Brendan Rodgers

[Molby]

deleted

[Molby]

Well, I know this will be complicated for you, but I will try to explain it to you like you were a 6-years old ...

Yes, I would send Shelvey on loan to Swansea, if Rodgers is persistent in his intention to sign Sigurdsson ... It would give Shelvey enough playing time to continue with his development, and it would soften the blow to the relations between the two clubs ... As for Suso, he is still not ready for the Premier League football ... He might get some playing time in the Europa League and the domestic cups next season, but going on loan with some solid Championship club might be a better solution ...

You got it now, or I must put it a bit simpler?

Can you make it simpler please? As if I was 4 years old.

mods...how much longer??

[Buzzo]

Can you make it simpler please? As if I was 4 years old.

[Bender]

Hotel charges $15 a day for internet access and given I barely spend time there it doesn't seem worth it.

So in short I'm a cheapskate

[baitman]

Well, I know this will be complicated for you, but I will try to explain it to you like you were a 6-years old ...

dont bother...

well done mods

[Bender]

You probably haven't heard this yet Bender, but Bin Laden was killed over a year ago.

i know that's why there's a free room going at his cave

[CJ]

Top modding

[G]

He's gone

[SimonNo7]

He's gone

Rodgers has gone already

Should we change the title of this thread to Goodbye from LFC Brendan Rodgers?

[G]

Rodgers has gone already

Should we change the title of this thread to Goodbye from LFC Brendan Rodgers?

[SimonNo7]

[Lecter]

Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers wants to make Gylfi Sigurdsson his first signing following arrival at Anfield

Brendan Rodgers has confirmed his intention to make Gylfi Sigurdsson his first Liverpool signing after the midfielder’s move to Swansea City stalled.

By Chris Bascombe

11:59PM BST 02 Jun 2012

Sigurdsson was heading to the Liberty Stadium prior to Rodgers’ appointment at Anfield, but the change in circumstances appears to have scuppered the deal.


A £6.8 million fee was agreed between Swansea and Hoffenheim while Rodgers was still in charge, and personal terms were also negotiated with the 22 year-old.


But now the Northern Irishman has moved to Merseyside, Sigurdsson is destined to follow.


While Rodgers fully respects Swansea’s wish to conclude a deal, he says he feels compelled to pursue a player whose career has flourished under his charge.


“If he comes onto the market, I have to be interested,” explained Rodgers.

“His initial chat has to be with Swansea, because he had a good period there.

“I said when I had the chat with the chairman (Huw Jenkins) the other day, when I told him I was going to go to Liverpool, that Gylfi came to Swansea because I was there as manager.

“I said to Huw if I speak to the kid I’ll tell him to make sure he certainly comes down and speaks to the new (Swansea) manager, whoever that is, and that if he’s still not comfortable with that, he’s in the marketplace then — and then I have to look at him.”

Rodgers, meanwhile, has paid tribute to the roles his father and grandfather played in him becoming Liverpool manager.

“He was my hero. He’d be very proud,” said Rodgers of his father, who died last year. “Both my mum and dad passed away in a short period of time and I’m representing them.

“My grandfather was a Liverpool supporter. That’s where it started for me. I was born 1973 and in the late 70s I sat down with both him and my father [to watch Liverpool]. That was the emotional attachment to be here as well as the footballing challenge. They loved great football. My dad was a big lover of Johan Cruyff so that’s where one of my influences came from.

“My biggest influence were my parents. I’ve learnt from many people — good and bad — but my parents taught me the value of working hard. It’s an obligation to work hard, not a choice.

“My father brought me up that way and I was the one that always created rather than waited. I went out there and travelled to Spain, Holland and Germany to travel right the way through. It’s about having the courage and bravery to expose yourself to that.”

Rodgers makes no attempt to hide how he wants Liverpool to play, or what formation he intends to impose. His philosophy appears to be if he can make good players fit the system, opponents will know what’s coming but won’t get enough of the ball to undermine it.

“They say the best football coaches and managers are the best thieves so you look to pick up bits and pieces from everyone,” he said.

“Brendan Rodgers might not sound as good as someone from Italy or Spain. British managers have often been overlooked as not being impressive. I’m very proud that people here can see my vision, philosophy and work. I know Liverpool spoke to a number of European coaches but they went with an Irishman.

“What is new about my appointment is a British manager getting a job like this. When I started in management I wanted to show that British managers can get teams to play the way continental teams do, and that we have players who can adapt to that. I would say my style is a fusion.

“I’ve got a good idea where the group’s at. I think the biggest thing if you look at the team, it’s goals. It’s not rocket science. I think we’re defensively strong. They need more goals in the team. I think that’s the key. Whether that’s going to involve bringing players in or adapting the style to have a more high pressing game we’ll see.

"But that’s a challenge I’m looking forward to. My philosophy is simple — I’m here to educate. I’m not here to train. You train dogs, you don’t train players.

“Working with Jose Mourinho gave me great confidence. He saw something in me, and being at Chelsea gave me the opportunity to work with big players, and know that I could get my ideas across to them. It was a great experience, because I was there for the biggest year in Chelsea’s history.

“Jose and I keep in contact on a weekly basis, and I’ve got great respect for him. But I’m very much my own man. I had my own identity and my own ideas before I arrived at Chelsea.”

Rodgers could have been celebrating the title last month had he accepted an offer to become Roberto Mancini’s assistant two years ago.

Instead, he was drawn towards his managerial ambition.

