Neil was joined by Joel Richards, Nick O’Prey, Mike Girling, Rob Gutmann, Stephanie Till, Chris Maguire and Rob Vincent.
Direct link to PODCAST: HUNG OUT TO DRY
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I know we all know this but the reason Gerrard and Carra had that look of disgust from the bench was because Borini was on the floor for 2 minutes as a result of getting hit with the ball. I’m happy to give players time to adapt but that was unacceptable. I’m now extremely worried about him. If my under 10’s stay down from getting hit with the ball I haul them off because it shows they’ve got no fight. Very worrying! More worrying than his play on the ball.
According to some, if the ball hits you on the head it can kill you !!!!
;)
Haha, good point. Ironically though, if he did that playing for them he wouldn’t been seen on the pitch for a while after.
I’ve made these points several times and I’ll make them again. Why? Because performances, or evidence, proves me right:
I’m not being hysterical when I say that Rodgers is a mid-table manager. That’s a fact based on his one recent season performance, and what we have seen so far this season.
Because of the above point we will never get into the Champions League. No Champions League = no Suraez.
There has been no progress. He doesn’t learn from his mistakes.
I’m more than happy to support Rodgers until the end of the season. However, based on the above (facts) he will be gone by the end Jan 2014.
Therefore, he has to improve. I don’t believe he has as much time as he thinks. If FSG are prepared to boot out a living legend and fans favourite (if you’re over 35) then some one like Rodgers better get his act together.
We have two big games coming up against City and Arsenal. To be honest, the way Rogers MAKES his team play, I’d take 2 points now. However, IF he is this genius waiting to happen, as Peter McDowell and Andy Heaton seem convinced he is, then he has to obtain 4 points at least. Surely? The form book says next game we’ll win, followed by a loss (like I say, mid table form – hope I’m wrong).
At a risk of sounding like columbo….’just one more thing’: If Robinson wants to tell some one like Suarez to “Fuckoff” during then match then he better make sure he has had the game of his life !!!!
Can we get behind one fucking manager and fucking stay behind him?
I wanted Benitez to stay, others wanted change, look what they got.
Many wanted Hodgson gone (myself included because I wanted Rafa back), a few wanted to give him time, and we got Kenny.
Kenny spunked a fortune (he gave perspective to Rafa), and now we have another.
So if you don’t want to go for a FIFTH manager in 4 years, please STFU and watch, because I and others can see an improvement in recent times. A sustainable improvement.
We’re in transition, we knew this would be happening. We said we may have to give up on this season and possibly the next two so we could have long-term success. Calling for Rafa back got me more fkn shit threw at me when Dalglish left, but calling for Rodgers to go is just plain-ass wrong..
ferguson took 4 years to build something. Shankly took 15. Can we give the Irish lad 1 or 2??
Are we, as fans, really that lightweight?
ferd
Well said Ferdia, well said.
It was a poor performance. We lost to a side in League One that’s hardly picked up a point in their last 8 games. Liverpool have been swatting away sides lower in the league and it looked like a win on paper. Surely? No. It happens. Giant killing happens. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t ask questions but to call for the manager’s head right now? Counter productive.
Sturridge and Coutinho (potentially) coming in this month for reasonable fees is excellent progress from a summer window with Sahin gone, Assaidi invisble and terrible in the ACON, Allen struggling, Borini injured with lots to prove.
Rodgers put out a strong side and on many websites, lots of fans thought “Rodgers is taking this match seriously” with the lineup he put out. That side we put out should have been able to beat a league one side. Jones, Robinson, Wisdom, Coates, Allen, Borini are better than league one level but the Magic of the FA Cup struck. It has struck every big side in English football, even in successful seasons.
Time goes forward and hope to take results from our next two tough league games. There were lessons to be taken for players, management and fans. Let’s learn from them together and move on.
seriously? comparing old purple nose to Rogers? He won the league and euro trophies before he came to england. Get your facts right. You’re being hysterical. your only argument is that you dont want to change managers because its embarrassing. That, my friend IS ‘plain ass wrong’ to use your MTV vocabulary. BR is mid table manager. I support the most successful club in the UK. Sounds like you wanna follow Villa. Where’s this progress you’ve seen? There isn’y any. This is a discussion forum. I’m more than happy to read/listen to your points backing your arguments, but you haven’t got any so..Take your own advice and STFU !!
