Farewell, and Good Luck, Brendan

Rodgers in Happier Times

After the United game, I finally came down on the side of those who recognised that Brendan Rodgers wasn't the man to lead the club to success.
That wasn't the first time I felt frustrated by Rodgers management. The way we went out of last year's Champion's League group stage also left a sour taste in the mouth. Don't forget that before last season, we had beaten Real Madrid in every single European match we had played against them—and that included the 1981 European Cup final. How many teams can make that claim? Yet, after a 0-3 opening home drubbing, Rodgers threw in the towel for the return leg (although, it has to be said, the second string he selected for that match performed a lot better than expected, but still lost 1-0). He then followed that game up by having the first string lose to Chelsea that weekend. A total failure of both strategy and tactics. And let's not even mention our pathetic performances against Basel and Ludogorets, neither of whom should have presented any problems whatsoever. As Jamie Carragher observed:
It baffles me when teams are more interested in qualifying for the competition next season than doing their best in the competition they are already in. The reason players love the Champions League so much is the thought of playing in an arena such as the Bernabeu.

Rodgers' First Season

When FSG appointed Rodgers as Liverpool Manager at the start of the 2012/13 season, I didn't quite know what to make of the decision. Sure, he had done well with Swansea—although there was some doubt as to how much of the credit Rodgers could claim, having inherited a large part of their squad and playing style from Roberto Martinez.

I was initially irked by some of his comments, along the lines of complaining about the quality of the squad he inherited from Dalglish, and the fact that we wouldn't be competing for the title right away, etc. In other words, he was attempting to reduce expectations, and cover his backside, by providing excuses for not winning anything within the first season or two of his tenure. That kind of thing never goes down well with me: the fans' expectation of every Liverpool manager is to win trophies, with winning the league the highest priority of all. For a manager to come in and inform us that that's not going to happen, and that he needs time to rebuild the squad, is like saying "I don't think I'm up to this job, but give me some time to line my pockets before I'm rumbled." It should, therefore, be no surprise that Brendan Rodgers was the first Liverpool manager not to win a single trophy in his first three seasons since the 1950's (although that notoriety would have belonged to Roy Hodgson, had he lasted that long).

He quickly disparaged a number of his predecessors biggest signings, while complaining about their salaries. Andy Carroll, Dirk Kuyt, Charlie Adam, Maxi Rodriguez, Jay Spearing, Alberto Aquilani and others were quickly shown the door, all being sold, loaned or released at monumental losses that I felt Rodgers was using to justify their perceived lack of quality (which was certainly true in one or two cases). It appears that he also tried unsuccessfully to offload Jordan Henderson and Daniel Agger.

His first transfer window was an unmitigated disaster in the striking department, and so we started the season with just Luis Suárez, and new signing Fabio Borini, as recognized strikers, with the latter breaking his foot early on. He (or the oft-discussed transfer committee) made some amends in the winter transfer window, by bringing in Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Couthinho—arguably the two best signings of his 7 transfer windows.

On the field, things quickly unravelled as the team struggled to adapt to Rodger's preferred style of play. We lost 3 (including defeat to arch rivals Manchester United at home) and drew 2 of our first 5 league games, before eventually crushing Norwich City 2-5 at Carrow Road. After that, things settled down, but overall the first season showed little improvement over the side that finished the previous season under Dalglish. In particular, conceding 43 goals in the Premier League was perhaps a sign of things to come.

I liked the emphasis that Rodgers put on retaining possession, which had been a hallmark of so many successful Liverpool sides of the past. However, I had my doubts about the tiki taka approach that he also brought in: while it appeared to be the modern variation on Liverpool's ancient pass and move philosophy, it was purely technical and appeared to be at the expense of the physical play that is so typical of the Premier League, and such a feature of steely Liverpool sides of the past. Together with a policy of signing small, slight, fast players with limited physical attributes, I wondered whether we had the strength to handle the more agricultural Premier League teams. (By contrast, most of the players in Rafael Benítez' sides pushed 6' fairly regularly, yet they were not wanting on the technical side of things.) In my experience, a good physical side will beat the crap out of a good technical side 9 times out of 10—in the Premier League, at least, where referees typically allow more robust play than the rest of the world. In fairness, the season to come would address some of those doubts. However, when a squad has been assembled for such a specific and unique style of play, which Rodgers was at pains to point out took a long time to learn, you have to wonder how they would cope when a new manager has to take over. (I guess we're now about to find out.)

