Brendan Rodgers

[The_weatherman]

Carra will be the epitome of the british manager. No thanks.

[Bender]

£214.4m - the amount Rodgers has spent in the transfer market
Imagine if we gave that to a manager like Pep or Ancelloti

[Darkon]

I like the projection of a players nationality + position = managerial style!

Nobody ever proved that wrong...

[Phoenix07]

Mario Balotelli has riled team-mates and Steven Gerrard hasn't been happy since Real Madrid snub... can Brendan Rodgers stop the rot at Liverpool?

By Neil Ashton for the Daily Mail

Just before the lights threatened to go out on Liverpool’s season, the players’ phones lit up with news on social media that Mario Balotelli had made his way to the Echo Arena.

The Liverpool forward, casually dressed in three-quarter length jeans and camouflage loafers, had taken a front-row seat to watch Tony Bellew and Nathan Cleverly slug it out over 12 rounds.

At that point, a few Liverpool players at their team hotel in London wanted to get the Italian in the ring.

Ostensibly, Balotelli had permission to do whatever he wanted because a hamstring injury ruled him out of the 450-mile round trip for Sunday’s 3-1 defeat at Crystal Palace.

But, after four defeats in a row for Brendan Rodgers and his team, the done thing is to keep your head down.

The publicity did not go down well at breakfast the following morning, but nobody within the Liverpool camp was particularly surprised by Balotelli’s appearance. It was a new low.

Since Balotelli’s arrival at Anfield his attitude, particularly towards some of the younger players at the squad, has created tension within the dressing room.

During a series of television interviews given by the Italian before the Palace game, he claimed he was working harder than at any other time in his career.

It was a remarkable declaration for a player who has not scored a goal in the Premier League since netting at Wigan on November 28, 2012, when he was still a Manchester City player.

On the pitch, his movement — with the exception of his debut against Tottenham and his goal in the Champions League against Ludogorets — has been non-existent. He is vacuous.

The spirit at Liverpool, built up last season during their dramatic chase for the Premier League title, has been eroded by the forward’s presence on the training ground.

There are further issues within the Liverpool dressing room too, something Rodgers alluded to in his analysis of his team’s wretched defeat at Palace.

Liverpool’s manager admitted they are ‘low on confidence’, but went on to say that they ‘had been a close group . . . but had to make changes’.

Those refinements have not suited a team that finished within a whisker of beating Manchester City to the title last season.

On Sunday, as Steven Gerrard waited to lead his team out at Selhurst Park, he stood with his chin resting in the palm of his hand. He looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Liverpool’s captain has been troubled since he was left out of the team to face Real Madrid at the Bernabeu on November 4.

Four core players — Gerrard, Raheem Sterling, Philippe Coutinho and Jordan Henderson — had slogged their guts out last season for the right to start in games like that.

They had travelled to Spain, returned to Liverpool midway through the night and then faced Chelsea in the lunchtime kick-off at Anfield the following Saturday. They lost 2-1.

Now that the team are five points off a place in the Champions League and are battling to stay in the competition this week, there are no guarantees any of them will return to the Bernabeu any time soon.

They have lost four successive games and Gerrard, who usually fronts up whatever the manner of a defeat, could not get on the team bus quick enough after Sunday’s loss.

Sterling, meanwhile, is in desperate need of a rest. In addition, his contract remains unsigned.

Alberto Moreno looked lost when he wandered out of the wrong exit at Selhurst Park and little wonder after an orthodox right-back — Glen Johnson — was preferred to him at left-back.

Rickie Lambert, who scored his first Premier League goal since joining his boyhood club, told Sky Sports that the attitude of the players had not been good enough.

The defeat at Palace has caused Fenway Sports Group to take an even greater interest in the running of the team after Rodgers admitted he is fighting to save his job.

The club’s owners are known to keep tabs on every newspaper, television programme and blog as they gauge supporter opinion in an environment they openly admit to knowing very little about.

John W Henry, Liverpool chairman Tom Werner and the influential director Michael Gordon are a ruthless bunch and are easily swayed by supporter feeling.

Roy Hodgson, Damien Comolli and Kenny Dalglish, recently appointed as a club ambassador, still bear the scars of their brutal approach to the business of running a football team.

Stateside, observers are looking at the £200million investment in the team and question the failure to re-establish Liverpool among the elite of English and European football.

They are aware of the tension brewing between the club’s director of technical performance Michael Edwards and Rodgers over Liverpool’s transfer policy.

