Brendan Rodgers

[Darkon]

So he is good with his feet yes?

Not hard having a good distribution stat when he passes 5 yards in front or to the side and puts players in trouble. His long kicks are woeful.

Still have the best percentage in the league with long kicks though Must be a mess for the other teams

[Pablo]

Excellent article by Bascombe that.

[Phoenix07]

When FSG wanted a DOF after Comolli, they targeted Van Gaal, Cruyff, and very little was said about Txiki Begiristain.

We can either go back to that, and allow Rodgers and a DOF to agree together (whether Rodgers likes it or not), or form a footballing committee like Bayern, which is set up so that everyone has to be in agreement regarding a signing.

[Alex]

I guess Mig suffers the same problem as Balotelli here. 90% of what he does is good solid play. But the 10% he does wrong is the things that are most highlighted and noticed.

[dww]

Excellent article by Bascombe that.

I still have no idea how the transfer committee operate so I have no idea whether the criticism is fair or well directed. Clearly we have been poor in the transfer market but it could be Rodgers, it could be other individuals or it could be the system and I have no idea.

The biggest problems with our recruitment to my mind are:
1. failure to get four forwards our manager is willing to use
2. getting a centreback pairing together

We clearly went hard for part 2 with Lovren but it hasn't worked out. Rodgers seemed totally on board with it too.

I actually think there is a lot more in the squad than it is showing now everywhere apart from attack.

[Lecter]

I still have no idea how the transfer committee operate so I have no idea whether the criticism is fair or well directed. Clearly we have been poor in the transfer market but it could be Rodgers, it could be other individuals or it could be the system and I have no idea.

The biggest problems with our recruitment to my mind are:
1. failure to get four forwards our manager is willing to use
2. getting a centreback pairing together

We clearly went hard for part 2 with Lovren but it hasn't worked out. Rodgers seemed totally on board with it too.

I actually think there is a lot more in the squad than it is showing now everywhere apart from attack.

Agree with a lot of that

[Sarb]

Poor article by Bascombe imo. There are issues at the club top to bottom. But to blame it mostly on the recruitment set up and strategy is wrong.

There have been glaring mistakes made by Rodgers in most games this season. The selection last night was totally wrong. The squad is not as bad as it is made out to be. Last night he left better players on the bench than started and has completely flipped his system and style having recruited a lot of players to play a high tempo pressing game.

He is not getting the best out of the players he has available to him

[Lecter]

There have been glaring mistakes made by Rodgers in most games this season. The selection last night was totally wrong. The squad is not as bad as it is made out to be. Last night he left better players on the bench than started and has completely flipped his system and style having recruited a lot of players to play a high tempo pressing game.

He is not getting the best out of the players he has available to him

[Pablo]

Poor article by Bascombe imo. There are issues at the club top to bottom. But to blame it mostly on the recruitment set up and strategy is wrong.

There have been glaring mistakes made by Rodgers in most games this season. The selection last night was totally wrong. The squad is not as bad as it is made out to be. Last night he left better players on the bench than started and has completely flipped his system and style having recruited a lot of players to play a high tempo pressing game.

He is not getting the best out of the players he has available to him

I think you've missed the point of the article. He's not absolving Rodgers from any blame. He's saying if you remove him there will still be other issues. He's essentially saying there are inherent issues at the club, (he names the transfer committee and FSG's managerial policy as examples) which you seem to agree with anyway

[DannyMan2006]

rodgers said that bringing in so many new and mostly young players wouldn't be a problem because there was a structure and a method in the work here and a core group of players that were used to these. so, plenty of time to bed the newbies in while still being able to produce results. it did sound quite sensible and convincing. and it makes the all the harder to put your finger to where it all went wrong. we've lost it all completely, the pressing, the intensity, the aggression and most of all the directness and the will to score. even in his first season you could see a method developing, a style of play that's being implemented even though it didn't work out all the time. this season, you wonder what the **** our shape and approach is.
but sacking him now is to throw the baby (rodgers) out with the bath water (the confusion and rot of this season). if we sack the manager everytime we hit a bad or terrible run of form then we end up having a new manager every couple of seasons and nothing to show for but a bit of hope and regret.

We lost a striker who could press from the front. Sturridge got injured, Mario wasn't fully fit and Rickie isn't capable. House of cards.

[ntto]

I'm not sure FSG has got much wrong here.

They've supported Kenny and Brendan with providing a considerable amount of funds available to them for transfers. They've also tried to mitigate the risks involved with having one man retain the power over all transfers

Its a sensible approach

Whether we've got sensible people making the decisions is a different opinion

blaming the owners is wrong and unfair imo

[Lecter]

We lost a striker who could press from the front. Sturridge got injured, Mario wasn't fully fit and Rickie isn't capable. House of cards.