Stephen, yesterday was a disaster. Let’s see how we get on in the next 3 league games. I think we’ll know a lot more one way or the other after those. I agree with some of the points you made in your first comment and again, we’ll definitely know by January 2014. At the same time I agree with some of the points Ferd made.
The squad is still well short but I think the progress can be seen in the games like Sunderland, Fulham, QPR and Norwich. I believe it can also be measured in the way the squad is changing. I don’t wanna see Cole, Aquilani and Jovanovic on the books earning over 100k a week. I wanna see hungry players. We’ll see where we’re up to after the next 3. We’re certainly struggling against the physical sides but there aren’t that many in the Premiership. With the summer investment I’m already looking forward to next season. Hopefully, with a stronger squad and if Rodgers does learn from his mistakes as I expect him too we might be in good shape. Like I keep saying, we’ve fallen along way since the days when we could genuinely say we’re the most successful team in Britain. It’s only on paper now in the same way Wanderers, Old Etonians and Blackburn can’t claim to be successful FA Cup sides.
You may turn out to be absolutely right but it’s still too early to make a rational conclusion.
*SIGH* Here we go again. I’m 46 and have supported this team since 1974. Embarrassment has got nothing to do with it, it’s about continuity.
Let’s take Ferguson then
“Ferguson joined Aberdeen as manager in June 1978, replacing Billy McNeill who had only managed the club for one season before he was offered the chance to manage Celtic. Although Aberdeen were one of Scotland’s major clubs they had won the league only once, in 1955 under Dave Halliday. The team had been playing well, however, and had not lost a league match since the previous December, having finished second in the league the previous season.”
So he takes Aberdeen, an in-form team, to 4th place the next season. This according to you would be unacceptable, even though he won the league the following year.
We know that Ferguson took much longer to bring success to manchester. You would have had him out the door after 2 seasons.
So tell us Mr. Martin, what is your plan to bring success to LFC? Obviously after sacking the incumbent, does your Football Manager experience lead you to any conclusions as to who should replace him? Mourinho perhaps, or Klopp, or Mr. Laudrup? Maybe Roberto?
And if they don’t have an immediate impact, what then?
Blame the fickle fans?
I hear Chelsea hand out free flags, and their policy on managers should suit you. Good luck!
Shit. I just remembered. I’m 47.
Well,let’s not take Ferguson eh?
Because Ferguson came in at the precise point when ManU realised before anybody else that there was a lot of money to be made from European football and Sky TV.
They realised before anybody else that they could take advantage by speculating to accumulate.Spend £100M and get £150m/£200M back!
We had a poor little rich kid in David Moores.Didn’t even Google Hicks and Gillette by his own admission.
Then they realised that to control the media was part of the”Master Plan”.They have never looked back.
The Suarez debacle last year?It went on for months and months.Who do you think was sponsoring those stories?
Do you imagine for one minute that this is some kind of paranoia?
This is a powerful organisation at work.With the sole intention of keeping Liverpool “off their perch”.
And what have we got in terms of P.R?Chang chasing some kind of spoof twitterer in Duncan Jenkins .
Rodgers is only part of the problem!
It was very weird how Rodgers blamed the “young players” which he himself selected to field. It sounded very much like he can’t own up to the fact that he himself has a part in the blame; seemed like he was throwing his own players under the bus. Just did not sound right.
I can only hope that he intentionally picked and blamed a young side he knew beforehand would struggle in order to prove a point to FSG and convince them to splash for experience before the window shuts.
If not, I’m slightly worried (as I am with the way he seems unable to motivate his players into the right mindset for these games (before and during half-time), but then again Kenny had his Fulham before the FA Cup Final too.)
Either way didn’t leave a great impression.
If we dont sign a powerful centre mid even as a backup option in this window then there’s no hope.
Add to the fact we have NO real cover if Lucas gets injured… we need a stopper with power and pace, someone who can stop attacks, protect the back four and drive us forward. Theres plenty out there, Newcastle just snapped a guy up for nothing and now everton. We dont need Ince, when we have Downing Suarez, Sturridge, Assaidi, Sterling and Fabio the fanny.