After making it to the group phase of the Champions League, Fenway did not spend £200m to hear that their famous team is in transition.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/foo...Liverpool.html

[fred_plasticine]

£214.4m - the amount Rodgers has spent in the transfer market
Imagine if we gave that to a manager like Pep or Ancelloti

how much of their success in the transfer market is down to them though? barca, bayern, real, milan, psg - they all have a sporting director who's heavily involved in transfers if not the main man.
same with kloppo - he's always worked with zorc as sporting director at bvb.

[TheElephantMan]

It took a long time for me to be convinced that Rodgers was the right manager for us. All managers make mistakes and he deserves more respect. I have faith in him to make things work even though our season has been poor so far. It's never a good policy to chop and change, we need to accept the dip in form and look at the bigger picture.

[Boogs]

It took a long time for me to be convinced that Rodgers was the right manager for us. All managers make mistakes and he deserves more respect. I have faith in him to make things work even though our season has been poor so far. It's never a good policy to chop and change, we need to accept the dip in form and look at the bigger picture.

Hallelujah

[Yozza]

It took a long time for me to be convinced that Rodgers was the right manager for us. All managers make mistakes and he deserves more respect. I have faith in him to make things work even though our season has been poor so far. It's never a good policy to chop and change, we need to accept the dip in form and look at the bigger picture.

I'm of the same mindset - he really needs to pull his head out of his arse though &

[vlahka]

I look forward to him playing Johnson again.

[Yozza]

Brendan Rodgers has just weeks to get it right at Liverpool

Poor signings and failure to correct last season's problems have left Kop boss vulnerable

Hardly a week goes by without the Monday morning 'expert analysis' in the newspapers or on television on the latest manager to find his future under the microscope.

Not long ago it was Alan Pardew who was thought to be heading for the exit door at St James' Park. Mauricio Pochettino has felt the pressure as he fails to ignite Tottenham and across north London, Arsene Wenger gets a touch every time Arsenal lose.

Then, on Sunday, almost as fast as Lewis Hamilton crossed the finish line in Abu Dhabi, bookmakers halved the odds on Brendan Rodgers to be the next Premier League manager to lose his job - he's now 8-1 to be sacked, whereas at the start of the season he was a long shot at 100-1.

Could he survive four defeats in succession? It seems he can, with the Ulsterman's position not under immediate threat, but patience isn't a virtue many club owners possess and four-year contract or not, if the downward spiral continues it's unlikely Rodgers' Anfield reign will.

So, to use a question posed to another famous Ulsterman, where did it all go wrong for the man who led Liverpool to the brink of the Premier League title last season?

Well, you see, the fact that they stumbled and then fell at that brink goes at least some way to providing the answer.

Facing an understrength Chelsea, who had no intention of going full throttle, Rodgers' lack of experience in title-chasing situations was exposed, as was the absence of a Plan B.

Instead of playing out a dull 0-0 draw to keep the title in their own hands, Liverpool played the same way they had in every other game and ended up falling on their own sword.

And when 3-1 up at Crystal Palace in the penultimate game they smelt blood, went for more goals in the hope of eating into Manchester City's advantage, but left the back door open and ended up drawing - effectively handing City the title.

For Liverpool there are, sadly, too many similarities between now and the last time they finished second, under Rafael Benitez in 2009.

Back then they sold probably their best player while in the peak of his career - for Luis Suarez read Xabi Alonso, 28 at the time and just about to win a World Cup with Spain - and bought badly with Alberto Aquilani hardly an able deputy. Glen Johnson arrived then too and somehow he still holds onto a first-team place.

Since last season the personnel has changed, but formation and tactics remain the same - as do the problems.

They'll never win the league with Simon Mignolet in goal. Whether they win anything at all with him in the team is questionable too. Getting rid of Pepe Reina - irrespective of the size of his wage packet and ego - to replace him with Belgium's second-choice keeper was a suicidal move by Rodgers. He might have got away with it last season, but now the changes in the defence have exposed Mignolet as no better than ordinary.

That defence lacks understanding, authority and leadership.

Steven Gerrard continues in a role that is, let's face it, foreign to him. His driving style has been curtailed by Rodgers and well-informed sources have more than hinted that the captain doesn't actually fit into the manager's preferred system.

Dropping Gerrard is seen as unfathomable, squeezing the square peg into the round hole avoids axing the Kop hero, but look at the shape of the team that faced Real Madrid in the Champions League and you get an idea of Rodgers' Anfield ideology.

