Brendan Rodgers

[Muddled]

Lets not get to carried away. he hasnt done anything yet. Let's see where we finish. A decent season was the least we expected at the start of it.

Wait. You mean there is only me streaking through this thread with just a Rodgers mask on?

I'll rein myself in.

[SK]

Yep it is a very solid set up but like you I have to wonder will we see it continued next season.

If we stick with it, and buy a first team quality striker next season, then one of Sterling/Coutinho/Lallana/Markovic gets bumped out as you would have to expect Rodgers to play the new first team striker alongside Sturridge.

At present Lallana would look the most likely to get the chop which would again bring into question why he was bought and for so much (and I am one that really rates Lallana as a player)


Will also be interesting to see if we look to upgrade in the centre of midfield. Lucas is doing very well and has earned his spot in the team, but there are players out there that would be an upgrade on him and who would add to our attacking play along with being able to do their defensive duties. But the addition of a new CM would of course bring into question whether or not Can is seen as a future CM for us or a long term RCB.

Looking at our current first team it is hard not to be a bit excited though, as two quality additions, maybe three if I am to be greedy, would have the potential to turn us into a beast of a team that has a bit of proper depth amongst the back ups.


Was daydreaming a little before making this post about adding two, maybe three players, to our current first team and thinking about if we had 60m to 80m (transfer kitty + cash from sales) to spend on those players in the summer.



Just drop Lacazette and one from Laporte/Hummels/Varane into our current first team. Possibly doable with the figures I mentioned.


Or Lacazette and one from Pjanic/Strootman/Nainggolan (yep I really want to get one of Roma's midfielders lol).


And it would be difficult not to see us go up a level as a team.

Sell Borini, Balo, Lambert and Lovren. Get in Ings, Lavezzi and Alex Song plus a defender like Varane and we're set imo

[ronanm]

Wait. You mean there is only me streaking through this thread with just a Rodgers mask on?

I'll rein myself in.

Don't be a drama queen zsa zsa

[captainfog]

We're not conceding many and that is what ultimately counts, but we've played a lot of **** teams who haven't been capitalising on errors. West Ham aside, which I haven't seen, almost every game I've watched we've looked prone to conceding and have benefited from poor finishing. I'm yet to be convinced that we've properly turned a corner, but hopefully this is the start of better things.

One thing I'm sure of is there is no coincidence that our improvement in form has coincided with Lovren, Johnson and Gerrard not playing as much. Why did it take him 6 months to get there though?

[MrMichael]

We're not conceding many and that is what ultimately counts, but we've played a lot of **** teams who haven't been capitalising on errors. West Ham aside, which I haven't seen, almost every game I've watched we've looked prone to conceding and have benefited from poor finishing. I'm yet to be convinced that we've properly turned a corner, but hopefully this is the start of better things.

One thing I'm sure of is there is no coincidence that our improvement in form has coincided with Lovren, Johnson and Gerrard not playing as much. Why did it take him 6 months to get there though?

For me we've looked significantly more solid at the back of late and it has been quite noticeble that we have cut out a lot of the individual errors & gaffs that littered our defensive game early in the season - while we still concede the occasional chance (like most defences) we aren't outright gifting goals to our opponents any more, and when we score there no longer seems to be an immediate expectation that we'll let one in at the other end any moment.

Barring one or two moments West Ham never looked anything of a threat, pretty assured display defensively I thought.

I agree that it isn't a complete coincidence, however I'm also not sure our improvement is solely about those players not playing as much. You also missed Balotelli out

Personally I think the club underestimated the impact of losing Suarez (heightened by Sturridge being out), but I also think sections of out fanbase have been overly ready to criticise the difficulties we've had as if hindsight is not playing a factor. It is completely unreasonable imo to expect the manager to have dumped the likes of Lovren and Gerrard a few games into the season; players have to have the opportunity to play themselves into form and learn new ways of working etc. No manager worth their salt flip flops into changing their plans at the first sign of difficulty, the real test is whether they can then be flexible enough when a blip becomes a slump and I honestly think Rodgers seems to be passing that test now.

Plus the development / alteration of a system will always take time, especially when we were embarking on Rodgers' first experience of Europe (and the lack of prep time that causes). After 2 straight seasons of almost continuous improvement and development the club made some errors in the summer, and undoubtedly the manager made some in the first part of the season too, but I was still quite surprised how little faith in the overall 'project' so many of our fans seemed to show during the first genuinely poor period under Rodgers, and how little understanding has been shown that to change things up does actually take time.

[Fosterbloke]

I wanted him out earlier and I'm happy to admit that I feel like a right tit for doing so.

Keep up the amazing work Brendan!

[Tee]

I wanted him out earlier and I'm happy to admit that I feel like a right tit for doing so.

Keep up the amazing work Brendan!

So did I and I genuinely could not see him getting us out of that horrible malaise, but he has shown why he is so highly rated. Still got work to do and if we make the CL from here it will IMO be a greater achievement than last season.

But, if we slip up and end up 6th or 7th then his position will again be under severe scrutiny all round. I would like to see him given another season because he himself has stated that next season will be the title charge again.

