Brendan Rodgers

[Sarb]

Think a DoF is required if they really want to implement a proper long term plan. They shouldn't have deviated from the plan initially, but that is hindsight. Rodgers was too inexperienced to call the shots to them. Have an opportunity to do it right this time

[spud_gun]

Think a DoF is required if they really want to implement a proper long term plan. They shouldn't have deviated from the plan initially, but that is hindsight. Rodgers was too inexperienced to call the shots to them. Have an opportunity to do it right this time

Rafa won't work with a DoF.

[Charly]

The man looks completely out of ideas. I agree about the point of pressing high up the pitch. We no longer do it, and that is causing us problems, as we cant soak up pressure when the other team has possesion, as we are so brittle. In that nothing has changed from last season.

I think BR should have until the new year, but the season comes down to what we do in the transfer market in the new year. We desperately need a new striker, regardless of what happens to Rodgers. Question is who makes the decision of whom, or even if , we buy a new striker.

Personally I don't see Origi as being the solution to our problems (he only has 3 goals in fourteen in the league this season, and has faded after a bright start)). I think the team has enough young potential in it. We need to put down the wedge for a top goalscorer that we did not spend in the summer. Problem is we are stuck with Balotelli, and who is going to buy him now, let alone give him £100k a week.

Unless of course we have no money left, and all we ever budgeted for Suarez' replacement was £15m.

The summer of cluster****s in terms of transfers, will probably cost Rodgers his job, as Diouf and Diao cost Houllier before, and Aquillani cost Benitez his. Could have saved us a ton by not buying Balotelli (does not fit the system) Lambert (does not fit the system) Markovic (Suso is a better player) Moreno (not a good enough defender when we were crying out for someone to bolster the back line) Lovren (to replace Agger, oh dear)

I am thinking we could have done with keeping Coates, and maybe signing Konoplyanka instead of Markovic, but what we needed was a ball winning midfielder and a striker. I would suggest that we need to sign both in this window, but we also need to cut the squad in terms on midfielders. Lucas and Allen should both be surplus. Henderson showed last season he has quality, and Caan has shown glimpses. Coutinho desperately needs movement ahead which is not there. Sterling is the one bright light in a season of poop.

[Phoenix07]

Completely agree with this, it's a travesty watching our long term planning or tbh. just about any English club in that aspect. English football is fortunate to have the amount of TV money it does, or it wouldn't be close to the top leagues at all.

In the last 15 years we have as you say reaproached just about everything 4 times. No consistency to our youngsters is bad, and doesn't create a good talent development atmosphere. Which is probably most noticable in only Raheem coming through this side of the millinium. Doesn't help creating a first team working well over time having to adapt to new playing philosophies and a big turnover in personel to adapt.

I hope we keep to a certain style from now on!

Swansea and Huw Jenkins are an excellent example on how to keep employing managers with similar ideas and getting them to understand what is wanted.

If I recall correctly, FSG wanted a DOF and a Technical Director to transition between Academy and First Team. That was alleged to have been Pep Segura, but then he left (see from Echo report below).

When Liverpool were searching for a new boss in May following the sacking of Kenny Dalglish, Segura looked set to be promoted to technical director to work alongside the manager and a sporting director.

However, those plans were shelved by the owners when Brendan Rodgers made it clear that having total control would be key to him accepting the job.
http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport...ol-fcs-3337673

I truly believed FSG were onto something back then, and I was majorly critical of them and their decisions at the time.

[Lecter]

Firstly I'd like to dissagree with the Bascombe article...i don't think this years transfers have all been a disasteer, they just have not been used right and enough.
Most of them will come good as they are young and have massive potencial.


Secondly regarding some saying our lack of pressing is down to Suarez not being there, it's not, well it's not just that.

Under Rodgers, we do not play the offside trap anymore, which is understandable becasue of his inabillity to coach any sort of cohesion into our back line, therefore they have to be positioned closer to our goal, which in case means our midfield and attack have to move further back aswell, giving the opposing team more space in their half.

