Brendan Rodgers

[Kilworthfox]

12 minutes ago, JimmyC74 said:

Most of the side to side passes involved Cags, Vestergaard and Brunt and then back again.

 

Tbf lack of creativity was part players failing to make runs and also inability to thread a pass forward.

 

we lack players like Madders who see the opportunity and are willing / have the ability to make the pass.

It is safe football. Its dull to watch and ineffective. 

 

Why would a manager continually ask players to fulfill roles they aren't capable of filling, even against league 2s worst side? 

[RowlattsFox]

4 minutes ago, Kilworthfox said:

It is safe football. Its dull to watch and ineffective. 

 

Why would a manager continually ask players to fulfill roles they aren't capable of filling, even against league 2s worst side? 

I think Rodgers should be able to expect premier League footballers to play passes to each other. Im pretty confident Rodgers wants us to pass and move quicker but we have some of the worst first touches in the league.

 

Dull or not, we make passing sideways difficult at times. 

[Matt]

 

[Insert team name]

 

This could be a meme.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

He says it every time Dusty it’s just that FT choose to ignore it, they have painted the picture and there’s no rubbing it out.

That's my problem with him though - he does say it every time and yet nothing ever seems to change. If we assume that is genuinely what he wants the team to do, then how is it that he works with them every day week after week without getting them to do it? Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt and say well it's not Rodgers' fault, it's down to the players not being good enough or intelligent enough to do what he's asking them to, then why does he keep persisting with it rather than adapting to something that could get more out of them? The shit slow football might not be by design but if it isn't, I don't think it reflects well on him that it remains the norm.

[Dusty]

3 minutes ago, Guest said:

That's my problem with him though - he does say it every time and yet nothing ever seems to change. If we assume that is genuinely what he wants the team to do, then how is it that he works with them every day week after week without getting them to do it? Even if you give him the benefit of the doubt and say well it's not Rodgers' fault, it's down to the players not being good enough or intelligent enough to do what he's asking them to, then why does he keep persisting with it rather than adapting to something that could get more out of them? The shit slow football might not be by design but if it isn't, I don't think it reflects well on him that it remains the norm.

Yeah and for me, this is the problem. He’s not giving them the confidence or motivation to make them able to play this way. He’s not a bad coach or tactician as many on here seem to suggest, although he’s made some poor decisions, his biggest downfall has been in not motivating the players when things are looking bleak, and that’s had some massive consequences for us.

 

I also think it’s worth saying that new signings and competition for places can give players extra motivation and that the lack of suitable recruitment has cost us that over the last couple of years as well. 

[HarryDee8]

Brendan looks like he needs a few years away from football. Looks tired and lacks motivation 

[Chelmofox]

5 minutes ago, HarryDee8 said:

Brendan looks like he needs a few years away from football. Looks tired and lacks motivation 

He certainly lacks that bit of quality in the final third. 

[volpeazzurro]

2 hours ago, hackneyfox said:

A goal very now and again isn’t good enough. He can be decent one game and dreadful the next. I’d sooner we sold and replaced.

When was the last time he played a full? In a two? You can't reasonably expect lots of goals and 5 star performance when you only get 10 minutes every now and again, there's such a thing as match fitness and growing into a game. I think you expect to much under the circumstances. 

[5waller5]

2 hours ago, Dusty said:

Moving it quickly side to side is how you beat a low block, that’s football 101. Or did you think crossing towards their 3 centre backs was going to be more successful? 

Despite the patronising nature of your reply you’re right it’s ONE way to try and break down a side.

 

My point is that it’s a dull, repetitive, formulaic method of play that ignores the multitude of other options. But you knew that surely, it’s football 101? 

[5waller5]

2 hours ago, hackneyfox said:

He could have two assists in his last two games but didn’t.

Just the winning goal!

