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Liverpool boss criticised by Rene Meulensteen

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keniget

keniget

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Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers is paying the price for not strengthening his backroom staff, according to former Fulham boss Rene Meulensteen.
Liverpool are nine points off league leaders Chelsea and have lost their last two Champions League group games.
Meulensteen, first-team coach at Manchester United for five years, says Rodgers has made mistakes.
"Brendan Rodgers's biggest failure is that he's not invested in his staff,"Meulensteen told BBC Radio 5 live.
Meulensteen, 50, was a key member of Sir Alex Ferguson's backroom team at Old Trafford.
He helped United win three Premier League titles, one Champions League, two League Cups and one Club World Cup while first-team coach between 2008-13.
The Dutchman, who was in charge of Fulham for just two months before he was replaced in February, believes Rodgers should have strengthened his backroom team after the Reds secured a Champions League return after finishing second in the Premier League last season.
Colin Pascoe is Rodgers's assistant while Mike Marsh is first-team coach.
Meulensteen said Rodgers should have appointed someone with Champions League experience before the start of the season.
"He has got there because of his philosophy and I rate him for that," he added.

"He has obviously got people around him who he obviously thinks are the right ones.
"But I think he could have done with someone who has been there, seen it and done it.
"Playing in the Premier League and the Champions League, it's a different rhythm that requires a different style of training and a different management strategy through the week. You need to know these things."
 
Rodgers definitely should heed the advice of an expert in getting early sackings.

From Wiki
In June 2006, he signed a three-year contract with Danish club Brøndby IF to become manager of the club, but resigned after six months.

On 1 July 2013, Meulensteen signed a contract with FC Anzhi Makhachkala joining Guus Hiddink as an assistant coach. Hiddink left Anzhi after only two games into the 2013–14 Russian Premier League season, allowing Meulensteen to step up to head coach. After 16 days in charge, Meulensteen was sacked and replaced by Gadzhi Gadzhiyev.[7]

Meulensteen returned to England in November 2013 to take up the position of head coach under Martin Jol at Fulham. Less than three weeks later, Jol was sacked by Fulham after five consecutive league defeats, with Meulensteen taking over as manager.... On 14 February 2014, Fulham hired Felix Magath to replace Meulensteen as manager, cancelling Meulensteen's contract four days later.

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He's got a weird way of pimping himself for a job I'd say.
 
Whirly said:
Laughable as Meulensteen is, he brings up a valid point.
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It might be, but it's too early for him to make that call. Mighty presumptuous of him to suggest that management ignorance and/or naivety is the issue, at this point in time.

Arrogant dinosaur in latent trumpeting of his own credentials shocker.
 
Unfortunately I'm not so sure it is too early. Witness for example the way our defence is functioning - or, more to the point, failing to function - and Brendan's own explanation of that as being due to a lack of coaching time. Other teams have managed fine in similar circs. Meulensteen may not have the best credentials to offer such criticism, but that doesn't invalidate it.
 
Judge Jules said:
Unfortunately I'm not so sure it is too early. Witness for example the way our defence is functioning - or, more to the point, failing to function - and Brendan's own explanation of that as being due to a lack of coaching time. Other teams have managed fine in similar circs. Meulensteen may not have the best credentials to offer such criticism, but that doesn't invalidate it.
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I wouldn't know about similar circumstances as I don't follow them and I can't assume if theirs were better or worse, but let's look at our own, specifically where the defence is concerned.

The likes of Manquillo and Lovren missed the entire pre-season tour and only started training with the side and playing a pre-season game (vs Dortmund) after we returned from the US tour. That means the week of Aug 5. We played against Dortmund on Aug 10. A week later was the league curtain raiser against Southampton. Moreno didn't even have a pre-season game with us at all as he arrived later, and went straight into the starting lineup against City in our 2nd league game.

Now, I'm not trying to excuse Rodgers for how our defence has been playing since last season, but he isn't exactly wrong when he says the packed game schedules haven't been exactly helpful in bringing people up to speed or onto the same page. That we had a shitty defence to begin with didn't make it any easier.

If he'd just said that Rodgers has demonstrated no fucking idea on how to set up or coach a defence (i.e. like Ryan), then maybe he'd have struck a chord with some here. However, he's specifically referred to the inexperience and inability to manage multiple competitions, and frankly, that's just premature. I don't know what the question put to him was, but I suspect it was the totally expected: "Do you think playing in Europe has affected Liverpool's performance this season?" and he kind of went with the default "Liverpool played well last season because they didn't have Europe" option.

Under Benitez, we often had to struggle after a midweek CL game. I suppose Meulensteen can give Benitez a few tips on how to get to a CL final as well.
 
Herr Onceared said:
I think our coaching staff is shit.
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I think they need to learn to coach the basics of defending and how to compromise their attacking philosophy. This is the same coaching staff that took us from 7th to 2nd and scoring over 100 goals in the process though, so yeah, dead shit.
 
Meulensteen is an excellent coach but one of the worst managers ever.
He's got a point aswell. Some of our coaches feel like a mid table side.
Achtenberg etc.
 
