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| Rodgers: Absolutely No Clue What Liverpool Means |
Today, United fielded a starting team with no recognized striker and with the same makeshift central defence that has looked so vulnerable all season. Here was an opportunity to take the game to United, play the high pressing game, run them ragged and put them under some pressure. So how does Rodgers approach the game? He parked the bus! Absolutely pathetic!
Today, Rodgers demonstrated a number of characteristics that, to me, put his future as Liverpool manager under serious doubt.
Rodgers is Psychologically Inept
To me, this is one of the most damning elements of Rodger's leadership. You know the manager doesn't have a clue when you spend the first half of a game biting your nails and yelling at the TV.
By attempting to park the bus, he put a lot of pressure on his own team: they can't defend well at the best of times—a flaw that Rodgers has shown little aptitude at overcoming in his 3+ seasons in charge. At the same time, he took the pressure off a United side that has not played well all season.
I just can't understand the motivation for such tactics. Parking the bus—setting the team up to get ten men behind the ball at all times, in a tight defensive formation—is something you do when you feel you're inferior to a strong attacking team. And it's something you only consider if you can employ it successfully.
When Chelsea came to Liverpool at the end of the 2013/14 season, Liverpool were a strong attacking team that ended up scoring over 100 Premier League goals. Mourinho recognised that his then Chelsea side's best chance of getting a result was to defend deep, slow the game down and counter-attack whenever an opportunity presented itself. Not only that, but Mourinho and Chelsea have (until this season) been very good defensively. That day, Chelsea parked the bus decisively, took their chances and won the game, shutting us out completely. As a side note, this match also demonstrated Rodger's limited tactical ability to adapt to Chelsea's game plan: we never looked like scoring the whole game.
Now contrast that game with today's game against United. Are United a free-scoring, dangerous team? No. (Or, at least, they weren't until they played us.) In fact, they weren't able to field a recognised striker in the starting eleven. So why attempt to park the bus? Where was the threat?
Rodgers tactics handed the psychological advantage to United: he gave them time on the ball, he allowed them to pass the ball around and gain confidence—particularly after realising that we had no plans to attack them back.
Meanwhile, our players are on a hiding to nothing: they couldn't afford to make any mistakes and they couldn't get control of the game.
By the time it was clear we needed to take the game to United, we were 2-0 down, with limited time to make a comeback.
Rodgers couldn't have come up with more psychologically damaging tactics if he'd tried.
When Chelsea came to Liverpool at the end of the 2013/14 season, Liverpool were a strong attacking team that ended up scoring over 100 Premier League goals. Mourinho recognised that his then Chelsea side's best chance of getting a result was to defend deep, slow the game down and counter-attack whenever an opportunity presented itself. Not only that, but Mourinho and Chelsea have (until this season) been very good defensively. That day, Chelsea parked the bus decisively, took their chances and won the game, shutting us out completely. As a side note, this match also demonstrated Rodger's limited tactical ability to adapt to Chelsea's game plan: we never looked like scoring the whole game.
Now contrast that game with today's game against United. Are United a free-scoring, dangerous team? No. (Or, at least, they weren't until they played us.) In fact, they weren't able to field a recognised striker in the starting eleven. So why attempt to park the bus? Where was the threat?
Rodgers tactics handed the psychological advantage to United: he gave them time on the ball, he allowed them to pass the ball around and gain confidence—particularly after realising that we had no plans to attack them back.
Meanwhile, our players are on a hiding to nothing: they couldn't afford to make any mistakes and they couldn't get control of the game.
By the time it was clear we needed to take the game to United, we were 2-0 down, with limited time to make a comeback.
Rodgers couldn't have come up with more psychologically damaging tactics if he'd tried.
He Can't Take Advantage of Opposition Weaknesses
One of the problems with this type of tactic is that it becomes very difficult to get and keep possession of the ball—which is supposed to be one of the hallmarks of Rodgers' style of play.
At the same time, it prevented us from putting any kind of pressure on a United team that does not appear to be able to cope with such conditions.
In particular, Daly Blind has looked vulnerable in central defence, Bastian Schweinsteiger has been lacking match fitness all season, and David de Gea was playing in his first game after being dropped for apparently not having the right mental attitude. If ever there was a game that screamed for high-pressing, attacking tactics, this was it.
When the team was announced, including Ings and Firmino with Benteke, I was hopeful that it was a sign that we'd take the game to United, playing 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond and pressing them in the middle and at the back. I was hoping that Rodgers would have sent his team out with attacking intentions, fired-up to take advantage of United's obvious weaknesses.
Instead, Rodgers ignored all of that and put far too much effort into addressing ours.
Even when Michael Carrick appeared to pick up a knock and lose some mobility, we couldn't seem able to expose his lack of movement. Bob Paisley—a former physio who was always pointing out physical weaknesses in opposition players to his teams—was a master at exploiting the opposition in this way. Rodgers barely seems to notice.