Our team is crying out for some genuine power, suprise us Brendo
I’ve been crying out for that forever. Diame almost signed for us for free in the summer until Kenny got booted, then he walked not certain if he’d feature.
That would have been a transformational signing. A skillful harrying midfielder who can also carry the ball forwards.
Rodgers thinks he can create a Swansea but he’s wrong. They play a lot deeper than we ever will and cannot progress much from where they are.
I’m struggling to see how Allen is going to give us much but there’s no way Rodgers is going to admit that, so no Lucas = an over run midfield. £15m, fucking unbelievable.
Agree. The price that Diame has been quoted at appears reasonable as well. But we’re linked with the new Suso. Err, I mean Coutinho. Baffling.
What I find hard to believe is that people can actually be blaming Rodgers. Last years team was no real great shape and then we lost Dirk, Bellamy, Maxi. Three of our best players bar Gerard and Suarez. All we hear as fans is wage bill cuts and value for money. I’m sick of it. The last regime wasted tons of cash on Carroll and overspent on downing and Henderson. (Although I do think Henderson will come good). They shipped out Carroll to lower the wage bill, left us with one striker for half a season. Plus we HAVE to play youths regularly as first team players because the squad has been decimated because of lowering the wage bill. We are 9th globally in revenue but were is all the money going? Squads win trophies not a good starting 11. When Rodgers is fully backed like Kenny was then judge him.( And Kenny should of been given more time IMO) It really is not his fault. Plus we as fans seem to be proud of the fact we are not trying to buy the league, well the only other way is to build a team and that takes time.
Ferdaiia… You dont know your own age, and judging by the comments youve posted you know even less about football. So ill leave it there.
Hi, robin. Im not calling for anyone’s head YET. but dont take my word for how poor rodgers is performing, look at the league table. Like i say i reckon he’s got until end of next jan. I hope im wrong but its a big punt on a horse with no form.
Dude, just go with the Chelsea option. We can do without your 40 quid for a replica shirt every 2 years.
“Dude” get down to specsavers. You blind fool. You’re obviously a Man Utd fan come on here trying the encourage the down fall of this great club. Shame on you. Stick to Fifa “Dude” and enjoy your corporate soccer !
Fellas,
At the risk of sounding like my wife, its only football boys, relax a little. You are both grown men, both sound like committed lifelong supporters, and this isn’t the site for name calling.
apologies…
At the end of the day Rodgers although has been coaching for 20 odd years he has relatively little managerial experience so he’s going to make mistakes along the way. He has the right philosophy on how to play so we need to give him 2-3 seasons so that he can learn from his mistakes and improve as a manager and really make it his own team. If after this time we don’t progress then yes then we can sack him but give the guy a chance. He hasn’t been helped as we all know by FSG’s cock up in the summer of shipping out too many experienced goalscoring players without adequately replacing them. We have a young team so they are going to be inconsistent at the moment but I’m sure Rodgers will address this by maybe bringing in a bit more experience in the summer
Can’t be sure but I think there was revisionist talk from some of the TAW crew on the podcast this week re the line up; If you take the opinion, as I think many would, that it is good to rest some of our more delicate players players for the the Oldham game, with the upcoming fixtures (i.e. Agger, Johnson, Lucas and Gerrard), I can’t see how he could have picked a stronger line up then he did (no starts for Suso and Shelvey). Downing maybe, but one misnomer re Sterling (who I would advocate a subs role at most for the remaining of the season) is that he doesn’t provide cover. The single remaining reason I have not despaired when I’ve seen his name on the team sheet is because of his tatical discipline. I would have liked all those seemingly shocked or perplexed at the team sheet, to say truthfully what their reaction was at 4pm on Sunday.
I personally push for more rotation; I’ll make this argument, if Mo Farrah was running a 5,000 meters final on a Sunday, and then a 10,000 meter final Wednesday, his odds of winning the latter would be reduced – which I think most people can understand (i.e. he will be running against world class competitors who didn’t have the earlier run, and therefore although Mo could still run a world class time, RELATIVE to the others in the field he would be disadvantaged). Football if anything is even more stark a reality, not only are they running 10k ish a game, that is arguable less than half of what a footballers energy is comitted to (battling, shooting, passing, jumping, heading, tackling etc.). The point is a player can still be very very good in a game three days after playing, but relative to a player who hasn’t played as recently he is disadvantaged. Yes you can have weeks where due to the unpredicatability of body patterns games in a cluster can work for you, but the general rule is pretty undisputable.
