Liverpool is now the ultimate renovation project - and Brendan Rodgers is having a transformative effect
Amid the growing din about ending the title wait, writes Chris Bascombe, it is worth paraphrasing a bit of Churchill. For Liverpool, this is not the end of the reconstruction. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning
By Chris Bascombe
Brendan Rodgers must be devoted to the BBC daytime show 'Homes Under the Hammer'.
You know the one, where they go into an ageing property that's fallen into disrepair. After highlighting all the creaking floorboards and cracks in the ceiling, the presenters go back a few months later and the same place looks palatial.
Liverpool is now the ultimate renovation project, so much so they should dispatch Martin and Lucy to Anfield to look in awe, point at the most attractive new features (like the Premier League table) and whoop 'look at what they've done here'.
There's always that climactic moment where they get a fresh valuation.
"Well, given this place was worth just £210 million a few years ago, with just a little more work and if things continue as they've done so far, I'd say you're comfortably looking at a £500 million institution in the not too distant future."
You won't arrest the excitement levels at Anfield for a considerable time after this season, regardless of where Liverpool ultimately end what has been a revitalising league campaign.
It was not just the victory at Old Trafford, but the manner of it.
They've had notable successes there before, the 4-1 in 2009 the most obvious, but it was nothing like Sunday in terms of dominance and panache. Or ease.
Despite the stellar names of Xabi Alonso and Javier Mascherano, the 2009 Liverpool side was not alluring to the neutral. When Anfield observers talk about seeing nothing like this for 20 years, it's not just a title challenge they're discussing but a team that plays in the fabled 'Liverpool way'. Welcome back the Liverpool of my youth. You've been away far too long.
The point of comparison for much of this season has been Roy Evans' 1995-96 side, when Robbie Fowler and Stan Collymore worked in tandem and John Barnes and Steve McManaman created beautiful diagonal patterns in midfield. That side was undone by its soft underbelly, an unreliable defence and a goalkeeper who cited Playstation as a reason for dropping crosses.
Rodgers will need to win something to shake off that association which, although largely meant to be complimentary, also hints at potential underachievement.
With every victory sustaining current title ambitions, a more attractive point of reference is hovering tantalisingly into view.
Rodgers' side has the firepower of Kenny Dalglish's 1988 title winners. That's quite a statement given, alongside Bob Paisley's team of 1979, that side is considered the finest in the club's history.
Only winning the title will give validation to such a perilous name check but what sounded absurd a few months ago can no longer be so swiftly dismissed.
It is not just Liverpool's reputation that is being enhanced by Rodgers, however. He too looks the part rather than just sounds it.
Rodgers was often derided for having too much to say when he first walked through The Shankly Gates, his ability to back-up colourful rhetoric not immediately supported by results.
We should not revise history too much because the vast majority of Liverpool supporters liked him from the start, but it's fair to say Rodgers was viewed with scepticism.
There were those who felt Kenny Dalglish deserved longer, and the plot to have Rafa Benitez reinstated extended to John W. Henry receiving begging emails from his greatest cheerleaders in a last ditch attempt to deny anyone else the job. Some thought the dossier Rodgers handed to FSG to impress them was a rewrite of a Jose Mourinho manuscript he read at Chelsea.
Rodgers needed a promising start and didn't get it. What spared him the grief of, say, Roy Hodgson was the style of football and a much savvier PR campaign with the locals. Even when Liverpool were losing at the start of last season you could see what he was trying to achieve and his courting of fan groups and fan sites who he offered private briefings during those difficult times was, in retrospect, a masterstroke.
The word often used to deride him - 'philosophy' - was actually a source of reassurance. The difference with him and Hodgson (and David Moyes at Manchester United) is you could easily identify what the players were being asked to do, even if they did not instantly look capable of applying it.
In the immediate aftermath of the ill-advised 'Being Liverpool' documentary (agreed long before his appointment) the laziest criticism of Rodgers focused on vanity.
"He thinks a lot of himself," has remained a constant mutter from those who mistake the affable Northern Irish charm for excessive self-importance.
Does Rodgers rate himself? Yes.
Does he do so more than any other top manager? No, no and no again.
Here is some breaking news. You won't find a single Premier League manager who does not consider himself the best man for their job, born for the office. Some of those who talk most about humility have the ego the size of Kilimanjaro.
Besides, if you're a 39 year-old appointed manager of Liverpool Football Club, it's a fair assumption self-confidence won't be an issue, and nor should it.
Let's not skirt the issue. Rodgers' recent weight loss and visit to the dentist gets mentioned a fair bit, too, but given some of those in my own profession who shout loudest about managerial vanity appear on discussion shows that should be sponsored by 'Just For Men', I'm not convinced journalists are on safe territory talking too much about that.
So yes, Rodgers - just like those before and those who will follow - has a self-belief that negotiates the fine line between confidence and conceit. It's no more or less than others and if his team is successful, it does not matter.
He has transformed Liverpool in the space of two years and the vast majority of his public pronouncements have been doused in common sense.
Even in the aftermath of what seemed the most symbolic of victories against Manchester United, no-one will repeat more than Rodgers how much further there is still to go.
Amid the growing din about ending the title wait, it is worth paraphrasing a bit of Churchill.