“I went to Milan and met Roberto Mancini but then I got the call from Swansea,” said Rodgers.

“It was destiny really. It’s fate. I’m a big believer in that.”

[Lecter]

From the Times

Rodgers will need true grit



Hugh McIlvanney Published: 3 June 2012


The most that can fairly be asked of Rodgers in his first season or two are clear signs he is moving Liverpool in the right direction. Judgment of how he is coping with that demand will, of course, be based mainly on progress in the Premier League. He is bound to appreciate there was never anything remotely persuasive in the attempt of his predecessor, Kenny Dalglish, to argue that some success in knockout tournaments could be regarded as a reassuring counterweight in the 2011-12 season

REALISM WROTE the script when Brendan Rodgers was welcomed as Liverpool’s new manager not with a clamour of exaggerated hopes but a murmur of rational expectations. Long-term ambitions have to be high for a club who once rolled through English and European football like an honours-gathering juggernaut but the immediate priority must be to avoid becoming stranded in a ditch of mediocrity. Steering away from it and on towards the game’s biggest prizes should, as Rodgers stressed at his inaugural press conference on Friday, be considered the work of several years.

The most that can fairly be asked of him in his first season or two are clear signs he is moving Liverpool purposefully in the right direction. Judgment of how he is coping with that demand will, of course, be based mainly on progress in the Premier League. He is bound to appreciate there was never anything remotely persuasive in the attempt of his predecessor, Kenny Dalglish, to argue that some success in knockout tournaments (penalty shootout winners over Cardiff City in the Carling Cup final, runners-up to Chelsea in the FA Cup final) could be regarded as a reassuring counterweight in the 2011-12 season to Liverpool’s dismal league record.

Having won only six times on their own Anfield turf, they laboured home in eighth position, 37 points behind the champions, Manchester City. They were 17 adrift of the fourth-place finish that would normally have brought qualification for the Champions League but was, to Tottenham Hotspur’s dismay, stripped of the bonus this year by Chelsea’s triumph in the great continental competition. Though what Chelsea did there was an example of tournament form compensating for shortcomings in the domestic league, where they ended their campaign in sixth place, that was because the European trophy they captured has both unrivalled status and massive financial implications.

Being so distant from qualification for the Champions League was the dominant and depressing theme of Liverpool’s season and striving to ensure such miseries aren’t repeated will be seen by Rodgers as his primary obligation. He is determined to add to his club’s total of 18 league titles but, since the most recent of them was gained in the old First Division back in 1990, he accepts that is a target he cannot expect to close on soon.

However, if the process of building and honing his squad towards the standards required to compete seriously for national supremacy is likely to be gradual, neither he nor his American employers will feel that a prolonged, costly exile from the Champions League (it’s already into a third season) is a tolerable proposition. But that worry, too, may call for a demonstration of patience from everybody at Anfield. Proving superior in the coming season to at least four of the seven teams who finished above them in the league table last month is a feat the bookmakers certainly think is beyond Liverpool.

If you believe they will secure one of the Premier League’s top four places and thus qualify for the Champions League, you can back your opinion with Ladbrokes at 9-4 against. If you’re sure they won’t, there is scant temptation to support your view at 3-1 on. Any bold soul who wants to bet on them to win the title will find Ladbrokes offering 33-1, easily the longest price the firm has ever quoted against their chances. The previous best pre-season price was the 16-1 put up two years ago when Roy Hodgson was installed for his brief, ill-starred tenure as Liverpool’s manager.

All the calculations reflected in the current betting market are concerned with whether Rodgers can sprint into effective action on Merseyside but he has eloquently emphasised that he means to deliver a stayer’s performance. He is only 39 but has served a lengthy and intensive apprenticeship for the daunting job he is undertaking. When his career as a professional player was ended by knee trouble at 20, he launched himself into coaching and his talent for it has been developed by a voracious eagerness to learn about enlightened methods and advanced techniques. He has benefited notably from his strong connections with Spanish football and from his spell working under Jose Mourinho at Chelsea.

Two short and not particularly impressive periods of management at Watford and Reading (where he was sacked after losing 11 of 23 matches played) might have obscured his worth but instead it was vividly revealed after he joined Swansea in July 2010. The crisp-passing possession game that carried the Welsh club gracefully out of the Championship in 2011, via a playoff final defeat of Reading, retained its combination of entertainment value and productiveness in the Premier League and 11th place was the deserved reward. Rodgers was swamped with admiration and in the case of Liverpool, who had taken just one point from his prodigies, the praise turned into wooing.

Nothing does more to encourage the conviction that they have made a good appointment than the firmness and clarity with which Rodgers responded to their overtures, beginning with the insistence he would talk to them only as their declared choice, not as one of a series of candidates. Most significant of all was his flat refusal to work in conjunction with a director of football, which is too often a recipe for the dilution of a manager’s authority. He recognises that one individual cannot attend to every aspect of the running of a big club but favours the option of co-operating with a group of four or five specialist advisers to “form a little technical board” and “decide the way forward”. There’s the impression they won’t decide to do anything he doesn’t comprehensively approve, which is as it should be.

Brendan Rodgers’s reputation is founded on his excellence as a coach but optimism about his future owes as much to his Northern Irish grit, self-belief and stubbornness of will.

[Kenneth]

I like how he even manages to make scuppering a deal for Swansea's best player to sound almost reasonable

[kris90210]

I like how he even manages to make scuppering a deal for Swansea's best player to sound almost reasonable

I know!

Joe Allen is their best player though I reckon. He's class.