A message to those hyper critics of BR, you tell a man he’s a mid table manager long enough, you never know, you might just get to him, we, WE, are part of the destiny of the future of the club, we have a manager, to my mind he’s POTENTIALLY a great manager (can’t think of a single other manager who talks with such motivation and inteligence on the game from the current crop of EPL managers – it’s not everything, but communication is the cornerstone of good management), so to what end are you trying to knock him down…lift him up, if he fails, he fails, but lets not be complicit in his failing, lets not prize being smug over being a supporter, it’s not what LFC was built on.
That’s a bit delusional Mate.Rodgers ego will never allow him to think that he’s a mid-table Manager.
If you pick young players then blame them for a defeat then you shouldn’t have picked them in the first place!
It’s a simple equation really isn’t it?
There is a lot of toing and froing going on here – opinions are becoming entrenched. As a fan since 1953, I honestly don’t care if we get relegated – we’ve been there before and can rise again, but y problem is that I can’t take BR seriously, with his post-match homilies. Give me Kenny’s seige mentality any day.
The Oldham game was going to be hard; sloping pitch; howling gale; driving rain. Probable lower table cloggers. But Allen and Sterling? Horses for courses. I don’t care that we lost, we were in good company as it turned out. But Oldham had more youngsters than we did, so don’t blame the kids for failing exams, blame the teacher.
An Everton fan posted a pic on the Echo blog, of a lump of jelly shaped not unlike BR, wearing a LFC tie, and saying “We won the passing.” That’s how we are being seen at the moment.
I have just read a quote by BR after Swansea lost 2-0 to Sunderland last season. “We were wonderful.”
FFS…
The best thing about being a Liverpool supporter at the moment is listening to the Anfield Wrap, on the pitch there are signs of improvement one week and then it all goes tits up again, off the pitch FSG seem happy to invest a little with the knowledge that they can cash in Suarez and Reina in the summer.
The club is as directionless now as it ever has been, but this is not surprising since we have owners that are baseball nuts, a CEO that is really a salesman and an inexperienced manager that plays kids against men time and time again.
Carragher is one of our highest earner (thank you christian) and plays only a handful of games a season because he is now 35, but of those games you would expect him to play in it is away to a lower league side in a cup game where experience is vital.
Coates has potential but is not match fit and is lacking experience and probably confidence, when we went 3-0 up at home to Norwich there was an opportunity to give him game time and confidence, but those things never happen.
We are told this is a transitional year, but last year we had to get top four, we won one cup and were unlucky to not win another, our season went to the last day of the season, this year we had 3 or 4 starts and now it feels like its at an end, no cups and 6th at best. It feels like it did under Souness (at least he had a very good record with Rangers) We have good experience players in Reina, Johnson, Agger, Skirtal, Lucas, Gerrard and Suarez that with the exception of Suarez were all here under Rafa, we only need another 4 to make a team, 4 quality players cost 100-120 million, Downing, Carroll, Henderson, Allen, Borini, sturridge and Countinho have cost 115 million. you do not need 7 average players to replace 4 quality players
As a club we never learn, Torres, masch, Alonso, Arbeloa were sold for 107 million
we could have bought Aguero, Silva, pick two others and you are looking at a top 3 spot towards challenging for the title.
Oh we need a squad, well we could have kept Dirk, Maxi, Bellamy we would still have had Carragher, Enrique, Shelvey, Coates, wisdon, Kelly, Robinson, Stirling and Suso, + goalie and its a squad of 24 with some youth some experience and a first 11 of players between 25 and 29 with the exception of Gerrard.
If you want a world class team then you need world class players and a world class manager if you want an average team then buy average players and employ average managers, the problem Liverpool has now is that it still needs 4 world class players but the champions league money only pays an extra £30 million it is going to cost too much money to get into the top 4 and by reducing wages and promoting the kids and selling Suarez and Reina in the Summer the bottom line is going to look great, especially with the new tv deal and FSG have assett stripped LFC while everyone is paying 50 notes for the privilage, yes those FSG boys are smart. get rid of all the high earners, Carragher, Reina, Suarez and Gerrard some time soon, no new stadium no new Anfield then sell them to the highest bidder and put the money back into the Red Sox.