For Liverpool, this is not the end of the reconstruction. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
Amid the growing din about ending the title wait, writes Chris Bascombe, it is worth paraphrasing a bit of Churchill. For Liverpool, this is not the end of the reconstruction. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning
By Chris Bascombe
Brendan Rodgers must be devoted to the BBC daytime show 'Homes Under the Hammer'.
You know the one, where they go into an ageing property that's fallen into disrepair. After highlighting all the creaking floorboards and cracks in the ceiling, the presenters go back a few months later and the same place looks palatial.
Liverpool is now the ultimate renovation project, so much so they should dispatch Martin and Lucy to Anfield to look in awe, point at the most attractive new features (like the Premier League table) and whoop 'look at what they've done here'.
There's always that climactic moment where they get a fresh valuation.
"Well, given this place was worth just £210 million a few years ago, with just a little more work and if things continue as they've done so far, I'd say you're comfortably looking at a £500 million institution in the not too distant future."
You won't arrest the excitement levels at Anfield for a considerable time after this season, regardless of where Liverpool ultimately end what has been a revitalising league campaign.
It was not just the victory at Old Trafford, but the manner of it.
They've had notable successes there before, the 4-1 in 2009 the most obvious, but it was nothing like Sunday in terms of dominance and panache. Or ease.
Despite the stellar names of Xabi Alonso and Javier Mascherano, the 2009 Liverpool side was not alluring to the neutral. When Anfield observers talk about seeing nothing like this for 20 years, it's not just a title challenge they're discussing but a team that plays in the fabled 'Liverpool way'. Welcome back the Liverpool of my youth. You've been away far too long.
The point of comparison for much of this season has been Roy Evans' 1995-96 side, when Robbie Fowler and Stan Collymore worked in tandem and John Barnes and Steve McManaman created beautiful diagonal patterns in midfield. That side was undone by its soft underbelly, an unreliable defence and a goalkeeper who cited Playstation as a reason for dropping crosses.
Rodgers will need to win something to shake off that association which, although largely meant to be complimentary, also hints at potential underachievement.
With every victory sustaining current title ambitions, a more attractive point of reference is hovering tantalisingly into view.
Rodgers' side has the firepower of Kenny Dalglish's 1988 title winners. That's quite a statement given, alongside Bob Paisley's team of 1979, that side is considered the finest in the club's history.
Only winning the title will give validation to such a perilous name check but what sounded absurd a few months ago can no longer be so swiftly dismissed.
It is not just Liverpool's reputation that is being enhanced by Rodgers, however. He too looks the part rather than just sounds it.
Rodgers was often derided for having too much to say when he first walked through The Shankly Gates, his ability to back-up colourful rhetoric not immediately supported by results.
We should not revise history too much because the vast majority of Liverpool supporters liked him from the start, but it's fair to say Rodgers was viewed with scepticism.
There were those who felt Kenny Dalglish deserved longer, and the plot to have Rafa Benitez reinstated extended to John W. Henry receiving begging emails from his greatest cheerleaders in a last ditch attempt to deny anyone else the job. Some thought the dossier Rodgers handed to FSG to impress them was a rewrite of a Jose Mourinho manuscript he read at Chelsea.
Rodgers needed a promising start and didn't get it. What spared him the grief of, say, Roy Hodgson was the style of football and a much savvier PR campaign with the locals. Even when Liverpool were losing at the start of last season you could see what he was trying to achieve and his courting of fan groups and fan sites who he offered private briefings during those difficult times was, in retrospect, a masterstroke.
The word often used to deride him - 'philosophy' - was actually a source of reassurance. The difference with him and Hodgson (and David Moyes at Manchester United) is you could easily identify what the players were being asked to do, even if they did not instantly look capable of applying it.
In the immediate aftermath of the ill-advised 'Being Liverpool' documentary (agreed long before his appointment) the laziest criticism of Rodgers focused on vanity.
"He thinks a lot of himself," has remained a constant mutter from those who mistake the affable Northern Irish charm for excessive self-importance.
Does Rodgers rate himself? Yes.
Does he do so more than any other top manager? No, no and no again.
Here is some breaking news. You won't find a single Premier League manager who does not consider himself the best man for their job, born for the office. Some of those who talk most about humility have the ego the size of Kilimanjaro.
Besides, if you're a 39 year-old appointed manager of Liverpool Football Club, it's a fair assumption self-confidence won't be an issue, and nor should it.
Let's not skirt the issue. Rodgers' recent weight loss and visit to the dentist gets mentioned a fair bit, too, but given some of those in my own profession who shout loudest about managerial vanity appear on discussion shows that should be sponsored by 'Just For Men', I'm not convinced journalists are on safe territory talking too much about that.
So yes, Rodgers - just like those before and those who will follow - has a self-belief that negotiates the fine line between confidence and conceit. It's no more or less than others and if his team is successful, it does not matter.
He has transformed Liverpool in the space of two years and the vast majority of his public pronouncements have been doused in common sense.
Even in the aftermath of what seemed the most symbolic of victories against Manchester United, no-one will repeat more than Rodgers how much further there is still to go.
Amid the growing din about ending the title wait, it is worth paraphrasing a bit of Churchill.
For Liverpool, this is not the end of the reconstruction. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
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