‘Probably got lucky’: Brendan Rodgers claims he’s overlooked because he’s British

[King of Gipsy Lane]

Successful, Ruthless, bright, arrogant, driven and committed 

 

what a man, have my babies now 

[Le Renard]

Mourinho said he is the special one and all our media fawn around him and worship him like he's the messiah, if a British manager had said that, he would be laughing stock of Football....oh wait, didn't Allardyce say that he was a great manager, and we all took the p**s out of him!  Rodgers points out something that is obvious to most people in the game that British managers don't get the respect they deserve.  look what Moyes is doing at West Ham, he's had to rebuild his reputation after his stint at the Manure and Rodgers didn't exactly fail at Liverpool, but was cast out into the wilderness of Scottish football.  Poch didn't win anything at Spurs but he's lauded and praised by Sky et al, they were trying to put him in the shop window for Yanited.

 

p.s. I wish Rodgers would cut out his David Brentism's though!

[Vlad the Fox]

Firstly I think the comment was tongue in cheek, he seemed to wait for stringer to laugh but due to the interview being over zoom was probably lost.

 

As for British managers getting a tougher run of it, look at the stick Bruce gets at Newcastle for his turgid football despite out performing the “genius” rafa’s turgid football.

[HighPeakFox]

I've seen David Brent mentioned again. What is it he's currently saying that merits this comparison? I'm not seeing it. 

[CosbehFox]

6 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

I've seen David Brent mentioned again. What is it he's currently saying that merits this comparison? I'm not seeing it. 

Derives back to his period at Liverpool and Swansea. Particularly when he was on the behind the scenes documentary at Liverpool. He’s nowhere near as bad now 

[AmyLGK]

9 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

I've seen David Brent mentioned again. What is it he's currently saying that merits this comparison? I'm not seeing it. 

 

2 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Derives back to his period at Liverpool and Swansea. Particularly when he was on the behind the scenes documentary at Liverpool. He’s nowhere near as bad now 

 

Yeah, I read something yesterday which alluded to him being made fun of in the way he conducts himself in interviews - i was perplexed! I always thought he came across really well. 

 

Since lecturing I've often found myself doing a few David Brent-isms, it's so easily done! 

[HighPeakFox]

25 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Derives back to his period at Liverpool and Swansea. Particularly when he was on the behind the scenes documentary at Liverpool. He’s nowhere near as bad now 

 

20 minutes ago, AmyLGK said:

 

 

Yeah, I read something yesterday which alluded to him being made fun of in the way he conducts himself in interviews - i was perplexed! I always thought he came across really well. 

 

Since lecturing I've often found myself doing a few David Brent-isms, it's so easily done! 

Exactly, there's nothing he's currently doing. It is yet another example of a reputation being forced to fit when it no longer does. Tiresome. 

[bovril]

He's Irish isn't he? 

[yorkie1999]

1 hour ago, bovril said:

He's Irish isn't he? 

Northern Irish.

[sacreblueits442]

3 hours ago, Le Renard said:

Mourinho said he is the special one and all our media fawn around him and worship him like he's the messiah, if a British manager had said that, he would be laughing stock of Football....oh wait, didn't Allardyce say that he was a great manager, and we all took the p**s out of him!  Rodgers points out something that is obvious to most people in the game that British managers don't get the respect they deserve.  look what Moyes is doing at West Ham, he's had to rebuild his reputation after his stint at the Manure and Rodgers didn't exactly fail at Liverpool, but was cast out into the wilderness of Scottish football.  Poch didn't win anything at Spurs but he's lauded and praised by Sky et al, they were trying to put him in the shop window for Yanited.

 

p.s. I wish Rodgers would cut out his David Brentism's though!

...Porto won the Champions League under him.....what are their equivalent in the Premier League?

[gw_leics772]

3 hours ago, HighPeakFox said:

I've seen David Brent mentioned again. What is it he's currently saying that merits this comparison? I'm not seeing it. 

He just looks a bit like him with his big bright toothy smile,  more like mannerisms and you half expect him to do "that dance" 

[foxile5]

11 hours ago, shen said:

I am baffled at this opinion.

Guardiola, Mourinho, Klopp, Ferguson, Wenger, Van Gaal, Trappatoni, Benitez... all of these have surely shown far less humility and much more ego than Rodgers ever has.

They've all won a lot more too...

 

I'm not saying a bit of ego is bad. Just saying that it's sometimes a burden. 

[HighPeakFox]

16 minutes ago, gw_leics772 said:

He just looks a bit like him with his big bright toothy smile,  more like mannerisms and you half expect him to do "that dance" 

I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this matter. 

[shen]

12 minutes ago, foxile5 said:

They've all won a lot more too...

 

I'm not saying a bit of ego is bad. Just saying that it's sometimes a burden. 