[5waller5]

2 hours ago, hackneyfox said:

Going with the long ball clearly wasn’t working. There were times when a wide player was in acres of space and by the time we eventually hit the ball to them they were covered. When teams play deep like that most teams will try and move the ball from side to side to try and engineer a hole in the defence.

 

2 hours ago, Dusty said:

Moving it quickly side to side is how you beat a low block, that’s football 101. Or did you think crossing towards their 3 centre backs was going to be more successful? 

Playing side to side exposes the gaps in a low block. Yes. I get that.

 

Man City v A good Champions league defence you’d see this all game. But the passing and movement into those gaps is how to break through the lines, player running with the ball, and the occasional ball through / over the block. Passing, movement, creative flair applied quickly with some enthusiasm is how to beat a low block of a lower league side. Not sideways passing until they leave a hole and you might snatch a chance.
 

Our £400m+ difference in squad value, shouldn’t need to play ponderous tedious sideways football in order to create one or two chances against the worst side in the old division 4. 

It was another disgusting display of negativity I’ve come to expect from the boring, self interested, slimy goblin

Edited 7 January 2023 by 5waller5

[Guppys Love Child]

8 hours ago, HarryDee8 said:

Brendan looks like he needs a few years away from football. Looks tired and lacks motivation 

OK. Deal, where would he like me to drive him.

I can get just over 600 miles from a full tank if I drive carefully..but he'd also have to go in the boot as I couldn't having him talking to me..

[FoxyLeon]

13 hours ago, Dusty said:

Yeah and for me, this is the problem. He’s not giving them the confidence or motivation to make them able to play this way. He’s not a bad coach or tactician as many on here seem to suggest, although he’s made some poor decisions, his biggest downfall has been in not motivating the players when things are looking bleak, and that’s had some massive consequences for us.

 

I also think it’s worth saying that new signings and competition for places can give players extra motivation and that the lack of suitable recruitment has cost us that over the last couple of years as well. 

 

The 'lack of suitable recruitment' is fundamentally down to Rodgers though. He was the one who brought Congerton with him as soon as he arrived, he never assessed the situation here before hand, as a good manager would have done. Looking for a Fofana replacement going into last season due to injury, and going with Vestergaard, would have been like us replacing an injured Vardy in our title winning season by signing Peter Crouch. They're just nothing alike, and simply aren't logical decisions. He literally made a point in one of his first interviews here about recruitment, claiming he wanted to work with 'Broken players'. Then you have him still claiming, as he has done for a couple of years now, that we 'Lack leaders'. Well over the course of his reign, we have lost Morgan, Fuchs, Schmeichel and soon to be Evans too. None have stayed in the setup at the Club, and none have been replaced by bringing in players to fill that void. 

 

I also disagree strongly with the idea that he's not a bad coach or tactician....The guy literally claims he can only play 4-3-3. He's been asked about playing Iheanacho more, especially with Maddison being out, and his reply was basically "Nah mate, I only play 433". Now the benefit of 433, and why it is the most popular system in world football, is that it offers huge flexibility in how you can set it up. It gives you the ease of switching to a 4231 and playing with a 10, or playing with two 8's and one holding, but we genuinely set up with one of these versions of a 4-3-3 during a game, and never have any fluidity during a game. If we're 1 goal up, the number 9 goes off and is replaced by another, if we're 1 goal down, we bring one of either iheanacho/vardy/daka on, it's all too predictable. People claim Pep is similar, but that's totally away from the reality, if anything Pep tinkers too often, especially in big games. He doesn't just stick to one system, his signing of Haaland and Alvarez actually shows he's evolving more into a Klopp style of play, where he can control possession, but still have huge counter attacking threats. Sometimes he plays Alvarez, a number 9, wide, to create overloads, when do we ever play Daka wide for example? To make up for our lack of right sided attackers? I remember as far back as the Napoli home game, where we were completely demolished but fluked a draw. We started with Barnes and Daka either side of Iheanacho, it meant we had a counter attacking threat on both flanks at all times, which resulted in two goals.

