The 1st few paragraphs are free to read Punt, but a lot of them are on the search engines if you ignore the main site.
Rodgers is Great. Rodgers is Rubbish:
By Paul Tomkins.
Between 1991 and 2010, Liverpool averaged a new manager every five years. Of course, in the 32 years before that, the club’s managers on average lasted eight years, but we all know that the increased pressure and spotlight has changed the rules in the modern game. Even so, averaging one manager per year since the end of 2009/10 is, to use a great word, somewhat discombobulating.
Something weird happens when you want stability and success, but can’t find it. In the hunt for the right manager, sackings become a kind of yardstick; i.e. what Manager X got sacked for means that his successor must also suffer the same fate unless he is immediately better. And that’s assuming that the managers were sacked for just their on-pitch performance, and not other contributing factors.
If a manager in whom you were emotionally invested gets sacked then of course it can make it a little bit harder to warm to his successor. That’s human nature. And if a manager you loathe gets sacked, you’ll probably welcome the next one like he’s Bob Paisley reincarnate.
Right now, there are many “factions” of Liverpool fans, some still peeved with Benítez’s dismissal (and being ignored in the summer), some still peeved with Kenny’s, and one (in an asylum) banging the walls of his padded cell crying out Roy! Roy! Roy!
Add the different stances over different owners and their controversial decision making executives, and there’s added agreement or disagreement thrown into the mix. Not everybody questioning Brendan Rodgers is carrying a grudge about Rafa or Kenny, or something else. It is possible for fans to think that he’s just not good enough, without any agenda. The murky area is the question of just what is good enough? That may be where people are getting things wrong.
Rodgers’ lack of CV and the absence of a single outstanding result so far this season – the average position of teams beaten is 15th – make it easy for critics to label him a mid-table manager, just as they labelled Jordan Henderson a mid-table player, simply because he came from a mid-table club. By that logic, Gareth Bale is a Championship player and Wayne Rooney is only good enough for a team that averages 6th or 7th in the table. That said, Rodgers’ side have had had at least two dreadful results: losing 3-1 at home to Aston Villa and losing 3-2 at Oldham. Equally, if he’s building something good, we can’t expect it to be ready yet.
People in football are capable of moving up the ladder; they are not defined by the environment in which they made their name. But of course, managers need different skills the higher up the league table they go. Right now, Rodgers seems to possess a lot of the attributes for a big-club manager: progressive style of play, examples of modern thinking that can gain an advantage, and the aura of someone who doesn’t seem overwhelmed (whether or not you like Rodgers or find his personality grating, he doesn’t spend his time looking confused and rubbing his face).
But it’s equally true that he’s got a lot to learn and a lot to prove. Although they’ve all got time on their side (bar Nuri Sahin), Rodgers’ signings are yet to spark into life, with the exception of the first month or two by Joe Allen (before disappearing) and the great impact of Daniel Sturridge. (And even then critics, if they so wished, could point to the fact that the manager refused to take the player in August, which at the time I found a bit strange.) Right now, the majority of Rodgers’ spending sits on the bench or in the stands. That said, Allen and Borini have genuine potential, and could follow Lucas and Henderson as young players who took a year or two to settle in and find their feet.
In training Rodgers focuses more on attacking drills than defending, and that is evident in how good the team are looking going forward and how, if they don’t keep a clean sheet (shut-outs are something they’ve only done against the minnows), his side will concede at least two; according to this site’s Andrew Beasley, goals-per-game is favourably comparable with most Liverpool seasons from the past 20 years, but goals-per-game-against is poor. So far, Liverpool have conceded two against Man United (twice), Man City (twice) Arsenal (twice), Everton and Spurs; i.e. in every game against the top six, bar the fixture at Stamford Bridge (one goal).
The addition of Philippe Coutinho is very exciting, but was the priority yet another tricky little attacker? Just as in the summer the priority wasn’t central midfield (but two of the four arrivals were central midfielders), it could be a criticism labelled at Rodgers that he isn’t addressing the pressing issues, assuming that he had a large say in the matters.