Yes, that is why I named them since you said winners need ego and humility. My point was that none of those mentioned are particularly known for their humility, so why are you holding these to one standard and Rodgers to another? If anything, he's very much down to earth and rarely bigs himself up - which is more atypical for a 'winner' type.

[foxile5]

6 minutes ago, shen said:

Yes, that is why I named them since you said winners need ego and humility. My point was that none of those mentioned are particularly known for their humility, so why are you holding these to one standard and Rodgers to another? If anything, he's very much down to earth and rarely bigs himself up - which is more atypical for a 'winner' type.

Ah - fascinating point.

 

I would say, with Rodgers, he's displaying an arrogance before having earnt it. If he was here as a multiple league winner, champions league winner, or a man who turned round an ailing vessel into a near unbeatable machine then it's a different context.

 

As it stands the arrogance I see in him is usually to his detriment, as in it has gone wrongly, and never resultant of having been the biggest fish in the biggest pond. 

 

I do see your point, however. I'm holding them all to the same standard. When you're being a bit of a Billy Big 'Un - refusing to work with a bigger squad, making rash substitutions, rotating players who are obviously in form - then it needs to come with the gold standard results. Not capitulation under pressure.

 

He's done well, I'll grant you that, and I do see some 'down to earth' nature. Though lets not pretend this isn't the man who said he loved Swansea because he could smell 'the mince cooking in the air' when he ran through their slums. He's still a bit helium.

 

People are taking my view of his faults as some personalised assault. Let me assure you I don't dislike the bloke, just see huge room for growth. He is but a man - faulted and talented at once.

[foxfanazer]

Not got a problem with what he's said and he's probably right but just don't think that should be something he's worrying about. Eyes on the prize Brendan 

[Guest SO1]

4 hours ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Derives back to his period at Liverpool and Swansea. Particularly when he was on the behind the scenes documentary at Liverpool. He’s nowhere near as bad now 

Back when he dared to be a human being like the rest of us. The nerve.

[Dahnsouff]

1 minute ago, SO1 said:

Back when he dared to be a human being like the rest of us. The nerve.

 

Shouldn't you be busy fretting about the election??

[Guest SO1]

Just now, Dahnsouff said:

 

Shouldn't you be busy fretting about the election??

 

[dylanlegend]

He’s a good manager but beating Leeds 3-1 doesn’t make up for us bottling top 4 last season. Very high opinion of himself if he’s being serious 

 

Numerous examples in the past (at us, Celtic, LIV) of his tactics being pisshhh, in fact tactically this is probably the only season he’s changing things up more than just playing plan A (pass to death) football every game, which is what he’s done constantly in the past

Edited 5 November 2020 by dylanlegend

[MonkeyTennis?]

Piece on Rogers in The Times today: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/why-is-brendan-rodgers-so-underappreciated-dglbsd5fm - Not sure there's anything new here, but sharing it nonetheless. 

 

Why is Brendan Rodgers so underappreciated?
Tom Roddy
Thursday November 05 2020, 12.00pm, The Times

Sam Allardyce regretted the words as soon as they left his lips. It was November 2012 and his West Ham United side were preparing to host Roberto Mancini’s Premier League champions Manchester City at Upton Park.

In the past year, Allardyce had guided West Ham back into the top flight, via the play-offs, and were already up to ninth by November. That summer, he had also seen André Villas-Boas appointed Tottenham Hotspur manager after being sacked by Chelsea, who replaced him with Roberto Di Matteo.

This was Allardyce’s first job since Blackburn Rovers, the team he had taken over in the relegation places and lifted to mid-table before being sacked. The imminent arrival of Mancini, City’s stylish Italian coach, left Allardyce considering the perspective of him in English football.

“I won’t ever be going to a top-four club because I’m not called Allardici,” he famously said, before quickly adding: “That was tongue in cheek.”

It was too late. The words had already escaped and made their way along the airwaves and into the columns of newspapers. Here was a soundbite so revealing that it would never be forgotten, tagged to Allardyce for the rest of his career and raised every time a debate over British and foreign managers was made.

And so to Elland Road on Monday where Brendan Rodgers subtly made a similar point. Rodgers had just taken Leicester City to second in the Premier League after beating Marcelo Bielsa’s much-lauded Leeds United 4-1. Here was a chance to voice his thoughts.

“Because I’m a British manager, we probably got lucky,” Rodgers said sarcastically. “That is the way it works for British managers in these games, but the players were tactically very good and got their rewards.”

It wasn’t quite “Allardici” territory but the sentiment was the same. Both carried a feeling of under-appreciation, this sense that their work wasn’t given the recognition it deserved. Leicester are second in the Premier League table, after all, having already beaten both City and Arsenal this season.

