31 Jul 2025 04:54:37
Hypothetical question. Brendan Rodgers almost won us a league title. Do you think he was a good manager who rightly was able to nearly win us the league or he just got extremely lucky that season?
31 Jul 2025 05:05:16
Sorry that I may have covered this recently but as tomorrow is the 1st of August and the new home and away shirts are for sale ould someone else tell me the best site to purchase them as the MRS is buying them for me so her new shoes/ handbag can wait please ?.
31 Jul 2025 05:09:30
No, he was a decent manager who wasn't at the level needed to succeed with us. He had a peak Suarez and Sturridge carrying the team, Stevie still doing a job, an emerging sterling and hendo finally looking like the player we hoped he could be. we were horrendous at the back, however, mostly because he was terrible at organising a defence, and he also seemed to take credit for everything good while assuming none of the responsibility when things went wrong, not to mention the fact that he gave up in the champions league, fielding a reserve team against real Madrid, when we got back in it, which was an absolutely inexcusable thing to do to the traveling fans.
31 Jul 2025 05:27:38
He got lucky. He happened to have a world class Suarez firing week in, week out, an on song Coutinho, a Sterling who had broke onto the scene and was tearing things up, and a Sturridge who managed to stay fit. He unfortunately changed the tactics we were using so successfully as the season drew to its conclusion, and it ended up costing us crucial results and the title. The disintegration of results after Suarez left tell their own story, and he has failed to impress since. The fact he engaged in an affair during his tenure tells you that he wasn’t focused purely on football management, and that in itself shows he is not top class either professionally or personally. The stories that have come out about him from former players do not paint him in a favorable light either. A mediocre manager at best, who stumbled upon a winning formula based off of Bielsa coaching courses, but was then too arrogant to stick with what was working.
31 Jul 2025 05:41:08
Awful manager. Got lucky with Suarez playing on another planet and still managed to lose us the league with his tactical ineptitude. Foolish for both playing Gerrard as a 6 and then trying to phase him out.
31 Jul 2025 05:47:27
I thought Louis Suarez nearly won us a league.
Still the best individual season I’ve ever seen a player have. I thought Rodger’s cost us the league a truly awful manager I thought.
31 Jul 2025 05:57:23
Which team did he manage before, and which team does he currently manage? That really says it all. Nah, he was just a yes-man. Suarez nearly carried a mediocre team to success.
31 Jul 2025 06:01:02
That’s not a hypothetical question.
31 Jul 2025 06:13:04
The hypothetical question would be- If Rodgers had won the league and not got the sack, would Klopp have gone to Manchester United instead, and if so where would they be and where would we be now? It doesn’t bear thinking about.
31 Jul 2025 06:34:10
lol, good observation stoneage. Actually that was exactly what I was pondering over. The hypothetical part was, the ‘what if’ scenario if he had won the league with us, would his and Liverpools trajectory have looked different or if that season was just a flash in the pan and next season he would have been exposed for his shortcomings?
My personal take, he is an average coach but lacks the personality or leadership skills to command a team of Liverpools status. In hindsight it was probably his lack of leadership which played a role in the Suarez saga. I think someone like Klopp would have never let that situation turn out the way it did. But Rodgers was also severely let down by the recruitment team then (not sure how much of a role he played in choosing those players) .
The most vivid memory of Rodgers that has stuck with me is when he had confidently announced to all Liverpool fans that “there are going to be very exciting signings” and in turn the player we signed was Fabio Borini! That attitude summed up his inability to be a leader at Liverpool.
31 Jul 2025 06:38:35
Couldn’t stand the man. Still can’t.
31 Jul 2025 06:40:58
Absolutely true stoneage, we have to thank Brendan for throwing the league away and then replacing Suarez with benteke and balotelli, it was in hindsight the best thing that could have happened because it set the stage for Jürgen haha.
31 Jul 2025 06:59:12
Man was a spoofer!
31 Jul 2025 07:25:19
He really stood up for the Liverpool trans community.
31 Jul 2025 08:12:37
I wouldn't say he was abysmal but he was distinctly average. He could motivate a team but he is not very good at building one. That's why all the teams he has mangaged start off well but would decline with time. He was very fortunate that he had a fit and firing Suarez who almost dragged us to a league title. He wouldn't have come close to winning one otherwise. Tbh, I think he is a better coach than he is a manager.
{Ed078's Note - I remember when Suarez and another one or two were back from injury and they won a game. "I can coach quality" Brendan Said. I remember thinking, isn't that the least that's expected of you? I can still remember screaming at the TV for them to slow down when playing Chelsea. We didn't need the win, but the players were being reckless. Brendan should have steadied the ship but seemed hyped in the moment. Seems a world away from how Slot would have handled the league leading situation.
31 Jul 2025 08:16:39
Simple answer no but lovely set of teeth.
31 Jul 2025 08:27:54
Ed1, is it Bielsa the one who advised him to change formation to 3-4-3? We were on winning run and going top of the table until team started to attack Emre Can more who played on the left of back three and we started to crumbles because Rodgers doesn't know how to deal with that. At least that's the story that I read online.
{Ed001's Note - it was Bielsa who advised him on how to get the most out of what we have.}
31 Jul 2025 09:02:11
Gucci belt?
31 Jul 2025 09:18:55
Rodgers done a decent job but was a odd person, had 2 elite strikers bang in form n nearly got us over the line but he was a better coach than manager . but when you get beat by Stoke 6-1, you definitely know that the fairytale is over.
31 Jul 2025 09:28:06
He has won the same number of trophies as Liverpool manager as I have and I’ve never managed LFC. A better manager would have got the job done rather than believing the hype.
31 Jul 2025 09:44:43
I seem to remember a stat saying that if we'd won the league that season it would've been with a record number of goals conceded! Think it was 52 or something!