And remember too the praise he received even after the defeat in the Bernabeu.

Brendan is now suffering the indignity of having his reign compared to that of David Moyes at Manchester United. And we all know how that turned out.

There are, however, more comparisons than you might think.

Moyes never got to sign the players he actually wanted at Manchester United and ended up paying over the odds for Marouane Fellaini, simply because he knew the player and then took Chelsea cast-off Juan Mata as he was all there was available at the time.

Rodgers wanted Newcastle goalkeeper Tim Krul, or his former Swansea No.1 Michel Vorm as a second choice, but couldn't get either. Neither was he able to sign his Swansea captain Ashley Williams.

Then there's the Clint Dempsey debacle. Rodgers reportedly wanted the player, but the club never made Fulham an offer for the player and instead he went to Tottenham.

It is understood that Rodgers is just one member of a committee which deals with signings and owner John W Henry won't hold the manager alone accountable.

Suarez's departure in the summer was inevitable, the player wanted to go to Barcelona and he'd become too big a problem for the club.

So what did they do? Sign an inadequate replacement in Rickie Lambert and then another problem striker in Mario Balotelli - neither of whom have set Anfield alight.

There is, we are told, a long-term plan at Liverpool, with Rodgers very much at the forefront. Ripping the squad apart and starting over again isn't part of that, but it may have to be considered if, as has been said, the manager isn't under threat.

Dropping from second to 12th in the space of 12 games wasn't part of that plan though and if the slide continues then that's what may have to be ripped up, with someone else overseeing its implementation.

[ronanm]

"Just weeks to get it right" and then nothing to back up that statement. Great journalism.

[Alex]

The more I think about it and read, the less I am convinced he can last out the season and turn it round. It seems to have all gone wrong so quickly.

How could it turn around now? New formation? Different players in the current formation? Players like Lucas and Borini who have been left out in the cold a little returning for a run in the side? Dropping Gerrard/Skrtel/Johnson? Getting Valdes in to push Mignolet?

Lots of problems and about 1000 different solutions it seems to me at the moment

[Sarb]

The more I think about it and read, the less I am convinced he can last out the season and turn it round. It seems to have all gone wrong so quickly.

How could it turn around now? New formation? Different players in the current formation? Players like Lucas and Borini who have been left out in the cold a little returning for a run in the side? Dropping Gerrard/Skrtel/Johnson? Getting Valdes in to push Mignolet?

Lots of problems and about 1000 different solutions it seems to me at the moment

Latest rumours are that Balotelli has upset harmony in the squad, no one is happy with him or his entourage that follows him around. I dont think he has been great but I dont think the majority of others have either. For them to come out and complain about him is a bit hypocritical, and them taking an easy option.

Think there is a culture of scapegoating spreading through the club. Takes me back to end of Rafa and Hodgson reign. Morale must be totally **** at the club. Even then, it kind of misses the point. Our main issues at the moment are, selections are poor, system is wrong and we have regressed to a style of play that opposition teams have sussed out. Nearly all teams in PL have pace in attack. They are happy to keep a shape against us and wait for us to lose the ball or pressure in certain areas. Why we have gone back to that is beyond me.

No wonder Sterling looks so blunt. We have no intention of playing it behind defenders and using his pace

[BigChief]

The more I think about it and read, the less I am convinced he can last out the season and turn it round. It seems to have all gone wrong so quickly.

How could it turn around now? New formation? Different players in the current formation? Players like Lucas and Borini who have been left out in the cold a little returning for a run in the side? Dropping Gerrard/Skrtel/Johnson? Getting Valdes in to push Mignolet?

Lots of problems and about 1000 different solutions it seems to me at the moment

The 'fix' is easier than putting a shelf up in your daughter's bedroom. The fact we can't be arsed to put the shelf up and maybe we'll do it next week is the problem here. These few sentences from the article pretty much sum up how good we can be once the obvious changes are implemented. No need for further purchases just yet:

Steven Gerrard continues in a role that is, let's face it, foreign to him. His driving style has been curtailed by Rodgers and well-informed sources have more than hinted that the captain doesn't actually fit into the manager's preferred system.

Dropping Gerrard is seen as unfathomable, squeezing the square peg into the round hole avoids axing the Kop hero, but look at the shape of the team that faced Real Madrid in the Champions League and you get an idea of Rodgers' Anfield ideology.

And remember too the praise he received even after the defeat in the Bernabeu.

[kingfunk]

I agree totes with this.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/liverpools-most-painful-problem-how-4687128