 

Then we have the injury situation every season. I'm not even going into depth on this one. But if you have an exemplary record for year upon year, and then you change the whole team and that record changes, it's obvious where the problem lies.

 

Rodgers has directly changed our Recruitment Team, our Recruitment Policies and our Medical Team. He is the one who picks our formation every week, and chooses which player plays which role. To put it simply, his decisions in every area of the Club, have put us into decline, and that actually began the second he walked into the door. I said this after his appointment, and it has ultimately happened. He's Sam Allardyce, not Pep Guardiola....In fact, that's unfair to Big Sam, he's a big advocate of Modern Sports Science, like Pearson was, but I guess none get credit for that stupidly because they're both bigger bloke. Both of those have built Clubs (Bolton and Leicester), unlike Rodgers who has never once built his own foundations at any side. 

[Nick]

2 hours ago, FoxyLeon said:

 

The 'lack of suitable recruitment' is fundamentally down to Rodgers though. He was the one who brought Congerton with him as soon as he arrived, he never assessed the situation here before hand, as a good manager would have done. Looking for a Fofana replacement going into last season due to injury, and going with Vestergaard, would have been like us replacing an injured Vardy in our title winning season by signing Peter Crouch. They're just nothing alike, and simply aren't logical decisions. He literally made a point in one of his first interviews here about recruitment, claiming he wanted to work with 'Broken players'. Then you have him still claiming, as he has done for a couple of years now, that we 'Lack leaders'. Well over the course of his reign, we have lost Morgan, Fuchs, Schmeichel and soon to be Evans too. None have stayed in the setup at the Club, and none have been replaced by bringing in players to fill that void. 

 

I also disagree strongly with the idea that he's not a bad coach or tactician....The guy literally claims he can only play 4-3-3. He's been asked about playing Iheanacho more, especially with Maddison being out, and his reply was basically "Nah mate, I only play 433". Now the benefit of 433, and why it is the most popular system in world football, is that it offers huge flexibility in how you can set it up. It gives you the ease of switching to a 4231 and playing with a 10, or playing with two 8's and one holding, but we genuinely set up with one of these versions of a 4-3-3 during a game, and never have any fluidity during a game. If we're 1 goal up, the number 9 goes off and is replaced by another, if we're 1 goal down, we bring one of either iheanacho/vardy/daka on, it's all too predictable. People claim Pep is similar, but that's totally away from the reality, if anything Pep tinkers too often, especially in big games. He doesn't just stick to one system, his signing of Haaland and Alvarez actually shows he's evolving more into a Klopp style of play, where he can control possession, but still have huge counter attacking threats. Sometimes he plays Alvarez, a number 9, wide, to create overloads, when do we ever play Daka wide for example? To make up for our lack of right sided attackers? I remember as far back as the Napoli home game, where we were completely demolished but fluked a draw. We started with Barnes and Daka either side of Iheanacho, it meant we had a counter attacking threat on both flanks at all times, which resulted in two goals.

 

Then we have the injury situation every season. I'm not even going into depth on this one. But if you have an exemplary record for year upon year, and then you change the whole team and that record changes, it's obvious where the problem lies.

 

Rodgers has directly changed our Recruitment Team, our Recruitment Policies and our Medical Team. He is the one who picks our formation every week, and chooses which player plays which role. To put it simply, his decisions in every area of the Club, have put us into decline, and that actually began the second he walked into the door. I said this after his appointment, and it has ultimately happened. He's Sam Allardyce, not Pep Guardiola....In fact, that's unfair to Big Sam, he's a big advocate of Modern Sports Science, like Pearson was, but I guess none get credit for that stupidly because they're both bigger bloke. Both of those have built Clubs (Bolton and Leicester), unlike Rodgers who has never once built his own foundations at any side. 

Fantastic post - great to see some structured criticism rather than just bile and hate.

