Rodgers due respect

[Matt]

47 minutes ago, Corky said:

We're not even on a bad run- we've lost 2 since December 16th. We're all speculating at the moment as to what might happen, not what has happened.

Performances have been poor since 27th Jan (Everton).

 

I blamed it on opposition making the games poor but i'm not so sure given the sustained run of lacklustre performances and form, even in wins.

 

Everton, Leeds, Fulham, Wolves, Brighton (Changed team, FA Cup game) were all poor, very insipid and uninspiring

 

Liverpool, we were pretty awful for 75 minutes, something switched and we looked exciting for the last 15 admitedly.

 

Villa last week I was waiting for them to score an equaliser, thankfully they didn't.

 

We never landed a glove on Slavia Prague over two legs.

 

This is how it started last season though, poor performances middle to end of Nov iirc (Ironically against Everton iirc)? Then results followed.

 

Rodgers couldn't turn it round or instill belief in the team last year when we didn't have a threadbare squad so I don't see him turning it around this time.

 

The one thing I will say in Rodgers' credit (Which I think I said in this thread somewhere a few weeks back) is people went on about our early season performances last season being fantastic, I disagreed, even when we played well last season I didn't think it was great, often found it passive and boring, however this season I think we have played some magnifcent, exciting stuff earlier in the season, there has been little to no sideways and backwards passing, we've gone forward, I felt he did learn from last season - up until this point.

 

Edited 28 February 2021 by Matt

[ARTY_FOX]

He's overall been sensational since he came here. Don't think that can be denied. Trust him to keep us steady and take us to European fixtures on Tuesdays and Wednesday.

Edited 28 February 2021 by ARTY_FOX

[deanolegend1989]

28 minutes ago, l444ry said:

Sicerely hope not Deano. Just think how much we'd have in the bank to replace them with, assuming it happened. 

Yes but there’s only so much that our incredible scouting team can keep pulling out gems.
It only takes one dud in a replacement of one of our proven top players where we then drop like a brick.

We can’t rely on constantly finding top players that are uncovered.

We need to keep hold of everyone of our top players this summer and build on top of that, NOT replacing them. To do that, I really fear we need CL football. It’s a huge opportunity for us that we’ve had twice now and we just cannot throw this away or we’ll get the consequences.

 

33 minutes ago, UniFox21 said:

Every single team minus maybe Man City are losing a few assets off of being nowhere. 

Building isn't overused. We can't smash hundreds of millions like the big 6, we have to improve slowly and consistently. Hence why you always have Rodgers describing this as a project. 

 

Ah yes the Spurs project that saw them able to find a billion pound stadium? Poch pushed spurs up a level or three. Yes they missed out on titles, but they're a hell of a lot better than they were.

 

You're clearly going for extreme worse case scenarios, on the back of bad results. 

I agree with a lot of your post, but if it was a project back in 2019 it’s not now, we’re close to the finished article. Football and certain squads don’t progress over years and years, they have a window and you have to maximise when it’s working.

I mentioned Poch because he got Spurs to the peak and they had to do something in those 2/3 years. Otherwise the boat is missed, Erikson leaves, Trippier goes, Walker goes, Rose goes past his best, Ali drops off etc. Rebuilding takes ages. By then Kane will be past his best and then your scrambling around for years.

Its happening at Liverpool now, same 2/3 year bracket then the team peaks and its transitioning for ages of mish mashing around.

 

Its even worse for us, as you rightly say, we can’t compete with the big pockets of those clubs. So missing the boat for us is even more catastrophic for us.

 

17 minutes ago, TJB-fox said:

1. When have we ever gone out and sold multiple key players in one window? Have you paid zero attention to the way our owners operate in the transfer market. There’s utterly no way in hell we’d allow Maddison Fofana Barnes to go in the same window. And if we let one go it’ll be for an astronomical fee that we cant say no to so would likely be a great deal for the club. 

2. Whether you like it or not we’re currently aspiring to be on spurs level. A well run club that consistently finishes in Europe, that can’t quite compete financially with the mega clubs off the pitch but tries to on it. Just hopefully we can do it and add a few more pieces of silverware than they have.