The thing I dont get is how losing a striker who presses from the front should mean that ALL your midfielders should stop doing that

Suarez is a big loss in terms of pressing but the drop off from the rest is astronomic

I recently caught the 2nd half of the 2005 Champions League final and what struck me is how well LFC pressed Milan for those 20-25 minutes when they got back into the game

That didnt come from any Duracell Bunny Centre-forward running his arse off, it came from pressing as a collective unit, high up the pitch, hunting in packs

We no longer do that, we have reverted to a Roy-like system where we drop off try and stay compact and give ground. There is no press

Thats all well and good if you have the players capable of defending like that, but we dont

[DannyMan2006]

Poor article by Bascombe imo. There are issues at the club top to bottom. But to blame it mostly on the recruitment set up and strategy is wrong.

There have been glaring mistakes made by Rodgers in most games this season. The selection last night was totally wrong. The squad is not as bad as it is made out to be. Last night he left better players on the bench than started and has completely flipped his system and style having recruited a lot of players to play a high tempo pressing game.

He is not getting the best out of the players he has available to him

Rodgers has a style that it totally the opposite to what he's serving up at present. He's veered of course because the players he has available are incapable of delivering it. When I say players, I mean we lack the striker that brings it all together. He was being resolute when we had Mario available. Blindly sticking to his values when they were clearly not working. But as soon as he was left with Rickie, he practically packed up all his toys and resorted to trying to grind out wins with a group of players that aren't equipped to do so.

I said yesterday that if Basel got the first goal I feared we'd be up **** creek. So it proved. The same could be said of any game this season. We were set up not to concede last night. I suppose that aside from that pile driver they never had a shot on target, but set up to not concede and you always run the risk.

Last year Saints brought in Dani Osvaldo to try and replace an ageing Lambert. He worked his way back in but was still in and out to keep him fresh. He's now our star striker and is playing too many games when to be frank, he's probably only good enough to start the odd game. It's excruciating to watch.

[DannyMan2006]

The thing I dont get is how losing a striker who presses from the front should mean that ALL your midfielders should stop doing that

Suarez is a big loss in terms of pressing but the drop off from the rest is astronomic

I recently caught the 2nd half of the 2005 Champions League final and what struck me is how well LFC pressed Milan for those 20-25 minutes when they got back into the game

That didnt come from any Duracell Bunny Centre-forward running his arse off, it came from pressing as a collective unit, high up the pitch, hunting in packs

We no longer do that, we have reverted to a Roy-like system where we drop off try and stay compact and give ground. There is no press

Thats all well and good if you have the players capable of defending like that, but we dont

You don't need a Suarez. But you need someone who will still close down. If you only press with a limited number then it's easy to pass around. If a striker doesn't press then you have to drag a midfielder out of position who will. You then keep making up the space and inevitably leave a gap somewhere.

For me, you can press two ways. Just the frontline pressing the oppositions backline. Or you press as a team. But it all starts from the front.

[Lecter]

Rodgers has a style that it totally the opposite to what he's serving up at present. He's veered of course because the players he has available are incapable of delivering it. When I say players, I mean we lack the striker that brings it all together. He was being resolute when we had Mario available. Blindly sticking to his values when they were clearly not working. But as soon as he was left with Rickie, he practically packed up all his toys and resorted to trying to grind out wins with a group of players that aren't equipped to do so.

I said yesterday that if Basel got the first goal I feared we'd be up **** creek. So it proved. The same could be said of any game this season. We were set up not to concede last night. I suppose that aside from that pile driver they never had a shot on target, but set up to not concede and you always run the risk.

Last year Saints brought in Dani Osvaldo to try and replace an ageing Lambert. He worked his way back in but was still in and out to keep him fresh. He's now our star striker and is playing too many games when to be frank, he's probably only good enough to start the odd game. It's excruciating to watch.

I disagree with this

This is Brendans style, this is the system hes tried to implement everywhere hes been

Last year was the anomaly

Hes had plenty of opportunity to play 2 up top this season and keep the high pressing formation, maybe not quite as effective but still more effective than what hes served up recently

I still think its that simplistic, you keep a formation that has worked and pick the players who have performed best for you

Rodgers has changed the system back to his original one (probably to accommodate the 251 No.10's we have) and continues to pick under-performing players at the expense of players he signed in the summer

To me Rodgers just tries to be too damned clever at times and often football is very simple