Still, I’ve been a fan of both Coutinho since watching his early Inter games back in 2010, and in all the time watching Liverpool’s youth matches in the past decade or so, Sturridge has been the joint-best opposition player I’ve seen, alongside Jack Wilshire; two kids who looked like men amid boys. Sturridge impressed on loan at Bolton and last season at Chelsea under Villas Boas, so I think that Liverpool have spent £20m very wisely indeed, especially as both players have played for big clubs, meaning they shouldn’t be too scared of the Liverpool shirt. It’s just a question of whether other areas should have been strengthened instead, but with Liverpool unlikely to fall down the table and unlike to move up to the top four, that can wait to the summer.
Rodgers has yet to show that he can strike the balance that good teams need, although it’s still relatively early days, and the Manchester City display yesterday was the most balanced – and impressive – against top opposition yet. Liverpool did well to go to Arsenal and City within four days and get a point from each, although both opposition sides were without at least two of their best players (Arteta, Diaby, Koscielny / Kompany, Yaya Toure), which made it slightly easier, given that Liverpool had no such worries. Even in those circumstances, however, a point is more than acceptable.
Ambivalence
Overall I still remain somewhat ambivalent about Brendan Rodgers. I always used to think that ambivalence was a synonym of indifference, but even though the end position might be similarly neutral, it’s because of a strong push and pull as opposed to simply not caring either way.
I know full-well that the right thing to do as a fan is to support the manager. Equally, I know that it’s illogical to support the wrong manager; would Liverpool as a club have been better had it stuck with Souness and Hodgson? The Alex Ferguson argument says that if you don’t give the manager six or seven years to get it together you may accidentally cut loose a great talent. But should every manager get that long? And how do you decide who merits it?
Half of me thinks Brendan Rodgers is what the future of football management looks like. And the other half of me thinks that Brendan Rodgers looks like what we think the future of football management should look like, but where appearances are deceptive. He looks like he could be the real deal, but he’s seven months into his only high-profile, high-pressure job, and, at best, he’s done okay.
On the one hand, I think we’ll never know if Rodgers is the real deal if he’s not given a chance. On the other, I worry that after three years of upheaval, another two or three years without heading to where we want to be is the equivalent of driving down a cul-de-sac. The good news is that, unlike under Roy Hodgson, there won’t be that sense of it being in the wrong direction. Rodgers isn’t going to drive the team off a cliff.
The former Swansea man may not get us to where we want to be (who can say?), but I’m pretty sure he’s not going to fill the side with ageing yard-dogs and brutish cloggers, and leave the best players disillusioned. Indeed, Suarez, Agger, Johnson and Gerrard seem very happy under the Ulsterman. They are performing at a high level and are being managed in fitness terms through a reduced training load rather than rotation, which means they don’t have to get the sulks on the bench. It seems to be working, although the final stretch of the season is often were tiredness sets in, and we’re not there yet. And as the squad gets bigger, can he keep everyone happy? Again, we’re not there yet.
Rodgers’ general philosophy feels right, and when the Reds’ game clicks it looks exciting, but there are still some major issues, such as the failure to cope with any side that is physical in size or energetic in its pressing (i.e. Liverpool have only really beaten minnows who don’t press; anyone else has found it too easy); the failure thus far to beat a decent team (although the majority of those games have been away, and a couple of the games were drawn due to individual errors); the apparent frequent failure to take the opposition’s strengths into question; and whether or not his idealistic approach fails to leave room for enough pragmatism, which at times may be necessary.
But we’ll see. It’s wrong to expect too much change within seven or eight months. However, the great tension from fans seems hinge around what we have a right to expect. Until Rodgers achieves something notable at Liverpool, there’s a section of the fan-base he will not win over. Equally, we can’t say that he won’t achieve anything based on his record to date, otherwise no manager would ever work his way up the ladder.
Part Two
What follows is an examination of what I see as the pros and cons of Rodgers’ management so far, delivered, I hope, without prejudice.
The second half of this post is for Subscribers only.
I’m not sure this is an exhaustive list, but it is the key things that sprang to mind. And a lot of these issues may be cons instead of pros, and vice versa, depending on your viewpoint.
Things I like about Brendan Rodgers
I definitely like Rodgers’ pass-and-move principles. When it works, as it did against Norwich, it can be a joy to behold. Even with Suarez’s role slightly altered, it looked polished and almost flawless.
It seems to work best against weaker sides, who can’t live with the quality and movement. Thus far, better sides seem to be able to find a fairly easy antidote (and this is why I keep banging on about not being able to beat a team in the top half of the table; it may just be a quirk, but it may also be a tactical failing. Liverpool’s best games against the bigger clubs came in August, when the early Europa League schedule may have helped give the Reds a fitness advantage.)