3. If you think the idea of progress and development is nonsense then I don’t really know where to go from here. I’ve seen your mendy posts so maybe I should take the hint  if we’re  not building and enhancing the project that is our club what on Earth have we been doing since the Thai’s came in? The progress on + off the pitch has been equally incredibly evident and impressive. 

As I’ve said progress and development doesn’t happen for long in football, you get 2/3 seasons max and you have to achieve things in that window or it’s lost.

 

If we do not make CL football this year, it’ll be very hard to keep hold of everyone and build. We lose the money to help build our squad, we have to buy a top striker to replace Vardy and we would have to sell without the extra money for CL.
It also is very naive for you to think that we will continue to 100% pluck gems. Recruitment can be hit and miss even for the top clubs so to expect us to continue that and rely on that method is extremely naive. One of 2 wrong ones and we can’t throw millions to bail us out.

We are in a moment right in the middle of the tightrope, it can go one of 2 ways but CL qualification and the money and pulling power it comes with it, is crucial for our ‘progression’ and ‘development’ as a club. Simple as that.

[Pliskin]

31 minutes ago, frany104 said:

Just responded in a previous post. I understand it’s difficult in Jan and there’s a pandemic. Other clubs managed it! 

Who though? Who made a meaningful game changing signing in January? 

[CrispinLA in Texas]

Yup other midtable clubs don't need to sell to buy, plus we have sold all our high value s*** players and now we only got our good players left unless we offload players Nacho Perez etc for a couple of million. 

[Corky]

Rodgers got through the first half of the season very well, we coped with Europe and the injuries, our style of play accommodated the extra matches in a shorter spell and it looked like we were getting close to full strength in the New Year. Since then we've lost virtually a player a week for differing reasons.

 

He's doing everything he can in very trying circumstances. We're still in a good position. That may change soon but he's having to adapt and change every game presently.

[King of Gipsy Lane]

They are getting tired now ROGERS BALL means the team is at max pace all season 

 

our squad isn’t as good as some claim and now we are likely to struggle, glad we are out of Europe 

 

we should slip out of the FA cup now and focus on top 4 

 

we can’t win the cup given all that’s now happened with players and injury 

 

we still need to strengthen in the summer and are 3/5 quality players short of being a true top 4 team 

[turlo]

2 minutes ago, CrispinLA in Texas said:

Yup other midtable clubs don't need to sell to buy, plus we have sold all our high value s*** players and now we only got our good players left unless we offload players Nacho Perez etc for a couple of million. 

Yep, I can't think of any high value players we could sell on that wouldn't really hurt us or be easy to replace. We'd do well to get 10-15 mill for the likes of Perez, Nacho, Mendy etc

[Strokes]

1 hour ago, volpeazzurro said:

And you're sure they'd sell them in the middle of their season? Do you think it worth paying something like possibly 30m ransome for an unproven Edouard as opposed to possibly 15m in the summer? It's a business first and foremost and that's poor business. We'll just have to see whether Rodgers even rates him. Look at what we've usually spent each year without selling a main asset and you'd have spent approaching 2yrs money potentially on 2 players when you could get them for next to nothing in the summer. Celtic were still competing then also.

1 Celtic were not competing then, they haven’t been all season.

 

2 it wouldn’t be a ransom, it’s been widely reported he would be available for less than £20m.

 

3 The question I responded too didn’t stipulate that Rodgers had too rate them or not.

 

4 Even if they turned out not to be very good, I’d imagine they’d be better than playing an injured player.

[LeeTheFox]

Would love to see Brendan have a bit more passion on the sideline I know it’s not his style but it makes it so frustrating seeing us play absolutely awful and him not saying or doing anything.

[coolhandfox]

56 minutes ago, Dames said:

I don’t want to come across as entitled but what is the actual point of getting into Europe if its not going to be taken seriously? 
 

BR has done great to get us to where we are but if he wants to be regarded among the elite managers of the game as well as among Leicester greats such as O’Neill, Ranieri and even Pearson then he needs to win something.  This team is certainly good enough. Sacrificing European football for a timid performance against one of the worst Arsenal starting 11s in the past 20 years is not good, considering how close our starting 11 was to what you’d call full strength. 