@troutbeck. I just want you to ask you a simple question: who bought suarez and who gave him an improve contract last summer? We can speculate all day long. In fact it’s the easiest option.
Brian B, I take your point that my self fulfilling prophecy bit is unlikely, but I was trying to make a point about what is the point of being a supporter, for some it seems like an opportunity to poor some depressing poison into the world. I’m embarressed by some of our ‘fandom’, a bad loss and the saddo’s come out the woodwork dripping with vitrioal – tbf a big win and it goes the other way too.
Some pine for Kenny, some for Rafa (I would’ve carried him back into LFC if it were up to me), but we’ve got a manager, he’s a good manager. Yes you can say he’s a mid table manager, with only one Premier league season under his belt, or you can say he took Swansea up, and then proceeded to give many a mammoth top flight team a footballing lesson, the truth is pretty subjective, and we don’t have to rename the Shankly gates after him, but why wouldn’t we want to believe the best in him…just so we can proclaim we were right all along when it all goes wrong. I for one am glad I’m not on the train.
And Kevin, your illustrating my point, what has always made us great is that we back our own if they fight for us…take Rafa, he’s a bit weird, has some funny ways, but we enveloped him as one of our own with a ‘this is our rafa Benitez, we don’t give a fuck what you lot think, infact we’d prefer it if you didn’t like him’; who honestly gives a fuck what Everton FC think about our manager, let them make another derby dvd or celebtate an england cap like they’ve won the league cup – we’re LFC we don’t look for affirmation. Time the support started showing some class and stop bottling it.
When did Rafa ever blame the players? Kenny put his job on the line for Suarez (and I think he was right to support him.) Roy, if you recall, persisted in calling the players ‘they’, not ‘ us’ or ‘we’. Egos are fine if you can back them up, like Cloughie, but don’t make major tactical errors that stand out like dog’s balls and then blame ‘ the kids’.
I also don’t give a fuck what Everton, or Manu or the Effing A. think about us, but I don’t want a narcissistic twat telling me how good we are when it’s painfully obvious that we could be but won’t be; recruiting 9-stone players who are felled for two minutes when a ball hits them. Blind Freddy could see that Carra could have got the team by the balls on Sunday and at least got some pride into the them. Unfortunately Blind Freddy isn’t our manager.
Roll on Arsenal – a 3-0 away win and all will be right again.
and you forgot to add troutback that the sky is falling down
Wisdom — Kelly — Coates — Robinson
————-Allen——Henderson—–
———————Suso——————–
—–Sterling——————-Borini—–
——————-Sturridge—————–
Plus Shelvey, Flannagan and looks like Coutinho
They’re all under 23, and most quite a bit younger and yes there are flaws in that line up, but I don’t think any of our competitors can boast such a strong bank of young players (and thats not even getting into the Adjorans and Sama’s et al in the reserves). Surely someone can take maybe just a smidgen of positivity from that?
Woah. The first Anfield Wrap I’ve listened to where I’ve essentially disagreed with everything that’s been said.
The only criticism I would lay at Rodgers’ door as far as Oldham is concerned is the formation, if indeed it even was 4-2-4. I saw it as 4-2-1-3 with Suarez as the floating no.10 behind a front three of Borini, Sturridge and Sterling. But that’s by the by; positionally the team was a mess and that may well have been due to the (arguably inappropriate) formation.
What I was surprised about is that no-one seems to have mentioned that we had little choice to play that defensive line-up. Enrique was out, as was Flanagan; Agger can’t play three games in a week – and he’ll be needed for the Arsenal/Man City games. Carragher certainly can’t play three games in a week, and he appears to have (rightly) supplanted Skrtel in the first choice team. He could possibly have played Glen Johnson but I would say it was wise to give him a rest.
And we have to prioritise the league over the cup, because CL football is vital to attract (and keep) top players. So the Arsenal/Man City games are the priority, and we put out a team of squad players in this game.