At the same time, it prevented us from putting any kind of pressure on a United team that does not appear to be able to cope with such conditions.
In particular, Daly Blind has looked vulnerable in central defence, Bastian Schweinsteiger has been lacking match fitness all season, and David de Gea was playing in his first game after being dropped for apparently not having the right mental attitude. If ever there was a game that screamed for high-pressing, attacking tactics, this was it.
When the team was announced, including Ings and Firmino with Benteke, I was hopeful that it was a sign that we'd take the game to United, playing 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond and pressing them in the middle and at the back. I was hoping that Rodgers would have sent his team out with attacking intentions, fired-up to take advantage of United's obvious weaknesses.
Instead, Rodgers ignored all of that and put far too much effort into addressing ours.
Even when Michael Carrick appeared to pick up a knock and lose some mobility, we couldn't seem able to expose his lack of movement. Bob Paisley—a former physio who was always pointing out physical weaknesses in opposition players to his teams—was a master at exploiting the opposition in this way. Rodgers barely seems to notice.
He Doesn't Know "The Liverpool Way"
There have been many great Liverpool defences in the past: Ron Yates/Larry Lloyd and Tommy Smith, Emlyn Hughes and Phil Thompson, Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson, Sami Hyypïa and Stephane Henchoz, etc. Even so, whenever Liverpool attempted to park the bus, it was always a nerve-wracking experience. That said, the only time most Liverpool teams even contemplated such a tactic was when we were leading a close game by a single goal with less than ten minutes to go; it never seemed as effective as pushing forward to close out games. Even if we were playing the greatest team in history, Liverpool fans would hate to see us hand the opposition the initiative by defending in numbers right from the start. Playing for a draw was never part of the psyche of the great Liverpool teams of yore, and it shouldn't be for our current side either.
Liverpool fans have always preferred to control games by keeping possession (pass and move), working hard to close down the opposition quickly and effectively, and controlling the tempo of the game. After all, the opposition can't score if they don't have the ball.
To meekly set out their stall to defend, and yet come away with a 3-1 defeat that has put a spring into the step of a pretty poor United side, is the complete antithesis of everything Liverpool expect to see. If we had lost 5-0, but spent the whole game attacking United, I would have at least had the consolation of seeing them go down fighting. By contrast, today's game leaves me depressed beyond measure, and furious at Rodgers' pathetic management.
Also, this was the first time in living memory that we fielded a team against United that didn't feature a single locally-born player. That might also explain why our play lacked so much passion. I don't mean any disrespect to those of our players unfortunate enough to have been born outside of Merseyside, but if you grew up as a Liverpool fan, results like this hurt more than anything. Locally-born players know that and fight like hell to win. We were missing that today too. Is that Rodgers fault? Maybe, maybe not. However, he must realize that Liverpool fans want to see Scousers in the side, battling for our shared values on our behalf. I hope Jon Flanagan is back in contention for selection soon...
Rodgers Punches Below His Weight
If you're put in charge of a team with the financial resources, and youth development programs, that Liverpool have, you should expect to do better than similarly gifted managers running teams constrained by more limited means. Particularly so when you've had over three years to shape your team's squad and playing style.
So how does Rodgers compare to the managers of other wealthy teams? Well, aside from the 2014/15 season when we finished second, he his record isn't great. He still hasn't won a single trophy. Mourinho, Pellegrini and van Gaal have all achieved more success than he has. Even Wenger, who doesn't seem to have as much money at his disposal as the others, has had more success than Rodgers over the same period.
But the problem is more pronounced when you look at the abilities of other managers. Gary Monk, Rodger's successor at Swansea, has pushed the Swans on to new heights, without spending huge wads of cash. Ronald Koeman, who has lost numerous star players, has also achieved far more with Southampton than might have been expected of him. Eddie Howe's Bournemouth have worked miracles on a shoestring, and have deserved far more success in the Premier League than their results so far would suggest. Alan Pardew and Tony Pulis consistently put out teams that play better than their limited budgets would suggest. And there are plenty of others. How does Rodgers compare? I think there's little question that many other managers have achieved more with less.
Most worryingly, he doesn't really seem to have a style of play that defines the team. The keep possession ethos of the first season seems to have become less of a factor, and has almost disappeared this season. The high-pressing, high-tempo game that worked so well a couple of years ago, allowing us to destroy teams of Arsenal's ilk, is now completely absent. (Was Luis Suárez more key to that than he was credited with?)
Last season, we chopped and changed formations all season long, yet we looked frail and defensively weak all season, with Rodgers looking more indecisive than in control.
This season has been characterized by an emphasis on defensive play—and yet, after just 5 games, we have conceded 6 goals while scoring only 3. Surely that was not the expected outcome.
In short, I've had enough of Rodgers...
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