How could we have took it more seriously.

The squad is knackered. 

[MrsJohnMurphy]

1 hour ago, Larry_LCFC said:

I agree Brendan has built one of the best squads we have ever had. Arguably on paper better than the title winning squad. But we need to be realistic, is our current squad capable of a title win? I don't think so. Capable of top 4? I would say yes. Are we likely to invest significantly in the next 12 months? Probably not. We have got what we have got and we need to achieve something with it because we have some absolute quality players that we need to keep.

 

Its frustrating because I genuinely think we can finish in the top 4 this season with BR in charge if we put our minds to it. Last season was a gutting way to finish. A repeat of it would just be going round in circles.

Mate.....we've been utterly shagged with injuries

[MrsJohnMurphy]

57 minutes ago, l444ry said:

Sicerely hope not Deano. Just think how much we'd have in the bank to replace them with, assuming it happened. 

[Guest]

I actually can't believe the extent to which some people dislike him, you know

[Dames]

1 minute ago, Guest said:

I actually can't believe the extent to which some people dislike him, you know

I don’t think its a case of disliking him, not from my perspective but for a manager of his supposed calibre and what we are paying, we should be expecting more from him. 
 

Sometimes he delivers and gets lauded, other times he doesn't and gets criticised. 

[surrifox]

10 minutes ago, MrsJohnMurphy said:

Mate.....we've been utterly shagged with injuries

And I haven’t heard BR hide behind this or make it an excuse . Listen to Dyche with no other matches except finishing the league program asking for game postponements and Klopp banging on about one player injury with 2 windows to replace him ( I believe VVD was injured before the first window closed). Proud of that 

[Dames]

17 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

How could we have took it more seriously.

The squad is knackered. 

We could have player our best 11 like Arsenal did and then play the ‘reserves’ in the league game. 
 

Instead we did the opposite and still lost. The team being knackered isn’t an excuse, they are professional athletes with access to some of the best facilities in the world, with the rest some of them got in midweek they should have been better prepared for today. 
 

Most other teams are in the same boat as us for fixtures, yes some have bigger squads and less injuries but tiredness should not be an excuse.

[StanSP]

32 minutes ago, Matt said:

45 minutes ago, Corky said:

We're not even on a bad run- we've lost 2 since December 16th. We're all speculating at the moment as to what might happen, not what has happened.

Performances have been poor since 27th Jan (Everton).

 

I blamed it on opposition making the games poor but i'm not so sure given the sustained run of lacklustre performances and form, even in wins.

 

Everton, Leeds, Fulham, Wolves, Brighton (Changed team, FA Cup game) were all poor, very insipid and uninspiring

 

Liverpool, we were pretty awful for 75 minutes, something switched and we looked exciting for the last 15 admitedly.

 

Villa last week I was waiting for them to score an equaliser, thankfully they didn't.

 

We never landed a glove on Slavia Prague over two legs.

I disagree with some of those games you've mentioned.

 

Everton we could/should have won. Had enough chances. I don't recall it being 'poor'.

 

Leeds was shit.

 

Fulham we did enough to win. And by that I mean we played well and were clinical enough to get the goals. Some good spells and I can't recall them threatening our goal; I don't think it was as poor as you make out to be included in this discussion.

 

Wolves could have been better, I agree. Same with Brighton. 

 

To not include the first half at Villa is quite ignorant, in my eyes. We were quality in that first half and played how we expected. Exploited the spaces, direct, got 2 deserved goals. Then 2nd half I agree we were underwhelming and also thankful they didn't score.

 

I don't want to harp on about the tiredness of players but I mentioned earlier (not sure if this thread or not) about just how many games we've played. 9 games in 29 days. 15 in 56. It's a serious amount of football and the only thing I could say against Rodgers is that the squad could have been managed better i.e. playing/not playing some players, resting some. But having said that, he rested Barnes on Thursday for some of the game to try and help his injury. So as someone said before, Rodgers knows the squad and who needs to be rested based on his own assessment of what he sees as well as the medical staff. 

 

I think right now, coupled with the sheer bad fortune of injuries, our thin squad is coming back to bite us. There's only so much we can do with playing some of the back-up players and trying to move things around. I can't remember the last time we had a full squad to pick from, and also had a decent array of subs to pick from either.