 

[SheppyFox]

He’s broken the best young squad in the league. Wherever he manages has atrocious injuries. 

[Dusty]

2 hours ago, FoxyLeon said:

 

The 'lack of suitable recruitment' is fundamentally down to Rodgers though. He was the one who brought Congerton with him as soon as he arrived, he never assessed the situation here before hand, as a good manager would have done. Looking for a Fofana replacement going into last season due to injury, and going with Vestergaard, would have been like us replacing an injured Vardy in our title winning season by signing Peter Crouch. They're just nothing alike, and simply aren't logical decisions. He literally made a point in one of his first interviews here about recruitment, claiming he wanted to work with 'Broken players'. Then you have him still claiming, as he has done for a couple of years now, that we 'Lack leaders'. Well over the course of his reign, we have lost Morgan, Fuchs, Schmeichel and soon to be Evans too. None have stayed in the setup at the Club, and none have been replaced by bringing in players to fill that void. 

 

I also disagree strongly with the idea that he's not a bad coach or tactician....The guy literally claims he can only play 4-3-3. He's been asked about playing Iheanacho more, especially with Maddison being out, and his reply was basically "Nah mate, I only play 433". Now the benefit of 433, and why it is the most popular system in world football, is that it offers huge flexibility in how you can set it up. It gives you the ease of switching to a 4231 and playing with a 10, or playing with two 8's and one holding, but we genuinely set up with one of these versions of a 4-3-3 during a game, and never have any fluidity during a game. If we're 1 goal up, the number 9 goes off and is replaced by another, if we're 1 goal down, we bring one of either iheanacho/vardy/daka on, it's all too predictable. People claim Pep is similar, but that's totally away from the reality, if anything Pep tinkers too often, especially in big games. He doesn't just stick to one system, his signing of Haaland and Alvarez actually shows he's evolving more into a Klopp style of play, where he can control possession, but still have huge counter attacking threats. Sometimes he plays Alvarez, a number 9, wide, to create overloads, when do we ever play Daka wide for example? To make up for our lack of right sided attackers? I remember as far back as the Napoli home game, where we were completely demolished but fluked a draw. We started with Barnes and Daka either side of Iheanacho, it meant we had a counter attacking threat on both flanks at all times, which resulted in two goals.

 

Then we have the injury situation every season. I'm not even going into depth on this one. But if you have an exemplary record for year upon year, and then you change the whole team and that record changes, it's obvious where the problem lies.

 

Rodgers has directly changed our Recruitment Team, our Recruitment Policies and our Medical Team. He is the one who picks our formation every week, and chooses which player plays which role. To put it simply, his decisions in every area of the Club, have put us into decline, and that actually began the second he walked into the door. I said this after his appointment, and it has ultimately happened. He's Sam Allardyce, not Pep Guardiola....In fact, that's unfair to Big Sam, he's a big advocate of Modern Sports Science, like Pearson was, but I guess none get credit for that stupidly because they're both bigger bloke. Both of those have built Clubs (Bolton and Leicester), unlike Rodgers who has never once built his own foundations at any side. 

I think you’re right on all of those points, but only to an extent. He has the take some responsibility because he is involved in all of them, but it’s not his primary job. 
 

On transfers, he is not going out to games to watch players, he’s not a recruitment analyst and he’s not involved with deciding finances. He will get a say in most signings but you can’t blame everything with him. He did bring in a lot of the recruitment team, but if you’re Ruskin, Susan or Top you should say No if you don’t want him to do that, they’ve allowed it to happen.

