02 Oct 2015 14:16:46
Time for the realist view of things. I've seen the pessimistic view far too much with all its doom and despair. Then most of te optimistic views on here are unfounded belief and opinion with little else behind it. Obviously all opinions are valid, and therefore here is the realist view.
18 months ago we attacked in sublime fashion. Teams scored against us but we simply outscored them. Their were times when our attack was so potent that we scored within minutes and the other team were defeated before the half hour. And yet we conceded daft goals. We finished 2nd and Rodgers missed out on Manager of the Year due to a Great Escape.
One summer later Suarez was gone and Sturridge injured by October. Sterling had already had his head turned and struggled to find form without his fellow forwards from the previous year. We laboured through a season and still conceded the same daft goals, only we didn't score anywhere near as many.
Now this season so far. Sterling is gone. We have a new look forward line. We have been creating absolute hatful of chances, and not really finishing them. We have played both Arsenal and United away. We were beaten at home by a team that had also beaten Arsenal at the Emirates and City at the Etihad, the last team who did that was Chelsea in 2005; who won the title. Our other 4 games have brought us 7 points. We are above Chelsea and 2 points off top 4, having played 2 of the top 4 away from home. There is a distinct lack of finishing so far. And still we concede goals.
Now really evaluate all that.
We have always conceded a lot under Rodgers. We have always created a lot under Rodgers. Rodgers has not had a fully fit strikeforce since Liverpool finished second. We play the same brand and same style of football, but through sale or injury have lost the finishing power we had that season. Even now, Sturridge is just coming back and will need time to build a partnership with Benteke.
You can see that Rodgers is desperately trying to get back to that front 3 of Ings/ Benteke/ Sturridge with Origi/ Firmino/Ibe for cover. Coutinho or Lallana in behind and then 2 of Milner/Henderson/Allen/Lucas/Can in the holing roles.
I believe we can only judge Rodgers from this point. If other top teams had to cope without their front 3 then they would also struggle.
Imagine Chelsea without Costa/Fabregas/Hazard last season. In fact, that's them this season, below us.
Barcelona would not have won the title without Suarez/Neymar/Messi.
Real Madrid would not have won La Decima without Ronaldo/Benzema/Bale.
As you can see, when compared to Chelsea, we have coped rather well without our main strikers. Do we think Carlisle and Sion would have been different with Sturridge or Benteke? Absolutely. Can we see the potential of Ings once he's settled, hell yeah.
Yes, under Rodgers we concede goals, but we always have under him. So don't castrate him for it now when you cheered him on for it 18 months ago. He cannot be blamed for a bid of £75m coming in for Suarez, nor can he be blamed for Sturridge getting injured on England duty.
Feel free to judge Rodgers, after he's got his full squad playing. I like Klopp, I just don't feel its the Liverpool way to sack a manager when he has had to deal with major upheavel to his strike force.
I do agree with changing our transfer committee though.
02 Oct 2015 14:47:38
A major upheaval to his strike force We lost 2 main forwards and 1 was unfortunately injured for a long time. But it's not like he hasn't had money to replace them. I'm sorry but when you blow £100 million in a season, you expect to win the league, no? Is that not what BR said himself when talking about Spurs?
02 Oct 2015 14:53:07
Not so much the bigger picture,but the deluded picture.
won't bother writing an essay just bulletpointing
-Lost Suarez=It's BR'S Job to replace him,messed Remy around and bought Origi Balotelli. loaned Origi,barely played a crap Balo
Sterling-Not even a great miss in my eyes,I think he's vastly overrated. decided to play him striker for 10 matches and send him on a ''wee holiday''
Sturridge Injury= Bought Lambert in for reserve striker role,opted to play Sterling there when Balo clearly didn't cut it.
Hatful of chances?=Where I saw us have 1 good half vs Arsenal and create,therwise we've been restricted to pot shots from 25 and 2 wonder goals from Benteke and Pipco which had nothing to do with creativity in terms of the footballing sense.
We concede a lot under Rodger= Managers HAVE to address this,if you rely on attack to bail you out,and sell those attackers,it's your own fault when you start letting in more goals than you concede.
Sturridge injury=He re injured himself at Melwood after the England injury.
Chelsea=Mourinho assessed his weakness in attack,went and bought Costa Drogba and Remy. Mourinho won the title.Brendan assessed his weakness in defense. Skrtel Lovren and no coach=stuck with this plan even though he bought several other centrebacks.
02 Oct 2015 14:57:43
So in short,with a full strike force we will win the league?
02 Oct 2015 14:59:55
So now it has come to the point whem we are defending home draws against sion and Carlisle ( i know we won but we were even in 90). I know we have fallen but well it seems Brendan has finally dragged us down to his level as fans are defending such poor performances
{Ed023's Note - Even after 120 mins!}
02 Oct 2015 15:09:21
This is absolute nonsense from start to finish, and since the Crystal Palace match in 2013 we have played the same type of game and style on exactly one occasional - against Spurs at the start of the season 2013/2014. You have literally made up every part of the style and gameplay analysis.