Now this was mended last season because Sturridge, Suarez and Sterling had in them the pace to scare the **** out of any teams defence and midfield and not allow them to create attacks from the back, some of those problems will be solved with Sturridge coming back, but getting a defensive coach who'd sort our defensive shape would be a long term solution to that problem.

You cant play offside unless you have pressure on the ball

[Sarb]

Swansea and Huw Jenkins are an excellent example on how to keep employing managers with similar ideas and getting them to understand what is wanted.

If I recall correctly, FSG wanted a DOF and a Technical Director to transition between Academy and First Team. That was alleged to have been Pep Segura, but then he left (see from Echo report below).



I truly believed FSG were onto something back then, and I was majorly critical of them and their decisions at the time.

Spot on

Even when Rodgers was appointed a lot of fans were hoping for a DoF. Van Gaal or Tixi were the names mooted. FSG should have stuck to the idea and got a manager who would work under it. Hindsight though

[red g]

Swansea and Huw Jenkins are an excellent example on how to keep employing managers with similar ideas and getting them to understand what is wanted.

If I recall correctly, FSG wanted a DOF and a Technical Director to transition between Academy and First Team. That was alleged to have been Pep Segura, but then he left (see from Echo report below).



I truly believed FSG were onto something back then, and I was majorly critical of them and their decisions at the time.

Or Southampton, Ever since Adkins got the boot they have gone from apparent night mare to apparent nightmare....yet get stronger for it!!

[baitman]

did someone say rafa wouldnt work under a DoF.

but would he make a good DoF.

[SK]

You cant play offside unless you have pressure on the ball

well it's easier for a defender if a player in front of him forces the opposition to pass under pressure, but the chaos in defence has resulted in us abandoning the offside trap completely. that i. turn has resulted the whole team to drop back, which gives the opposition more time on the ball, and causes us even more problems

[Dessy]

I have always liked the model of giving the manager the tools and asking him to do something with it. If it fails, we move on to another. It worked at Chelsea and most of the other European powerhouses.

And therein lies the problem, BR has been given several 'tools' who really aren't up to much [emoji2]

[alonso14]

The director of football, the manager and the transfer committee all have to be on the same page or we end up with more Simon mignolets. Its very hard to say to big managers who we are trying to attract that their only focus is coaching and training. The recruitment is left to someone who might not understand what the manager wants.

But someone said earlier that BR has revolutionised the academy, the same academy that rafa revolutionised years earlier. Every manager wants full control over all aspects of the football club but when they leave it and someone else comes in its another huge overhaul of everything.

You cant change the club from top to bottom every 3 years. So this is where the director of football comes in because in theory he sets the style of play, the identity of the team, he re-inforces the DNA of the club and every manager picked already plays in that same style of what LFC want. So if a management change is necessary then another manager comes in who employs the same methodology. This way we dont need to sell all our wingers to buy wide forwards instead.

But we dont have anyone setting the style or watching over results etc... We have a transfer committee who are buying players off their own back without their being a clear view of what's required. The manager is given tools he cant use (mignolet).

The key question in Chris bascombes article is not that have bad players been bought rather the question should have been what have these players been bought for. What is LFCs football identity.

[G]

Brendan Rodgers must go back to his roots if Liverpool are to recover

Brendan Rodgers had a bumpy start to his Anfield career. At times, the "Being Liverpool" documentary even felt like a parody. After a 3-1 Boxing Day defeat at Stoke in 2012-13 -- the midpoint of the campaign -- Liverpool found themselves 10th in the table, 21 points off the top. In the second half of the season, they gained 36 points. Had they kept that pace all year long, they would have been fifth, one point away from the Champions League.

You know what happened next. Liverpool finished second in 2013-14, letting the title slip away with that 2-0 home defeat to Chelsea and the 3-3 draw at Crystal Palace. And you know where they are now: out of the Champions League and ninth in the Premier League, 15 points off the top.