The Year We Almost Won The League

Rodger's second season in charge was to be his crowning glory. In retrospect, the single biggest achievement of Rodgers' reign was persuading Luis Suárez to stay at the club at the start of the season. Suárez would go on to electrify the team, once he returned from his ban for chomping down on Chelski's Ivanovic, banging in spectacular goals with almost boring regularity, while being ably assisted by Daniel Sturridge. At the time, I was confident that we would survive Suárez's eventual departure, but I have now reversed that view: I now think that we would have been merely average that year without Suárez's single-minded drive and determination to win.

It was, truly, a joy to watch this team play!

Our destructions of Arsenal and Manchester United, in particular, were highlights of a fantastic season.

While Gerrard's infamous slip in the home game against Chelsea is always brought up by the media, I think that is a grossly unfair explanation for us eventually falling short. While I thought Gerrard started the season poorly (walking around the pitch, when we'd been used to watching him charge around it for so long), he finished it in commanding form alongside the increasingly impressive Jordan Henderson. To me, the real finger of blame was Rodgers' Achille's heel throughout his term: poor defence, coupled with the lack of a Plan B. While we scored an unbelievable 101 league goals, we conceded an equally unbelievable 50—even worse than in Rodgers' first season. Of the 6 games we lost, our home defeat to Southampton Town (in which we were comprehensively out-muscled) and away defeat to Hull City probably stand out as games that we could and should have won, which would have made Gerrard's slip merely an embarrassing footnote to an otherwise successful season. Then, of course, there was our inability to get past Mourinho's infamous bus, and the catastrophe of the final 15 minutes away to a rather average Crystal Palace side.

Our transfer dealings were again average, if not below-average. Shipping out Jonjo Shelvey was, in my opinion, a monumental mistake. I firmly believe that had we been able to convince Jamie Carragher to fight on for another season that we would have won the league—and there would be no more deserving Liverpool player of a winner's medal than him. The signings of Iago Aspas and Luis Alberto will go down in folklore—particularly that of Alberto (still on Liverpool's books to this day) whose primary attribute seems to have been that he was owned by Barcelona before we signed him—as total head-scratchers. (Although, if I'm fair, I did initially like the look of Aspas.) Mignolet didn't thrill me when we signed him, and I don't know why he remains our first choice goalie today.

While, at the end of the day, we didn't win a single trophy, I really believed that we were poised to retake our rightful place as the best team in England.

Running Out of Ideas

Unfortunately, Rodger's last full season was a massive disappointment. The departure of Suárez was expected, but surely we should have done better reinvesting his huge transfer fee. The failure to offer Gerrard a new contract lead to a circus that overshadowed the whole season, culminating in perhaps the saddest departure of a Liverpool great in the history of the club. (Make no mistake, Steven Gerrard would have graced any Anfield side you could care to mention.) However, I think that this would have been his last season as a regular, no matter what—all good things must come to an end.

The arrival of Balotelli smacked of desperation, and Rodgers' inability to make use of him, Ricky Lambert or Fabio Borini—all of whom were regular goalscorers when playing elsewhere—highlighted Rodgers' tactical dependency on Suárez and a healthy Sturridge. Far from providing the previously missing Plan B, Rodgers demonstrated tactical ineptitude throughout the season.

Firstly, without a target man up front (except during Lambert's infrequent starts), Mignolet had no option but to pass the ball out through the back four/back three, who would then look for the increasingly immobile Steven Gerrard as their escape route. Teams quickly realized that pushing up on our defence, while man-marking Gerrard, severely limited our ability to get the ball forward. Numerous mistakes while passing around at the back gifted our opponents tons of goals—leading to another poor total of 48 Premier League goals conceded. (Oh for the days when Ray Clemence, Alan Hansen, Emlyn Hughes & Phil Thompson kept Liverpool's 1978-79 team to just 16 goals conceded in a 42-game season! Incidentally, one of the features of Ray Clemence's play was his ability to throw the ball out accurately to a player on the halfway line, as an alternative means of distribution from the back.)