And you've also completely glossed over the most obvious point that we didn't just lose players at all. We lost 1 player, Sturridge, for a year through injury. Everyone else we've 'lost' was actually sold for a very large amount of money that we invested in people unsuitable for what we wanted to do, and then failed to adapt to the players we actually had around! We've spent £150m plus over the 3 windows since Suarez left and failed to make any useful moves whatsoever to replace those lost players (some may be useful if we adapt to them like Benteke), bringing in one unsuitable player after another and failing to get anything out of them. You can't just say 'it's like other teams losing x & y & z' because that doesn't work - those players don't just stop being there! What would happen if Chelsea lost those four players? They'd probably rock up for the next season with Pogba, Griezmann and Lacazette and have a pretty good year - maybe not quite that standard, but not about 30 points, 5 league places and incomparably low quality worse. Every single part of this is flawed logic and selective fact picking I'm afraid. Can you imagine any great or even decent manager blaming a 5 place slide in the league year on year on one player sold and one injured when they spent over £100m on new players? Ridiciulous I'm afraid, and pathetic - BR isn't the only manager who has had one key player out injured
02 Oct 2015 15:22:47
I sort of go some way in agreeing with you Andy, but the players we put out last night, should have been good enough to get a win and that's the worry in my view! Last summer, when Suarez left, getting in the likes of Balotelli and Lambert was never going to work with his style of football and showed why at times, he had to go with Sterling up top, when we had 3 fit strikers to choose from! I've really tried to stick by him, but do wonder if it's gone too far now for him to be able to turn it around, as wonder if he's lost the dressing room at times!
02 Oct 2015 15:38:11
That is not a realistic view, it's just your view. Everybody is sharing their opinion and whether those are classed as optimistic or pessimistic is relative to everyone else's opinions.
I would like to add to the other posters reply that 11 points out of 7 games is nothing to be content with, irrelevantly of how everyone else is doing. What if the quality of the EPL becomes so low that it's no longer in the top 5 leagues, would that somehow justify us playing crap?
What irks me is that BR has received the most support, financial and otherwise, out of every manager we had in my lifetime and in 3 plus seasons he and in extension we have nothing to show for it.
02 Oct 2015 15:40:11
And if Liverpool had Messi and Ronaldo starting up front, we would have won games against Carlisle and Sion too. Almost all of what you say is nonsense.
Rodgers' has had 3 transfer windows and spend over £180 million since Suarez has left. To blame it all on Suarez's departure and Sturridge's injuries is maniacal at best, but when you factor in that he has had the money AND TIME to make it work with other players, it sounds like an abysmal excuse.
We have always conceded under Rodgers? Yes, and why hasn't he addressed that? You know 3 and a half years later. We have created a hatful? Nonsense again. We created chances against one of the poorest teams in the league - Villa, and against Swiss postmen - Sion.
You have conveniently or cleverly missed out on some of the major issues -
1. We have no working style of play
2. Rodgers keeps playing players out of position and this has messed up a number of players - Ibe, Can and Markovic are examples
3. We really don't look like winning anything anytime soon after spending over £300 million in 4 seasons and that is unacceptable and Rodgers accountable for
4. You touched upon the lackadaisical defending that Rodgers has ignored to address and instead blamed it on "un-coach-able defensive errors"
You simply cannot be talking about "rebuilding" when you have had this much time and money to spend. If he can't do it now, he simply cannot be trusted with lifting our fortunes in the future. He has no pedigree to manage a club of this stature and the pressures that come with it, and he is nothing but a failed excuse that the owners are hiding behind now. When almost all of the fan-base can see through his disingenuous personality and his sure failure, I think it is time to take off the res-tinted specs and looks at the issue for what it is.
02 Oct 2015 15:51:43
My god the excuses.
If we haven't had a strikeforce since we came second then why hasn't rodgers done anything about it. He's had over 200 million since then so yeah no excuses.
Secondly even if we did have what you would call 'a strikeforce' then he'd still play all of them out of position and play 1 up top.
02 Oct 2015 17:13:12
Agree with above what is worrying me is a lot of fans abusing the players for this. So many are being played out of position or simply not being given game time. I look at the talent we have that either just needs nurturing or given a chance to prove what they can do for example the below come under that bracket for me.
Suso (to me a great loss especially for free).
Ilori, Markovic, Ibe, Moreno, Teixera, Can.
I'd also say that Sahko has been treated pretty badly too. A good manager would look at the above players and think great talent to work with and bring through, unfortunately this hasn't happened. I'd say if a new manager does arrive wouldn't need too much in terms of new players. Our squad is good enough to compete for the top four.
The major area for improvement for me would be a keeper. Even if mignolet stays we at least need a number one and him as cover or competition.
Seems most people's choice and got ta say mine too but the likes of Klopp (possibly even Ancelotti) would look at the squad available such as.
J. Flanagan, T. Ilori, M. Sahko, A. Moreno.
J. Gomez, E. Can, L. Markovic, J. Henderson.
J. Milner, A. Lallana, P. Coutinho, D. Sturridge.
J. Ibe, R. Firmino, C. Benteke, D. Ings.
And others, Klopp and Ancelotti would look at the squad and surely think "that's a good squad to mould". I do believe with a new keeper and possibly a defender is the most we need. We would be an attractive project for a lot of managers out there.
02 Oct 2015 18:36:50
Andy it does not matter how you gloss over Rodgers' time in charge mate he is just not the manager to take us forward end of buddy he has to go to take the club forward it does not make him a bad man he is just not the right man for LFC I am sure he will be a manger some were else
03 Oct 2015 03:25:14
I'd just like to comment on one point that the original poster made because the rest is quite frankly a work of fiction. I'm open to being corrected on this but I believe that Brendan did in fact win manager of the year for the season in question and did not lose out to a great escape.
As I said, I may be wrong on the issue but I think he was named manager of the year that year.
Lastly just a quick thanks to Macca for the information and I am firmly in the Klopp camp. I can however completely understand the attraction of bringing in a manager like Carlo to provide an experienced head to steady the ship. I won't claim to know a lot about De Boer's management style but I think we need someone a bit more experienced at present.