In terms of results, they are back where they were in the first half of Rodgers' regime: 25 points from 19 league games, 1.31 points per game vs. 1.4 points per game this season. In the 18 months in-between, they were a wholly different side, capable of gaining 119 points in 57 matches, or 2.09 per game.

So what's the difference? The simplistic, stock answer is: Daniel Sturridge. He arrived in January 2013 and broke down after three games in 2014-15. He hasn't been back since. His presence coincides with Rodgers' Liverpool doing well. In his absence, they've done badly.

The loss of Luis Suarez, of course, was also a huge blow. He's gone and he's irreplaceable.

That's one way to look at it, and a tempting one to some. It distills the game down to individuals. When Rodgers had two world-class strikers to paper over his cracks, he was devastating. Without them, he's not.


Rodgers and Liverpool are struggling but it can be fixed if the manager returns to his successful roots.
There's a problem with this thinking. First, there were 17 games over that 18 month period during which either Sturridge or Suarez was unavailable. Liverpool gained 2.24 points in those games, which is actually better than their record when they had both.

Second, it implies that Rodgers' contribution is irrelevant and that he's only as good as his front two. You can choose to believe that, if you like, or you can give him the benefit of the doubt, as I choose to do, based on his body of work at Swansea.

Liverpool's improvement, beginning in January 2013, was not solely down to the arrival of Sturridge. Indeed, it had little to do with signings. Other than Simon Mignolet and Philippe Coutinho, none of those who arrived in that 18 month spell enjoyed significant playing time.

The difference came on the training pitch. Rodgers developed a system that allowed Suarez and Sturridge to thrive together. (And, just as important, as the stats show, on their own.)


While it's true that Suarez and Sturridge contributed greatly to the Reds' success, it's not all down to them.
Jordan Henderson, derided by many, became a better player -- and an England fixture. Raheem Sterling developed into a star. Sturridge -- a guy who arrived with a reputation, however unfair it may have been, as a "bad egg" -- showed he wasn't just a great player, he was a good professional as well. Steven Gerrard scored 18 goals in those 18 months -- as many as he had notched in the previous three years.

You don't want to reduce Suarez to mere numbers, but he did score 43 goals in 48 league games since that fateful Stoke match on Boxing Day, 2012. He had 28 in 62 before that. Simply put, he wasn't a $100m player prior to Rodgers.

It could all be a massive coincidence. Maybe Rodgers just found his rabbit's foot for those 18 months. Maybe Liverpool were just lucky for a very, very long time. Maybe all those guys who seemed to improve at around the same time would have improved anyway, regardless of whether the manager was Brendan Rodgers, Buck Rogers or Mister Rogers.

But I don't buy it.

Unless you're actually a Liverpool player or coach, you don't actually know what he does on the training ground. You only get second-hand accounts, which you can then juxtapose with what you see on the pitch. And I've had enough to conclude that he was working on formations and schemes and movements that made the team better. While also getting individual players to perform better. Not that Rodgers was perfect -- far from it. Even during Liverpool's stellar 18 months, they left a lot to be desired defensively. But it was clearly his day-to-day coaching that was having a positive impact.

Now, that's no longer happening. And as I hope I showed above, it's not simply a function of Sturridge being out.

That's what he needs to regain, first and foremost, if the season is to be turned around. Find a tactical scheme that works for the players you have. It seems obvious, but that's what good coaches do. And that's what got Rodgers to do well at Swansea and later at Anfield.

Clearly, you can point to other mistakes. Much has been made of the summer signings and the fabled "transfer committee." What it basically means is that signings are not left solely to Rodgers but are approved by a group which includes chief executive Ian Ayre, head of performance and analysis Michael Edwards, head of recruitment Dave Fallows, chief scout Barry Hunter and Rodgers himself.

Because Liverpool's signings as a whole have been lackluster -- Sturridge and one or two others apart -- it's seen as a huge problem, particularly by those who are ideologically opposed to the notion of the omnipotent Sir Alex Ferguson-style boss.