[BG1973]

We're not conceding many and that is what ultimately counts, but we've played a lot of **** teams who haven't been capitalising on errors. West Ham aside, which I haven't seen, almost every game I've watched we've looked prone to conceding and have benefited from poor finishing. I'm yet to be convinced that we've properly turned a corner, but hopefully this is the start of better things.

One thing I'm sure of is there is no coincidence that our improvement in form has coincided with Lovren, Johnson and Gerrard not playing as much. Why did it take him 6 months to get there though?

Because:

Lovren cost a lot of money so I'm sure he felt under pressure for him to come good. And therefore gave him every opportunity.

Johnson despite being bang average was an old head in anotherwse inexperienced set of defenders

Gerrard. I don't think anyone needs to explain why that was never going to be easy.


Let's see how we get in until the end of the season. One thing is for sure, we will score more goals than we were previously.

[The_weatherman]

One thing I'm sure of is there is no coincidence that our improvement in form has coincided with Lovren, Johnson and Gerrard not playing as much. Why did it take him 6 months to get there though?

For me we've looked significantly more solid at the back of late and it has been quite noticeble that we have cut out a lot of the individual errors & gaffs that littered our defensive game early in the season - while we still concede the occasional chance (like most defences) we aren't outright gifting goals to our opponents any more, and when we score there no longer seems to be an immediate expectation that we'll let one in at the other end any moment.

Barring one or two moments West Ham never looked anything of a threat, pretty assured display defensively I thought.

I agree that it isn't a complete coincidence, however I'm also not sure our improvement is solely about those players not playing as much. You also missed Balotelli out

Personally I think the club underestimated the impact of losing Suarez (heightened by Sturridge being out), but I also think sections of out fanbase have been overly ready to criticise the difficulties we've had as if hindsight is not playing a factor. It is completely unreasonable imo to expect the manager to have dumped the likes of Lovren and Gerrard a few games into the season; players have to have the opportunity to play themselves into form and learn new ways of working etc. No manager worth their salt flip flops into changing their plans at the first sign of difficulty, the real test is whether they can then be flexible enough when a blip becomes a slump and I honestly think Rodgers seems to be passing that test now.

Plus the development / alteration of a system will always take time, especially when we were embarking on Rodgers' first experience of Europe (and the lack of prep time that causes). After 2 straight seasons of almost continuous improvement and development the club made some errors in the summer, and undoubtedly the manager made some in the first part of the season too, but I was still quite surprised how little faith in the overall 'project' so many of our fans seemed to show during the first genuinely poor period under Rodgers, and how little understanding has been shown that to change things up does actually take time.

I think the reason we are more solid is very much down to Lovren/Gerrard out and Sakho/Lucas in, besides the defensive work Lucas is quicker to move the ball on so we don't get pressured as easily, Gerrard usually just passed the ball between him and the CB's but with Lucas and Sakho (and Can as well) the ball is going forward at a faster pace. Sakho is also fantastic in pinging the it forward.

I lost faith in Rodgers because we had problems from very early on, these points, but I though he took to long to fix them. I thought it was ludicrous to omit Lucas for the United game and Can after the Chelsea game etc. etc. IMO posters should respect each others opinions and those who criticized Rodgers were not completely wrong just like those who kept faith were right to do so.

[BigChief]

I wanted him out earlier and I'm happy to admit that I feel like a right tit for doing so.

Keep up the amazing work Brendan!

I wanted him out and that was only because of my sig. My almost exact words were (and I still believe in): "It would be a shame to lose him as he's the best manager I've seen for us since Dalglish left in 1991".

I stand by that and am so happy he's finally resolved the issue regarding my signature. I will change my sig in a couple of days now that the ghost of 2014 has been exorcised.

[Muddled]

People talk of our current defensive stability as if Rodgers stumbled across it by accident. He just dropped a couple of players and replaced them with so-and-so and we instantly improved. Not quite - he's successfully tweaked the team to be solid at the back without sacrificing our attacking football. As part of those tweaks, it meant that Gerrard's role was redundant. Lovren is the only one that has been dropped for being poor.

[BigChief]

People talk of our current defensive stability as if Rodgers stumbled across it by accident. He just dropped a couple of players and replaced them with so-and-so and we instantly improved. Not quite - he's successfully tweaked the team to be solid at the back without sacrificing our attacking football. As part of those tweaks, it meant that Gerrard's role was redundant. Lovren is the only one that has been dropped for being poor.

The man (Rodgers) has got so much footballing know-how its mind boggling. And he's younger than me!! He just wants to share that knowledge with everyone but gets shot down as David Brent or someone who loves the sound of his own voice.

Such a shame we'll only give his wise words the time of day when he's winning things at City, Barca or some other big club.

[cream]

He's ****ing great.

[captainfog]

If he had that much football know-how then it wouldn't have taken him 6 months of doing the same thing over and over again before realising we needed to change the system.

At least he did change it eventually and it appears to be working.

[Muddled]

Yeah, we should finish one game with the diamond formation and start the next in a 3-4-3 and just iron out the issues during game time.