The Manager

[Ryan]

I refuse to participate in that other abortion of a thread from RedNinja.

Anyway, tonight:

• That team selection. Deary fucking me. 4 central midfielders, and a 34 year old striker that can’t run.
• No striker or goalscorer on the bench.
• Lallana, our only creative player outside of Sterling, sat on the bench the entire night.
• Throwing Skrtel up front as a ‘tactic’.
• Jose Enrique.
• The continued deployment of a seriously under performing Jordan Henderson.
• 1-0 down after 35 minutes despite having 2 defensive midfielders in the side
• At left wing.
• And the inability to coax passion, drive and a fucking go out of a team on a must-win night.

And this season:

• 4 points from 6 CL games.
• 9th in the league.
• $100M+ wasted
• A continued inability to organise a defensive
• 3 years in, over 200M spent and we have one goalscorer in the entire squad.

It’s not looking good for him is it?

 

[Insignificance]

Nah... Anyone beleiving that Henderson-Lucas-allen-gerrard should be a midfield in a game we needed to win should piss off.

 

[keniget]

Well, as I said in the other thread, I've lost hope tonight. I'm not at the point of actively calling for his head but I've given up on it getting any better in the short-term.

That said, I still seem to be a little bit more optimistic than others on some fronts. His signings for example. It doesn't feel like we've landed a collection of Diaos. There is still plenty of time for a bunch of them to come good.

I also think the players want to win and are trying, it's just that they're being hamstrung by the manager and one or two in the squad.

 

[Wiberg]

We spent 43 mill this season. We lost SAS.

Has he been slow to adapt? Yes.
Has he failed completely to address and handle the Gerrard issue? Yes.

Get a striker in January and a fit Sturridge and play Gerrard from the bench.

I think he will learn and get it right.

But he has been utter wank this season. No argument. Tonight perhaps the worst display so far... Ever.

 

[Portly]

As soon as the teamsheet was revealed, everybody in the ground knew that we were going to struggle to win the game with that lineup. Not criticising the players as individuals, just Rodgers' team selection. Coutinho, Lallana and Markovic on the bench - midfielders who could have troubled the Basel defence.

Sometimes the obvious tactic is the right tactic. You need to win the match - select attacking players. I don't know what Rodgers' cunning plan might have been, but it just looked stupid. We ended up with more or less the right team, but by then it was too late.

I wish Everton had got Rodgers and Liverpool had got Martinez.

 

[Shadey]

Defeat at scum and he's out.

 

[Skullflower]

we had to make basel shit themselves through intensity of play in the first ten mins. it is impossible to do that with lambert and gerrard in the team. it was rodgers who shit himself.

 

[Skullflower]

I wish Everton had got Rodgers and Liverpool had got Martinez.

fuck off

 

[Portly]

fuck off

I reckon Martinez would have done much better with the budget Rodgers has had.

 

[Skullflower]

I reckon Martinez would have done much better with the budget Rodgers has had.

totally different gig

 

[Jack D Rips]

I'm just finding it really difficult to understand how the manager we had last season would put that team out tonight in a match that we had to win, Even taking into account that Suarez is gone and Sturridge is injured.

 

[gkmacca]

He's relatively young and spouts endless jargon and geekspeak, so I thought that was supposed to be progress. Anyway, he has until the end of the season to show that last season wasn't a fluke. Then he has to prove that last season's and this season's defensive shambles can be eradicated. Here and now, however, I can't see what any discussion will produce of a constructive nature.

 

[Ryan]

And today's Rodgson comment:

"They're a good side and they are experienced at this level. They're the top side in Swiss football."

 

[gkmacca]

God almighty.

 

[LarryHagman]

Not really any point turfing him out now though is there? I mean, for who? Villas Boas or, gulp, Benitez.
He has been crap but he’s also been unlucky. Suarez was never going to stay, Sturridge is perma-crocked and Gerrard is on the wane; those 3 scored 70 goals last year. But yeah, he has never addressed the defence properly, he looks incapable to be fair, and he’s seemingly wasted the majority of the Suarez money on dross.
Last season is looking like a fluke at the moment, like it did when we came 2nd about 5 or 6 years ago. We need to stop declaring players World Class when they have a half-decent season. The likes of Henderson, Coutinho, Skrtel, Allen etc. even Lucas, are competent to decent Prem players, nothing more. Suarez, Sturridge and Gerrard were our big boys, 1 is gone, 1 is missing, 1 is fairly finished.
Face facts, Suarez dragged us to that last season.
There’s still a lot to play for, let’s see where we are at the end of the season. Come the end, if we’re out of the 4 with a significantly worse total than last year then he has to go. And that looks likely.

 

[gkmacca]

We need to stop declaring players World Class when they have a half-decent season.

I don't see this has much to do with it. I don't think any of these players are too troubled by hype. Sterling isn't. He's just utterly burnt out. Hendo isn't. He's lost his automatic get of jail card now that Suarez has gone, and since Gerrard has been partly moved and partly left where he was, Hendo is partly sure of what he's supposed to be doing and partly left clueless. The hype doesn't affect them half as much as it affects us.