We had Flanagan, Skrtel and Cissoko playing so hardly surprising!
31 Jul 2025 09:56:57
He definitely was a spoofer as Eamon Dunphy would say Jay Dub ?. He was also full of the Blarney. How lucky were we that in a very weird way he didn't win the league.
31 Jul 2025 09:14:46
Brendan was a good manager. But we made some crucial mistakes in recruitment before his time with us. Fsg trusted comolli too much during that time and he made some average signings and decisions before brendan coming on and that meant we were really skint during 2013-2015 period.
{Ed001's Note - he was far from a good manager, too busy knobbing his side piece to do his job. Nothing to do with previous recruitment, his insistence on being in charge of recruitment is why we had problems with it under him. Excellent coach, hopeless manager.}
31 Jul 2025 10:18:58
I don't like him and that season was more to do with Suarez. He was incredible for a spell.
78 makes a good point about the Chelsea game, too. A point would have meant the title was still in our own hands but it was typical of how we were playing at that time.
4-1 up at Norwich and hanging on to win 4-3. We could score loads of goals and blow teams away but also ship goals and look nervous. Palace away summed us up after the Chelsea defeat. Mourinho's Chelsea were wasting time and not interested in playing. We should have shown more patience, taken the point and maybe even nicked a goal to win it. But no, we came out all guns blazing and played into their hands.
One thing I said about Rodgers is that if he starts to talk about nearly winning the League then he was done with me. Unsurprisingly, the following season, Suarez left, results were poor, Rodgers was asked some uncomfortable questions and he came out with 'but but but I nearly won the League last season' ?.
I wanted him gone then.
31 Jul 2025 10:27:49
That guess-whos-in-the-envelope BS he pulled was peak cringe.
31 Jul 2025 11:12:23
I'd personally say he was a good coach (really progressed the likes of Sterling, Sturridge and Coutinho) but I felt like tactically he was all over the place. We won a lot of games by score lines like 4-3 and 5-3 etc. purely because Suarez and Sturridge is the single best strike partnership the Prem has ever seen. It is absolutely unheard of for 2 strikers to get over 50 non-penalty goals in a single season for the same team.
Once Suarez left and Sturridge started struggling with injuries, he had no idea what to do. For me, he didn't understand the ethos of the club either. When he deliberately threw a Champions League game against Real Madrid, I knew he was done. That is not the Liverpool way. The Champions League and Premier League are our bread and butter.
31 Jul 2025 11:50:27
should get some credit for that run, but said at the time - that was a lightening in a bottle. a frickin awesome lightening storm, but that's what it was.
31 Jul 2025 12:03:54
I understand the sentiment, but BR didn't almost win us anything, Suarez did. The only good thing about the BR period was highlighting the actual pedigree required to bring us back to the top, which BR was sorely lacking and Klopp then summarily provided.
31 Jul 2025 12:37:29
I disagree ed. Brendan was a good manager. Ask any player during his time. He improved a lot of players.
It was just FSG was trying to find structure to the club after comolli and instead of finding a new sporting director assigned huge the responsibility to ayre who shifted a lot of responsibility to brendan. Brendan worked well and if it were not for Gerrard slip and a defensive horror show at palace he would have a league title and to show for it
Then FSG seeking success made the blunder of assigning all power to brendan and that was his downfall. He had too much power too early and understood he wasnt up for it. He had no information about a lot of stuff and was fooled twice by agents (mino for balotelli (good lord) and markovic agent) . He also acted against fair advice and added lallana and lambert despite being advised not to sign either (by then performance director - micheal edwards )
{Ed001's Note - sorry but nonsense. You have absolutely no idea what you are on about. And if you don't believe me that you are talking utter crap, try looking up anyone working at the club at the time such as Graham. He has talked often about how the club envisaged Rodgers coming in as head coach but he insisted on more power over recruitment. The slip didn't cost the club, Rodgers cost the club the title.
You can disagree all you like about whether the Bodger was a useful manager or not, even though it is clear for all to see that he wasn't, but to make up utter nonsense about what happened to try and justify your opinion is silly.
By the way, improving players is a coaches job, a managers job is to get the best out of the team, so you can't even make a good argument for him being a good manager, rather than a good coach.}
31 Jul 2025 13:13:34
He lost us the title against Chelsea not SG slipping. We all knew Jose was going to park the bus yet he went gung ho trying to win it when we should have controlled it and kept it solid at the back. He played the occasion, got too excited and went for the win when a boring 0-0 draw would have suited us just fine.
Also, happy to criticise players in public and take credit for all the good happening. He's hiding behind a bang average Celtic team who walk a bang average league almost every year. Every time he plays in Europe he gets found out. Was. never good enough for LFC.
31 Jul 2025 13:19:34
He was so full of himself- I absolute hated how he would take credit for anything positive, but as soon as he got bad results he would pin it on the players.
Take a look what he has done since leaving Liverpool, hardly anything impressive.
31 Jul 2025 13:20:47
He was a half way house between Alan Partridge and David Brent. He was lucky he had Suarez and Sturridge on fire, minus those two he was found out.
31 Jul 2025 15:52:57
Akira 20 Times telling us 'Brendan' was a good manager but going on to tell us how he was a bad manager ?.
31 Jul 2025 09:47:56
Very good point Ed78. The Chelsea and CP games stuck out as poor game management. Chelsea and CP were more than happy to catch us on the break as we poured players forward at every opportunity.
Just another point too, I disagree that we lost the title that season due to a change in formation. We lost it cos Hendo was suspended and Rodgers didn't know how to deal with not having him around. Maybe that is linked to the change in formation but if Hendo wasn't suspended, I strongly believe we would have won the title that season.
{Ed078's Note - agreed