 

On tactics, he is a good manager. I get that right now it’s not looking good and that he’s looking inflexible. But you don’t go through the success we’ve had and not be a good tactician. Down the years we’ve had Koop, Arteta and Pep give press conferences and they’ve all got so annoyed at the tactics we’ve deployed because it’s completely nullified them and we’ve ended up beating them. We’ve got so many injuries at the moment that it’s hard to come up with a cohesive plan because the personnel is changing all the time. In general it’s not the tactics that cost us games, it’s individual errors, not winning 50/50’s and not taking our chances. There’s quite often interesting threads on twitter, usually from Dominic Wells, that really go into the tactics we deploy and they’re usually really clever and well thought out, and it tends to just the be execution that’s wrong. He’s definitely underperforming at the moment, and I think a change in the summer would be appropriate as it’s all gone a bit stale. But I really don’t understand people that don’t rate him. Who was the last non-big 6 side to finish in the top 6? How many have won fa cups of community shields in the last few years? Plenty of managers struggle, loads on here spent last season saying how impressive moyes was at West Ham and how they wanted us to play like them, and now they’re below us having achieved less success. Conte at Tottenham is wedded to his 523 and is largely inflexible with it, but that doesn’t make him a bad manager. 
 

On injuries, again he has to take some responsibility. There’s been several injuries that he can have absolutely zero blame in, Fofana, Evans etc and then there’s the work the medical and physio teams should be doing. But I’d be surprised if there’s not some occasions where he has played someone too soon or for too long and it’s lead to injury, but i don’t think it’s a bad as some on here make out. 

[ithuriel]

6 minutes ago, SheppyFox said:

He’s broken the best young squad in the league. Wherever he manages has atrocious injuries. 

Yeah, he is kinda like the fifth angel of the apocalypse, Death, Famine, War, Pestilence and Brendan, where ever he goes, injuries follow in his wake.

[nnfox]

The club built sensibly on the unexpected success of 2016, not perfectly but did a good job, which put us in a position to really challenge the top table in the toughest league in the world.  Part of that strategy was recruiting an "elite" manager.  He was handed a super competitive squad with a good mix of youth and experience.

 

We didn't quite get to the top of the mountain.  A good effort for sure, but a draining one.  What has become evident is that there was no plan to stay at the top or even navigate the way back down.  Not much though to what comes next.  A good portion of blame has to fall at the club's feet for that.

 

Now we are where we are, Rodgers isn't the guy to get us to regroup, take stock of the resources we have and plot a way back up the mountain.

 

He seems like a rabbit in headlights. There's talk of wanting to move on some players, but there doesn't seem to be a plan to rebuild the squad.  Everything seems like such a short term plan (playing side of the business at least).  

 

 

[elvisfmcfly]

8 hours ago, Guppys Love Child said:

OK. Deal, where would he like me to drive him.

I can get just over 600 miles from a full tank if I drive carefully..but he'd also have to go in the boot as I couldn't having him talking to me..

I’ll tow your car with a rope around my waist to save your Claud Fuel, anything to get rid of that sombitch 

[StanSP]

If we lose at Forest, surely his time is up? 

[ithuriel]

1 minute ago, StanSP said:

If we lose at Forest, surely his time is up? 

You'd think so but he probably already has an excuse written in his little notepad already for the occasion, be it about a player, small squad, lack of signings, temperature on the day etc.,

[Nick]

2 minutes ago, StanSP said:

If we lose at Forest, surely his time is up? 

Surely this is a separate topic and worthy of a new thread?

[Matt]

2 minutes ago, StanSP said:

If we lose at Forest, surely his time is up? 

Not sure if this is serious.

 

Either way, we'll probably react in kind as Forest did when we beat them earlier in the season giving him a new contract. I genuinely think that's more likely.

[Nick]

3 minutes ago, StanSP said:

If we lose at Forest, surely his time is up? 

We can't afford to sack him and buy a mediocre centre back so it's doubtful!

[StanSP]

5 minutes ago, Matt said:

Not sure if this is serious.

 

Either way, we'll probably react in kind as Forest did when we beat them earlier in the season giving him a new contract. I genuinely think that's more likely.

It's in response to the other thread

 

For what it's worth, I think he should walk/be pushed if there is a loss.