I like that, on the whole, Rodgers picks (and treasures) the right players from the squad he inherited: Reina, Johnson, Agger, Skrtel (before his yips), Lucas, Gerrard, Sterling and Suarez, as well as blooding Suso and Wisdom. When he picks an XI it has a better “look” about it – to my mind – than a Hodgson or Dalglish side (that’s Dalglish last season, not 1980s), particularly in midfield.
I like that Rodgers now plays Henderson, having come close to casting him aside for around £5m last summer (something I didn’t like). Rodgers had been pretty stubborn in picking Allen over Henderson, but not too stubborn. It’s easy to criticise managers for sticking to their beliefs, and having their favourites, but you don’t want one who keeps eschewing his principles at the first sign of trouble.
I like the kind of players Rodgers has brought into the club, even if most the individuals themselves still have a lot to prove. He’s bought young, promising players, which makes sense, although he’d clearly like to bring in older players, too. Rodgers had a young team at Swansea and part of FSG’s attraction to him was the ability to improve young pros.
I like that Rodgers sometimes uses zonal marking, which, whether he gets it to work or not (and it seems okay so far), shows a refusal to just stick to conventional wisdom.
I like that Rodgers and his staff seem to have ‘cured’ some of the fitness issues surrounding Gerrard, Agger and Johnson. These players are not only barely missing games – touch wood – but they are playing well. Gerrard, in particular, has come to life in the past couple of months. As noted earlier, there has been a conscious effort to not over-train these players, and it’s paying off.
(Having said that, shouldn’t Liverpool’s results be a bit better having had their best players available more often? Doesn’t it stand to reason that with the best players fit – now including Lucas – results should be better than last season, when not only were those players plagued with injuries, but there was also the terrible form of Suarez post-Evragate, and the nine-match ban, plus the time to get sharp again?)
I like that Rodgers brought in Dr Steve Peters, one of sports few Sports Psychiatrists. As JoeP says, it can be hard to judge the efficacy of such methods; any time a player does well, it will be put down to Peters getting inside his head, when all over the world, footballers’ form improves without the aid of psychological intervention. But clearly the mental side of the game is absolutely vital: you need confidence, belief and bravery in order to get the most out of your physical gifts. Peters was a key part of the team that worked wonders with British cycling, and I’m all for looking to find incremental gains.
Things I’m not sure or convinced about
I’m not sure about Rodgers’ Reds out of possession/defensively. A lot of time is spent in training on keep-ball sessions, and that helps the offensive side of the game. But the pressing we expected has been absent, and too many times Liverpool have been cut apart on the break, right through the middle. The shape hasn’t looked quite right, and things like that should be addressed on the training ground.
We’ve yet to see whether Rodgers’ methods can maintain stamina across a season; Liverpool being very different to Swansea in the quantity and intensity of games. He doesn’t seem to rotate too much, but in his favour, on top of the remodelled training, might be the way the Reds’ 58% possession across 25 games enables resting during the 90 minutes; particularly lately, with four occasions when a three-goal lead has been run-up.
I don’t like how Rodgers handled the Carroll situation. He instantly devalued the player with some early comments, and went against the wishes of FSG in pushing the striker out the door. FSG were then prepared to spend £15m on Daniel Sturridge, but Rodgers only want a loan deal; and that left him short of strikers. Thankfully, with a transfer fee only a third of the one that weighed down Carroll, and with more natural pace and ability, Sturridge is suggesting that Liverpool, and Rodgers, got it right in the end. Sturridge was sensational yesterday, with hold-up play as good as you’re likely to see from someone who isn’t quite built like Didier Drogba.
I’m wary of a lack of pragmatism from Rodgers. I can’t say that it’s definitely wrong as I’m not a tactical expert, but enough people with tactical knowledge have expressed concerns. To be a top club these days, then unless you can perfect your methods to extreme degrees, you need more than one way of playing. You need to spring surprises, outwit your opponent. I’m not sure if Rodgers has this in his locker, although for now merely improving Liverpool’s passing game should enable progress back into the top six. There have been signs of the manager altering things early in games, but often after the same weekly game-plan has backfired.