Defensively, Dejan Lovren has been a big disappointment. I can't say that I watched him much at Southampton, but it's clear that whatever stats make sense to the more technical members of Liverpool's transfer committee require some revision, to say the least. Not that Kolo Touré or Mamadou Sakho exactly lit a fire under him by providing quality competition.

When we did get the ball forward, we would frequently lose the ball—with possession numbers way down on both of Rodger's previous seasons. Our lack of organization and pace also meant that the successful pressing tactics of the previous season vanished into a puff of smoke; there would be no repeats of our destruction of Arsenal, for example. The only time we looked like recapturing the striking threat of the previous season was when Rodgers deployed Rahim Sterling as our lone striker, and even that experiment didn't last too long.

Another theme of our play was a like of fight. We gave our opponents too much respect too often, and just gave up and rolled over when things didn't pan out. When Steven Gerrard was sent off for a rash challenge seconds after coming on in the defeat to Manchester United, it seems to have been largely borne out of his frustration at watching his team-mates fail to exert any physical pressure on the opposition. (Strangely, I thought this worked, as the remaining 10-men put up a far more valiant effort after his sending-off than they did prior to that.)

I have also already discussed our unbelievably inadequate Champion's League campaign, which also put the sword to Rodgers' quantity over quality recruitment policy, as the means of providing depth for a run at winning the Champion's League. (I've stated on numerous occasions how much I dislike rotating the squad as a strategy.)

Swansong

This season, I think Rodgers (or someone) actually unearthed a couple of gems when we signed Joe Gomez and Danny Ings. Before Rodgers switched to a three-at-the-back system, Gomez really impressed me. Yes, he had a bad outing against United, but I think that was more to do with our tactics that day. Ings has been mightily impressive. He has a drive and determination—backed-up with bags of skill—and looks to me like the kind of winner we need. But he needs to be played as a striker. I've also been impressed at how well Nathaniel Clyne has slotted into the side. I think the jury is still out on Firmino and I think we need major structural changes to the team to get the most out of Benteke, and give him effective service.

Otherwise, the most notable change this season—prior to the change in system—was our ugly attempt to improve our defensive capabilities at the expense of every other aspect of our game. How can you hit on the counter when your defensive build-up consists of getting 10 men behind the ball and hoofing it out of play, or as far up the field as you can manage, when it comes within range? Possession figures have fallen off a cliff. We certainly look better with three at the back, gaining the extra width of a pair of wing-backs, but I don't think we look defensively any more solid.

Rodgers also seems to have given up entirely on the high-press, probably because it exposes our defence if the opposition are able to bypass it.

Losing Jordan Henderson has been a blow, too.

However, our spineless tactics in the Manchester United game were the final nail in Rodgers' coffin for me.

Summing Up

So, whether you agree with me or not, Brendan Rodgers has now departed. It is a sad day, as he promised so much more than he delivered. I liked his initial claims that he wanted winners, but disliked the psychology of his tactics. I liked how he brought some players on, but disliked how he treated others (Andy Carroll in particular). I liked how he made us into such a strong attacking force, but disliked our continued defensive frailties.

I would like to wish Brendan the best of luck, as he seems to be a decent man who fell just short of an incredible achievement.

So now the question moves on to who should be his successor.

I would prefer a British manager, in all honesty. Whether FSG have the balls to do that, I very much doubt. We've had Gérard Houllier and Rafa Benítez, both of whom took a long time to adapt to the style of play in the Premier League, and both of whom signed lots of players from their home countries with low levels of success. A manager is going to sign players he knows, which means a foreign manager will bring in players from a foreign league who will likely get the shock of their lives when they first head out onto a rainy, muddy English pitch in January against very physical Premier League opposition.

Jürgen Klopp is seemingly the name on everyone's lips, and if it proves to be him, I will get behind him. However, I don't feel he has the club's history pumping through his arteries, and I doubt very much that he will intuitively know how to handle a Premier League season: I don't want yet another couple of seasons of rebuilding. We have a decent squad of players, assembled at vast cost, and all it should take to become competitive is for someone to organize them and fire them up. Improvements can be made when the transfer window re-opens. Whoever takes over needs to inspire the squad and set unrealistic targets, rather than realistic targets that would inspire no-one, least of all us fans.

So, it's interesting times ahead once more...