Pascoe seems a very amiable bloke, and Rodgers trusts him, so I can see why he was brought in. Mike Marsh, however, was hardly standing out as a promising coach at the Academy. That appointment seemed more to me like Rodgers wanted an ex-Red on board but one who wouldn't be the slightest threat to his authority. Heighway's just come back to the club on a short-term basis, maybe he'll get more involved, but ideally we could do with someone who'll really push Rodgers into drilling the defence into shape.
 
Judge Jules said:
Meulensteen may not have the best credentials to offer such criticism, but that doesn't invalidate it.
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Its more the fact that its entirely self serving that invalidates it, a coach who needs a job reckons Liverpool need more coaches
 
Infair so far there is definitely some evidence backing his claims.
We've been rubbish in the CL, nieve and defensively all over the shop.
Outside of Europe we definitely could have done with a defensive coach.
Obviously Rodgers believes he doesn't need one which I think will ultimately be his downfall unless he gets in real quality on the pitch.
 
gkmacca said:
Pascoe seems a very amiable bloke, and Rodgers trusts him, so I can see why he was brought in. Mike Marsh, however, was hardly standing out as a promising coach at the Academy. That appointment seemed more to me like Rodgers wanted an ex-Red on board but one who wouldn't be the slightest threat to his authority. Heighway's just come back to the club on a short-term basis, maybe he'll get more involved, but ideally we could do with someone who'll really push Rodgers into drilling the defence into shape.
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Interesting about Heighway. What capacity is he coming back as - and is it in the Academy or with the seniors?
 
studsup said:
I wouldn't know about similar circumstances as I don't follow them and I can't assume if theirs were better or worse, but let's look at our own, specifically where the defence is concerned.

The likes of Manquillo and Lovren missed the entire pre-season tour and only started training with the side and playing a pre-season game (vs Dortmund) after we returned from the US tour. That means the week of Aug 5. We played against Dortmund on Aug 10. A week later was the league curtain raiser against Southampton. Moreno didn't even have a pre-season game with us at all as he arrived later, and went straight into the starting lineup against City in our 2nd league game.

Now, I'm not trying to excuse Rodgers for how our defence has been playing since last season, but he isn't exactly wrong when he says the packed game schedules haven't been exactly helpful in bringing people up to speed or onto the same page. That we had a shitty defence to begin with didn't make it any easier.

If he'd just said that Rodgers has demonstrated no fucking idea on how to set up or coach a defence (i.e. like Ryan), then maybe he'd have struck a chord with some here. However, he's specifically referred to the inexperience and inability to manage multiple competitions, and frankly, that's just premature. I don't know what the question put to him was, but I suspect it was the totally expected: "Do you think playing in Europe has affected Liverpool's performance this season?" and he kind of went with the default "Liverpool played well last season because they didn't have Europe" option.

Under Benitez, we often had to struggle after a midweek CL game. I suppose Meulensteen can give Benitez a few tips on how to get to a CL final as well.
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We struggled to win some of those Prem games but by no means all of them, and even that was down to Rafa's tactics as often as not. We didn't struggle with the basics of defending as the team has done throughout this season. Trying to put the two things side by side is comparing apples with oranges, and smacks of a "See no evil" response to legit criticism of Brendan and his coaching staff.
 
Judge Jules said:
We struggled to win some of those Prem games but by no means all of them, and even that was down to Rafa's tactics as often as not. We didn't struggle with the basics of defending as the team has done throughout this season. Trying to put the two things side by side is comparing apples with oranges, and smacks of a "See no evil" response to legit criticism of Brendan and his coaching staff.
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You're suggesting that I'm in some sort of "Rodgers can do no wrong" camp, which is totally wrong. I've said it - Meulensteen might have a point - but the base he's using to make his point (the CL experience stuff) is highly questionable at this point in time. I thought I'd made it clear enough in my argument but obviously I wasn't.

If you don't agree, then we don't agree. Fine. Don't put me in some Rodgers worshipping cult.
 
Judge Jules said:
Unfortunately I'm not so sure it is too early. Witness for example the way our defence is functioning - or, more to the point, failing to function - and Brendan's own explanation of that as being due to a lack of coaching time. Other teams have managed fine in similar circs. Meulensteen may not have the best credentials to offer such criticism, but that doesn't invalidate it.
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Rodgers' explanation is a total copout in my opinion. To cite a lack of coaching time for the shaky defence this year completely ignores the two years of dodgy defending and increased preparation time thus far. Moreno, Manquillo and Lovren have come in yes but there are still a lot of defensive players at the club that Rodgers has had for the entirety of his reign. Rodgers bought a defensive leader for the pitch, but what he needed was a defensive organiser on the training pitch.

Year one we were in transition. Year two our shocking defending was covered up by a full strength attack. Year three Rodgers has lost the goals and not manage to find the balance. Many said in the summer that losing Suarez's goals could be coped with by bringing down the goals against - I firmly believe now that Rodgers is never going to address this; his focus will be on repairing the attack. The attack is the real problem for Rodgers not the defence, he's just not wired up to think that way as a coach. Impressive when it goes right, depressive when it doesn't.
 
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