I don’t think any criticism could be directly at Rodgers for mishandling Coates either. He has played, in a number of games, and looked ropey in all of them. I’ve read a few things which have said that Coates should have played against teams like Stoke who bombard us with aerial balls. I think if Coates was performing in training as he did against Oldham there’s no wonder he hasn’t played more.
My initial reaction to reading the comments criticising the youngsters was to think it was harsh, but he’s earned the benefit of the doubt in terms of public dressing downs, as it’s clearly worked for Downing and Enrique. Let’s hope it has the same effect on Robinson and Skrtel. I was surprised to hear people on the podcast defending Robinson. I thought he looked massively out of his depth in all aspects of his game, and telling Suarez to F-off only showed how off his attitude was. There’s no excuse for it. He needs to learn, and learn fast. He can’t continue to trade off a good game he had against Arsenal way back when. I’m all for local lads getting a chance but they need to be judged by the same standards as anyone else. If they’re not good enough, they’re not good enough.
I would also disagree with the advocation of 4-4-2, which some people seem to regard in a golden light. Unless you have exceptional players across the midfield – which we don’t – or unless you play a defensive bank of fout – which we don’t, 4-4-2 is brittle and outdated. It cedes possession and domination in the centre of the field. We have to play a variation of 3 centre mids if we want to keep possession and control the game. Whether that’s 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1, 4-1-2-3 or 4-2-1-3, I don’t know. I think of the four, 4-2-3-1 is the most solid, but the problem is, Brendan is buying for 4-3-3, and until we get the squad he feels is capable of playing this, we’re going to be stuck in a halfway house.
Finally, I disagree with the comments about Suarez only leading Suarez, not the team. I think there are few better examples of team players in the league than him.
It was all experienced players tonight against Arsenal.So do we (He) blame experienced players?
It’s interesting to watch the post-match press conferences.The other Managers can’t wait to get off.Win or lose?
They can’t get shut of Brendan.They have to cut to the adverts.He wants to talk all night about what he did and why he did it and how smart he is!!!!And how it nearly paid off.
He’s a legend.Just like David Brent!
Honestly Brian, what would make you happy? I thought our approach was spot on last night and our execution was almost there. Rodgers set us out to play on the counter and it very nearly worked, instead of dogmatically sticking to a 4-3-3 and trying to monopolise possession like everyone says he does. Is that not learning from last time?
Rodgers has been right behind the players all season, except when a few of the young ones who have been spoiled by slightly desperate fans into thinking they are ahead of where they actually are didn’t turn up on a crap pitch in the FA cup.
Well said Tom, I think people need to put the energy they waste in angrily hammering out all these online rants to better use.
One minute Allen is the Welsh Xavi and Henderson is shit, then Allen is shit, then Henderson is great, Gerrard has lost it, Gerrard is world class, Downing couldn’t get in ahead of x, y or z’s nan, then we missed his influence against Oldham – internet fans seem the most capricious bunch around.
The other thing that some fans don’t seem to appreciate is the fact that every player isn’t 100% every game, plenty play through niggles and injuries, they are human and feel up and down, confident and then uncertain, picking the team and squad is based on so much more than we fans get to see. And no we don’t know better, quite often the fans picking the teams can’t see what’s in front of them on their tv (or the very small percentage at the games), usually can’t spell the players names and could barely kick a ball and yet they believe they can opine their knowledge in such certain terms and then berate Rodgers’s faith in what his doing (and Rafa’s and Dalglish’s etc)!
We might not be world beaters just yet (and we may not be again for some time or heaven forbid ever) but we’re certainly often entertaining to watch these days and playing in a style most true football fans would like to see. The squad seems to have more direction than it has for a long time and the potential for the futue is great (to my uneducated eyes).
RELAX AND ENJOY FOOTBALL! ;) And remember we don’t know everything.
Tom,quite frankly there’s nothing that makes me happy at the moment.
“It very nearly worked”But it didn’t work! Young players criticised?But he criticised the older players too.Everybody else is to blame.
I’ve supported Liverpool for well over 50 years.I must have been to more than 1500 games in that time;home and away.I’m steeped in the traditions of Liverpool.
And the traditions were always that we were together in everything we did.We didn’t come out and blame individuals.We were a Club which faced everything together and closed ranks when the going got tough.
Am I alone in wondering why the likes of Sterling and Wisdom and Suso were playing every week?It’s always been our way to bring these young players through gradually to give them confidence as they progressed.