[StanSP]

3 minutes ago, Dames said:

I don’t think its a case of disliking him, not from my perspective but for a manager of his supposed calibre and what we are paying, we should be expecting more from him. 
 

Sometimes he delivers and gets lauded, other times he doesn't and gets criticised. 

In isolation, perhaps.

 

The bigger picture is pretty much our finishes season by season and rise in stature as a club compared to what it was like before he joined (not saying he's the sole reason, but he's definitely helped elevate us to be competitive and break the proverbial glass ceiling).

[Dames]

1 minute ago, StanSP said:

In isolation, perhaps.

 

The bigger picture is pretty much our finishes season by season and rise in stature as a club compared to what it was like before he joined (not saying he's the sole reason, but he's definitely helped elevate us to be competitive and break the proverbial glass ceiling).

True he has helped elevate us there’s no denying that. But on the flip side i think many fans would have preferred we went all in on the Europa League, we don’t get European football every season it would have been nice to see us go far and I believe we had a team good enough to win it. 
 

I think part of why people are struggling to warm to him as much as other managers is the fact that deep down we all know this is a marriage of convenience. Rodgers will always have his eye on the bigger jobs and for the most part we are happy with that as long as when he leaves us he leaves us in a good position. 

[UpTheLeagueFox]

45 minutes ago, Matt said:

Rodgers couldn't turn it round or instill belief in the team last year when we didn't have a threadbare squad so I don't see him turning it around this time.

Yet he managed to turn around a squad in the abridged summer which had a ghastly second half to last season to have us sitting third at the end of February - with the backdrop of playing in Europe and awful injuries in the mix.

 

Be surprised if there's any/many in the fanbase who thought last summer we'd be doing as well as we have. 

 

30 minutes ago, Strokes said:

4 Even if they turned out not to be very good, I’d imagine they’d be better than playing an injured player.

Have you forgotten Ryan Bennett ?

[Matt]

6 minutes ago, UpTheLeagueFox said:

Yet he managed to turn around a squad in the abridged summer which had a ghastly second half to last season to have us sitting third at the end of February - with the backdrop of playing in Europe and awful injuries in the mix.

 

Be surprised if there's any/many in the fanbase who thought last summer we'd be doing as well as we have.

Credit where credit is due and i've noted how well we've played, learnt and improved up until the end of January.

 

Does that mean i'll not make comments now? Not at all, not when we've seen something previously that a similar patten might reoccur.

 

Edited 28 February 2021 by Matt

[HighPeakFox]

There is so much nonsense being spouted in here, it absolutely beggars belief. Apparently growing a squad isn't a thing, it's just a figment of our collective imagination. I guess one does have to invent  new crap up when Mendy can no longer be blamed.

[StanSP]

4 minutes ago, Dames said:

True he has helped elevate us there’s no denying that. But on the flip side i think many fans would have preferred we went all in on the Europa League, we don’t get European football every season it would have been nice to see us go far and I believe we had a team good enough to win it. 
 

I think part of why people are struggling to warm to him as much as other managers is the fact that deep down we all know this is a marriage of convenience. Rodgers will always have his eye on the bigger jobs and for the most part we are happy with that as long as when he leaves us he leaves us in a good position. 

I appreciate we don't get European football every season but we're in a great position in the league to ensure we get it next season, too. Consistency in qualifying for European football each season will only serve us better for the future. I'd love to think we'd be in a better position to handle Europe next season should we qualify. And by that, I mean hopefully a decent transfer window, a proper pre-season and a less hectic schedule to cram in with no COVID-impacted football.

 

I think the 2nd bit is a bit presumptuous. Even if it is the case, why should that stop anyone trying to back him and getting the best out of him while he's here?

 

Could the same not be said of some players in that scenario - Fofana, Youri, Ricardo, Soyuncu. Is it not a 'marriage of convenience' for them to be here and be ambitious enough to want to go to bigger clubs?

[Strokes]

8 minutes ago, UpTheLeagueFox said:

 

 

Have you forgotten Ryan Bennett ?

Yes

Thanks for reminding me, this day just gets worse.