They have done so with the gruelling weekly schedule of Thursday-Sunday games that comes with competing in the Europa League. With a limited squad alongside a litany of injuries, Leicester have still managed to win their opening two group games and sit top of their group.

There are some who, quite understandably, say they should be playing in the Champions League instead, having let an eight-point lead to fifth place slip in the final nine games of last season. But there is no escaping how much Leicester had overachieved throughout the season under Rodgers, spending the majority of autumn in second place.

Last week, they travelled 3,000 miles to beat an impressive AEK Athens side with a mature performance before Monday’s meeting with Bielsa’s Leeds. Perhaps Rodgers looked at Leeds drawing with City last month, a week after Leicester had beaten them 5-2, and questioned the reaction.

The game between City and Leeds was extremely entertaining and celebrated as a masterpiece provided by Pep Guardiola and Bielsa, his former mentor. “Fantasy Football,” read the headline in The Sun. Focus the previous week, after Leicester’s win, was predominantly on Jamie Vardy’s 21-minute hat-trick.

It was Rodgers who has refined Vardy’s game so effectively, though. He has already scored eight times in seven games this season in a campaign which he will end at the age of 34. Vardy was the golden boot winner last year with 23 goals, having scored 18 the year before Rodgers arrived.

Vardy is also one of only two regulars in the Leicester line-up from the title-winning team of 2016. For Leicester, this has been a rebuilding process on a budget incomparable to the teams traditionally in the top six. For Rodgers, this has been a rebuilding process, too, which goes back to October 2015 when he was sacked by Liverpool.

He had come so close to delivering the Premier League title at Anfield but after his dismissal he seemed to slip from the list of coaches considered among the elite and start a journey back to the top. It led to one of Celtic’s most dominant periods in Scottish football before Leicester punched well above their weight again.

It seemed fitting, then, that on Monday night, as Rodgers led Leicester to another impressive victory, the talk of a top manager returning to a top job surrounded Mauricio Pochettino. Tottenham Hotspur’s excellent former head coach, who was in the Sky Sports studios, seems certain to get a position at one of Europe’s giant clubs, and deservedly so.

It is doubtful that he’ll have to spend three years proving himself again in Glasgow before that happens, though. That was tongue in cheek, of course.

[Guest SO1]

24 minutes ago, dylanlegend said:

He’s a good manager but beating Leeds 3-1 doesn’t make up for us bottling top 4 last season. Very high opinion of himself if he’s being serious 

 

Numerous examples in the past (at us, Celtic, LIV) of his tactics being pisshhh, in fact tactically this is probably the only season he’s changing things up more than just playing plan A (pass to death) football every game, which is what he’s done constantly in the past

4

[Le Renard]

1 hour ago, sacreblueits442 said:

...Porto won the Champions League under him.....what are their equivalent in the Premier League?

The special one didn't do it with a team without a winning pedigree....."Porto is the second most decorated team in Portugal, with 78 major trophies, of which 71 were achieved in domestic competitions.^[3] These comprise 29 Primeira Liga titles (five of which were won consecutively between 1994–95 and 1998–99, They won the European Cup/UEFA Champions League in 1987 and 2004, the UEFA Cup/Europa League in 2003 and 2011, the UEFA Super Cup in 1987, and the Intercontinental Cup in 1987 and 2004.  So are they equivalent to a Liverpool or Manure?

 

p.s. Just being pedantic but it is sacre bleu not sacre blue.

[KingsX]

I was optimistic but distrustful on his hiring.  I’ve come around.  Rodgers has done an artful job of blending the new talent into the core of the squad.  And jumped his own Rubicon, by showing an ability to mix and match lineups and tactical approaches to fit the opponent.

 

Watching the Spurs doco made me realize how tough these guys’ jobs are.  Handling the insatiable press, motivating 25 different personalities, balancing your actual resources with sometimes unreasonable expectations.

 

These guys are a mixture of man management, organization, salesmanship and blarney because they have to be.  I don’t think anyone would be making David Brent comparisons based only on his tenure here.  He’s living with the fact that he set his own narrative in stone several years ago -- and handling it well.

 

He’s finally grown into the job, and we are the beneficiaries.

[sacreblueits442]

1 minute ago, Le Renard said:

The special one didn't do it with a team without a winning pedigree....."Porto is the second most decorated team in Portugal, with 78 major trophies, of which 71 were achieved in domestic competitions.^[3] These comprise 29 Primeira Liga titles (five of which were won consecutively between 1994–95 and 1998–99, They won the European Cup/UEFA Champions League in 1987 and 2004, the UEFA Cup/Europa League in 2003 and 2011, the UEFA Super Cup in 1987, and the Intercontinental Cup in 1987 and 2004.  So are they equivalent to a Liverpool or Manure?

 

p.s. Just being pedantic but it is sacre bleu not sacre blue.

...incredible that you do not realise that the "blue" is deliberate!!!