Have all the new signings paid off? Not even close but in the case of Markovic, it can turn around.
It's true that Liverpool have overpaid for some guys in some cases and bought the wrong players in others. But while some of the execution has been poor, the structure itself is not a problem, because the different components bring their own expertise to the table. Hunter is a scout; he will have seen more of the potential signings than anyone. Edwards is the analytics expert who can (hopefully) identify value. Ayre is the businessman who knows the budgets and, supposedly, knows how to negotiate. Rodgers has the big picture. You can talk about hierarchy and influence all you like, but even Sir Alex, the ultimate autocrat, relied on input from others who had more specific expertise.

The new arrivals as a group aren't nowhere near as bad as they've been depicted in some quarters. They simply haven't contributed the way their past performance suggests they would.

You would expect a guy with Rodgers' body of work to figure out a way to get this group to contribute consistently. You certainly would not expect him to do what he did in the last few games, erecting "safety-first" formations and adopting a small club, short-term mentality. As I mentioned on Monday, that's not why he's there. He's there to build something, to turn these guys into a team.

You can also point to other mistakes that were made. Steven Gerrard hasn't complained about it but you would expect more clarity about his position -- both on the pitch and at the club -- and his future. It's not surprising then that he's in no rush to extend his deal.

Sterling has been ridden like some kind of workhorse. At times, you feel like he's single-handedly asked to provide all of Liverpool's creativity in the final third. And, as a result, he's been inconsistent. Young players often are. That's why managers are selective in how they use them. Not Rodgers.


Sterling is a superb asset for Liverpool but he needs rest in order to rediscover his best form.
Sterling has featured in all but one of Liverpool's games this season. The club have played 2100 minutes of football: he's been on the pitch for 1854 minutes. Only Mignolet has played more. By the time he turned 20 on Monday, he had amassed 99 first team appearances. Lionel Messi, by comparison, had made 71 at the same age; Cristiano Ronaldo, 100.

But here's the difference. Messi had lasted 90 minutes for Barcelona 25 times before his 20th birthday, Ronaldo 30 for Sporting and Manchester United. Sterling's done it 49 times for Liverpool. He's a special talent, absolutely. But if two of the greatest players of all time -- both precocious superstars -- were being used far more sparingly at teenagers than Sterling is, perhaps there's a reason.

Injuries haven't helped and mistakes have been made -- crucially, few of them of the kind that can't be undone -- but there is still plenty to salvage from this season.

Rodgers may or may not be the right guy to turn Liverpool around and take them forward. What's pretty certain in my view is that the guy impersonating Rodgers -- the one who talked about the "importance of clean sheets" and fielded these insipid, fearful, immediate, results-driven and blue-collar teams over the past few games - is definitely not the guy Liverpool need. He hasn't demonstrated the skill set to be that kind of manager.

What he has shown is the ability to play a different brand of attacking football, to make players better, to make teams greater than the sum of their parts. That's what won him plaudits at Swansea, that's what landed him the Liverpool job and that's what raised expectations through the roof last year.

That's the Rodgers Liverpool need right now, the one who makes a difference above all on the training pitch.

It might not work. But if it doesn't, at least he'll go down swinging. And at least it will be Brendan Rodgers, and not this faux replica, who comes up short.

http://www.espnfc.com/blog/espn-fc-united-blog/68/post/2190637/liverpool-brendan-rodgers-must-stick-to-his-roots-in-order-to-rescue-the-reds

[Redspin]

I can see this dangerously going down a Steven Gerrard (interim) player-manager route with Kenny acting as mentor.

What a nightmare scenario

[Leyton388]

Wonder if Rodgers name was in those envelopes?

[cream]

Brendans biggest mistake was refusing to work with a DoF and ending up with a committee that absolutely useless at picking players. Best thing FSG can do is get rid of the committee and put an experienced DoF in place, someone who shares the same philosophy as Brendan and if Brendan doesn't like it, **** him off and let the DoF pick a coach.