18 Mar 2015 10:59:00
I have my own take on Rodgers, Liverpool and other things which i'm sure many of you will totally dis-agree with and maybe just maybe a minority may agree with. So heres my take.
Rodgers, if only he could drop the ego and accept his role, concentrate on what he is excellent at and be a coach. Nobody can doubt that he is a exceptional trainer, I think his sessions would be a dream to work under day in day out and a lot of players have come some way in his time at Liverpool.
A DOF is such a frowned apon position in football as the Denis Wise and Joe Kinnear stereotypes come to mind but in actual fact it is the way any business should operate with a manager overseeing the day to day business issues, a manager running the recruitment and youth and a manager to run the 'on field' matters. Not one man solely can be responsible for everything, it takes a team of successful people to sustain the integrity of a great football club and continue to see the club to grow and be successful.
Success is based on so many levels, Arsenal financially are successful because of their consistency in qualifying for the major completions year in year out and in terms of recruitment have purchased well (mainly) and sold players for more than they originally bought them for. Ask a arsenal fan about success, they will look at what happens on the field & most will accept they have been far from successful and haven't won enough over the years and some will complain they have sold their best players to their rivals. Success is such a broad word.
We can look at Rodgers, compliment his training methods etc but both on and off the field we have seen little success so far. Some bad buys and money lost on players who have been given little to no chance at the club has damaged us greatly, the way we threw away the league last year and then the way we bowed out at the Champions League this year after a so many year wait has left us all feeling under the cloud of anti-climax. To have spent all this money in the summer and not to be competing for the league or in Europe is a great barometer of how unsuccessful we are. i'm not one in believing in giving the players 6 months to settle etc they train every day and are paid great sums of money for being experts in their field they should be able to hit the ground running quicker than that, a bit of a settling in patch for sure but not 6 months of a season surely? That's 6 months we aren't ever getting back. He needs to win things, simple he needs a good head running the off field matters and someone he can work not under or above but beside. Until that happens we will continue to build sandcastles for then to be washed away for us to rebuild over again.
18 Mar 2015 14:55:57
Couldnt agree more, great post.
18 Mar 2015 15:53:06
The champions league even to qualify from the group's is very very tough at first time of asking even for teams that have a few years experience in it don't qualify from the group.
18 Mar 2015 16:25:02
They rarely have groups as easy as us Mighty. All we had to do to qualify was show up but we failed to even do that. Look at Basel in the next round - absolutely smashed by an average Porto. Yes it's hard but our performance was pathetic.
18 Mar 2015 16:39:44
That is total disrespect to Basle who are a much more experienced European team than us at the moment, we had no divine right to qualify and the most important thing is to improve hopefully next season.
18 Mar 2015 17:06:49
Clearly we have no 'divine right'. What the hell is a 'divine right'? I'm talking about pure, on field quality. We have much more than Basel and utterly failed to display it
18 Mar 2015 18:16:12
Obviously it wasn't an easy group, we didn't perform at the time and Basle did, as long as we learn from the experience then it will be worth while, the problem is with fans in this country is we under estimate other European sides.
18 Mar 2015 19:04:12
Hjikle is right. No excuses ! I went to all the home ties in the CL this season and we was nothing short of pathetic. The main problem was dodgy defending and no fit goalscorer. We seriously can't let a transfer window pass us by again and not cover our main areas on the pitch. Skrtel upfront vs Basel for the last 20. From Suarez to Skrtel shouldn't be happening for a club like Liverpool
18 Mar 2015 21:09:22
We have needed "quality" players for a long time, the last top player we had was Suarez who carried the attack and made certain players look better, DBol is right and i said it at the time, you can't ignore replacing top strikers in a transfer window and expect to progress in Europe against teams who are well organized, (we weren't) the club failed to buy and paid the price.
19 Mar 2015 00:17:18
Big up to you, Apple! You have made by far the most brilliant post on these boards for months. Could not agree more. Take a bow, sir!
19 Mar 2015 07:54:37
I agree on the director of football bit.
I think it is a bit of a red herring though.
Do we honestly think that the things a director of football does are not being done at the club now anyway?
Don't agree with your expectations of where Liverpool should be having spent all this money etc etc etc.
When Rodgers took over what were your expectations?
What are your expectations now?
He has raised expectations due to the job he is doing now.
As for wasting money. Only Balotelli has been a waste of money in my opinion out of this season's buys.
All the other players look to have great potential for a good coach to bring the best out of them and you admit that he is a very good coach.
If Rodgers stays for 5 years at this club we win the league.
There I said it.
People may disagree and fair play for having an opinion, that is why I love this site.
But for me we win the league with this manager if he stays for 2 more seasons.
And I will go further than that and say . If we do win the league under Rodgers then we will win several/multiple titles under him.
1st one is always the hardest though.
The English league is crap at the moment.
Chelsea have improved but everyone else has dipped this year.
Whether posters on here want to admit it or not, this has been a transitional season for us.
If we finish top 4 after signing so many players at the start of this season then I think it's a great achievement.
Overhaul at United and City next season means transition, Arsenal Chelsea and us will have settled squads and that gives us an advantage we did not have this year.
Rodgers is not the finished article. some aspects of his management are still poor but the positives far outweigh the negatives.