being perhaps the best example of this) and the energy spent at the start means that they get worse as they tire – leading to them being a pretty poor second-half team. Rodgers was hired to make Liverpool the English Barcelona, but instead he has made them the English Dortmund. Not too many Liverpool fans would mind that.

[Mostar]

Not a chance he'll go there. Not now anyway.

I cannot see it.

Expect him to sign a new 3-4 year contract with us closer to the end of this season.

[RedAndWhite]

I cannot see it.

Expect him to sign a new 3-4 year contract with us closer to the end of this season.

I think this has already been done, but will not be announced until the end of the season for obvious reasons.

[Mostar]

Personally I'd prefer that if it is done to be announced before the season is over.

I remember how Rafa extending his contract in March of 2009 gave us additional boost and addressed a great deal of uncertainty about his future at that time.

[G]

There's no uncertainty about his future. He has over a year left and we have an option on him for another year after that.