 

[hmmmmm1]

Relaying on studge was a big failing.

Transfer committee awful in not getting a top class forward,

 

[Portly]

I would forgive Rodgers if he had selected anything like the right team from the players available to him. I'm sure he knows a lot more about football than the average fan like me, but as soon as the team was announced, everybody gulped. It was so wrong.

 

[gkmacca]

Relaying on studge was a big failing.

Transfer committee awful in not getting a top class forward,

I do think this criticism - I include myself in this - demands a constructive aspect, in the sense that we don't just make it but also say what should have been done. Personally, I don't make it because I simply couldn't tell you who was available who we COULD have afforded/persuaded to come/signed.

 

[Markeh]

I have always been desperate for Rodgers to succeed because of where he's from but at the same time there have always been niggling doubts about what he's doing with the team and his ability as a manager.

• I was concerned that he wasn't able to generate the sterile domination stuff we were led to believe he was trying to implement
• It felt a bit like he stumbled upon something that worked really well last season and lucked out with some players being in the form of their lives
• He couldn't sort the defence or buy defenders but last seasons success overshadowed that
• He has made (imo) mistakes with team selection pretty regularly and doesn't seem to learn
• Cant attract big names or sign the right players to address problem areas

I still like the guy and really want him to succeed but he has to turn things around rapidly and I'm not sure I'd trust him or whoever is making the player decisions with any more money.

 

[hmmmmm1]

I do think this criticism - I include myself in this - demands a constructive aspect, in the sense that we don't just make it but also say what should have been done. Personally, I don't make it because I simply couldn't tell you who was available who we COULD have afforded/persuaded to come/signed.

Club knew we would be without Luis for most of the summer, if the best they could come up with is a Punt at Mario, then thats poor planning.

Think we didn't want to spend big on a striker after the Carroll fiasco so decided to buy more attaching midfield players behind a fit studge

 

[gkmacca]

He should have had an experienced man above him at the club who'd actually help the bloke learn on the job, but of course he was - ludicrously, I still maintain - allowed to block all such suggestions. I bet, deep down, he'd love such a figure now.

 

[gkmacca]

Club knew we would be without Luis for most of the summer, if the best they could come up with is a Punt at Mario, then thats poor planning.

Think we didn't want to spend big on a striker after the Carroll fiasco so decided to buy more attaching midfield players behind a fit studge

But again: WHO was available, who wanted to come and who we could afford? We need to answer this honestly. Otherwise we might as well complain we didn't sign Messi.

 

[Gary25]

He should have had an experienced man above him at the club who'd actually help the bloke learn on the job, but of course he was - ludicrously, I still maintain - allowed to block all such suggestions. I bet, deep down, he'd love such a figure now.

When are these clowns on 'the committee' going to be held accountable as well?

I'm not defending Rodgers'...he's royally fucking things up for himself but why are men in their fancy suits with fancy job titles and undoubtedly massive wages getting away with murder?

 

[hmmmmm1]

But again, WHO was available, who wanted to come and we could afford? Otherwise we might as well complain we didn't sign Messi.

probably been done to done but the likes of Bony/Cavani/Lavezzi if we were prepared to spend big.

Even the punt he got wrong, seems like Eto would have been the better buy

 

[gkmacca]

Okay. Well personally I didn't/don't think Bony was up to the standard. As far as I know Cavani didn't want to come. No idea about Lavezzi, but fair enough, that's a decent enough suggestion. I certainly agree about Et'o, I was bemused by that snub, especially given the European games we had.

 

[peterhague]

At a minimum I don't want him to have any further involvement in the transfers. I really think we need a proper sporting director to organise the strategy there and to have a steadier influence over things like the academy. No more really damaging bone-headed signings like Lallana and Lovren. So he'd have to agree to something like that for me just for starters.

But in truth I think there are better coaches out there, whether or not we could get them in the middle of the season I'm not sure.

 

[Ryan]

Y'see, we could potentially improve the side in January by adding a striker or whatever and make a mad desperate push for 4th place, but I have zero faith in Rodgers ability to actually sign anyone decent.

 

[Gary25]

Y'see, we could potentially improve the side in January by adding a striker or whatever and make a mad desperate push for 4th place, but I have zero faith in Rodgers ability to actually sign anyone decent.

Few decent sources for info on Twitter are saying there'll be fuck all business done by us in January.

 

[gkmacca]

As I said in another thread, all managers have had their input questioned and sometimes revised by the board, so it's always been there, but once you glorify the process as being 'the committee' then you have to make it transparent. Take Mario: Rushie is involved in the discussions, then supports the transfer publicly, then tells a mate who's a hack that he can't understand what the player is doing in a Liverpool shirt. Managers can't thrive with that nonsense going on above them throughout a season. It breeds chaos.