To date, Rodgers hasn’t had a lot of success with transfers. Part of the problem with buying younger players is that they’re not the finished article, although in the case of Joe Allen, Fabio Borini and Gylfi Sigurðsson, they were young players he was keen to sign, and were not directly or indirectly forced on him.
I believe that Allen has enough about him to stand a good chance of being a Liverpool regular one day, and Borini has great movement and work ethic, and can sniff out a goal – but injury and some close misses have left him still on a league duck. If you were going to be harsh, you’d say that none of Rodgers’ summer signings have succeeded, and that none were in the team that beat Norwich a couple of weeks ago, and only Sturridge from recent league games.
So far, Rodgers has done what many managers tend to do, and gone back to their old clubs for players they’ve worked with; but Liverpool need to be looking beyond Swansea City players and Chelsea reserves. (One of the bonuses of getting a top foreign managers from big clubs is that their access to better players.) Still, Rodgers’ buys are better, and younger, than when Hodgson went back for his old charges. The current manager hasn’t been able to spend more than £15m on a player, and it’s tough (if not impossible) to find the finished article at that price (I’d suggest Spurs managed it with Dembele). From now on, the technical committee should be able to help Rodgers, but the manager appears to have been pushing against them. That will need to be resolved for the good of the club.
It’s fair to say that I’m not too keen on aspects of Rodgers’ personality, particularly his need to say too much at times, although this perception may have been caused in part by the summer documentary, which was obviously fairly invasive (if insipid).
Part of the issue with unproven managers is they can feel the need to talk themselves up, and also spend a lot of time trying to prove how clever they are (because they can’t point to the trophy cabinet). Rodgers wouldn’t have had to talk himself up anymore at Swansea, having proved himself there, but once he stepped up to a big club, questions would be asked. Dear old Roy Hodgson remains a master of talking himself up, to the point where journalists began referring to him as a top European manager; when in essence he had only ever been a reasonable journeyman.
I’m aware that this criticism of Rodgers is perhaps a little harsh, as it’s about impressions (and no, I don’t mean the one his critics say he does of David Brent). I felt uneasy when he appeared to hang out the young players to dry after the Oldham defeat, but I also accept that he may have seen problems with their attitude. Even so, it looked like a case of shifting blame, and surely the younger players could be balled out in private? In time we’ll get to know more about Rodgers, and be able to judge if the walk matches the talk.
Finally, I’m not keen on the way Rodgers handled the whole Director of Football issue in the summer, and how he’s handled the issue since. He was brought in with the idea to be a young coach working with an experienced DoF-type; a kind of reverse of Dalglish and Comolli, with the experienced man now being in the overseeing role (as that’s in many ways seen as the key position).
Rodgers was aggressively pushing the “older signings” issue, and there has definitely been some serious tension between Rodgers, FSG and the technical committee of late over the issue.
Hopefully Rodgers means it when he said that he has to earn the right to complete transfer control, in the way that Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson – arguably the only two to still be “lucky” enough – have earned it. It must be hard for any owners to pluck a manager in his 30s and, without him ever having spent more than a couple of million quid at a time, hand him tens of millions of pounds to spend. I appreciate that any manager worth his salt wants full control, but those days are largely a thing of the past. As promising as Rodgers remains, it’s worth us (and him) bearing in mind that he’s not the only football manager out there capable of doing a good job at Liverpool, or instilling a passing-based game. You only have to look at how his successor at Swansea has done.
Overall, Rodgers is doing okay; better than average, I’d say, but not a lot more than that (yet). Liverpool are back to pretty much where they ended last season, with 7th only seeming quite heady after due to the time spent in the bottom half. Bar encounters with the top sides (and obdurate units like Stoke), the overall form is improving, and the goal difference has risen nicely.
I hope that this recent improvement is part of a genuine upward trend, and that passing poor teams off the pitch is a step towards being able to do it to better teams; I’m just not sure that it automatically follows.
That said, whatever approach a manager chooses should be able to be improved with time and practice, particularly with good young players for whom progress is to be expected as they gain experience and wisdom. It’s clear that Rodgers can get a team to pass the ball well, but the next step is to prove that he’s a good rounded manager, with tricks up his sleeve.
I’m increasingly optimistic about Rodgers, but working from that ambivalent standpoint. Right now he’s edging into the positive, and hopefully by the summer most of the doubts will be gone. We’ll see….