It looks to me as though Rodgers has been gambling with their talents in the hope that they would get him off the hook.
I go with gut feelings on these things.I could never accept Hodgson as a Liverpool Manager.I’m struggling with Rodgers.I was embarrassed by his performance on “Being Liverpool”.
I see remarkable similarities between Hodgson and Rodgers in their post-match press conferences.Why just use two or three words when they could make do with 80 or 90?
Why too much information?
Arsenal? Well if you look at that game he started off with a reasonable approach.Arsenal were brittle but determined to make a show.We hit them on the break.And that was spot on but then again I could have called that.
Then what happened?We retreated back into our own half.I can tell you this much;players of our calibre instinctively know how to run a game then.They are confident and don’t take chances;they’ve got the opposition sussed.And they keep them on the back foot.
Just like a boxer who has his opponent on the ropes.He doesn’t then retreat and defend.He keeps on the front foot and makes sure he keeps his defences up.He doesn’t go backing into a corner!
I know it’s a silly analogy but the end result is the same.Back off your opponent when you’re ahead and you’re asking for trouble.
Naivety?Inexperience? I don’t know .But I do know that at this time the last thing we need is a Manager handicapped by naivety or inexperience!
I am not doubting how much of a Liverpool fan you are, way more than me in every tangible measure it sounds like. I also value your experience and gut feelings but I think comparing Rodgers at this point in time to all the great teams and managers you have witnessed over the years is unfair. Particularly when it comes to judging his character on the basis Being Liverpool (which I haven’t seen to be fair). Because none of the great managers had to put up with that kind of invasion of privacy, and I reckon pretty much anyone would come off like self-affected tit with a camera in their face while they tried to establish their authority over a football club. That said, I don’t think the sun shines out of his arse and there is still plenty he needs to learn to be in the same league as Benitez even. But considering where he is in his managerial development I think he is a long way out in front of the curve.
With regards to overplaying the youngsters, who would you have played in their stead? While it is definitely not ideal to have been playing them this much, we were in pretty exceptional circumstances at the start of the season (I don’t think Brendan needed any excuses to be honest), they definitely brought something to the team when they first came in, and I believe it has given the club a sense of optimism that wouldn’t have been there otherwise (which has been evaporating slightly as they have faded).
Each to their own I suppose, but I actually like listening to Rodgers press conferences and hearing his insights into how we played. They give me a lot of confidence that he knows what he is doing. In my opinion, he has also done a great job through his press conferences in beating back the blood-sucking bastards in the press corps from our door, thereby taking off some of the pressure that has been hanging around since Benitez’s time.
Finally, I like your boxing analogy but I don’t think that is something that comes overnight. That kind of confidence and killer instinct only comes with experience of sustained success, particularly in the context of a team where it is even less tangible than with a boxer. No matter how good a manager you are, I don’t think you can instill that in youngsters right from the start. We are building for the future and hopefully we start to pick up some bigger scalps on our run in that will give us that taste for blood we can carry on into the seasons to come. In my opinion, this is where the once famous Anfield support needs to kick in and carry the team over the line a few times until they have winning the Liverpool way imprinted in their hearts again.
Brian B, I get the feeling you’d rather we loose so you can say ‘see’ then we win and have to stomach being wrong. And stop revising the past, we were great partly because we were ruthless; Faiclough told how when his father died when Fairclough was just 20, no one from management even said a word (it was excused on the podcast, but it’s inexusable – doesn’t mean Paisley wasn’t great, but he was clearly ruthless), and Paisley with Mcdermott, or Case Dalglish with Aldo, Benitez blasted Riise for the own goal. The Holy trinity is the players, managers and SUPPORTERS, some seem to have forgotten the last bit.
I pray that I’m wrong on this, but I’m wondering if the act of playing the forwards, in particular Sturridge, three games in a week will catch up on us on Sunday. Sturridge looked tired on Wednesday, and is just getting match fit. Hopefully, as some have pointed out, they account for it via training.
Tom C,I know,I just get a bit frustrated!
Jonny-Blaze,Yeah,you’re right.I want Liverpool to lose to prove my point.
But when the game kicks-off I would sell my soul to The Devil for a win!
What’s wrong with that?