Brendan Rodgers

[Koke]

2 hours ago, StanSP said:

I'm not totally enamoured by the Potter shout if I'm being honest - nothing against anyone as everyone has a right to their opinion!

 

I don't think he brings more than anything Rodgers can with us right now...

 

Would love to know from @CrispinLA in Texas what his thoughts are...

 

Potter would just be a continuation of Rodgers. If Rodgers decide to leave, Potter would come in and continue what we are doing. Potters has some obvious flaws but he also has some qualities, and he would be working with far better talent than he has at Brighton. 

[Tielemans63]

42 minutes ago, SO1 said:

It seems as if the league has changed and not for the better in my opinion. Feel as if the end to end games that I used to watch in '11 through '15 have largely disappeared from the game. They were exhilarating to watch and left me breathless in their skill and speed. Nobody wants to go mano a mano anymore as everyone seems to have too much to lose.

 

Its not something new to me as the same has happened in American sports like Basketball where the rules, how they are enforced and philosophy changes back and forth from offensive to defensive.

 

There has to be a better balance because football for me is becoming more tedious to watch and that takes away much of the enjoyment for me. Tired of watching Maddison and Tielemans get fouled constantly breaking up our ability to attack. Did refs stop giving yellow cards for repetitive fouling? Sad that the offensive side of the game seems to be diminished more and more. Really don't want to watch the Scottish League.

Agree with a lot of this. Watching Liverpool v Chelsea earlier on featured two players who personify the problem for me: Fabinho must have committed 10-15 'tactical' fouls and didn't get booked. The other is Jorginho - I've never seen a guy go down as frequently as him. Whenever he was involved in a dual he hit the deck EVERY SINGLE TIME. The guy goes down whenever a player gets even close to him. I get that Madders does this but Jorginho actually takes the piss - he's been allowed to create this weird dynamics where he's almost unplayable because if you stand off him he's a great passer and if you get close he'll just go down and win the free kick at the slightest contact. It's so frustrating to watch this legitimised cheating.

[Guest SO1]

15 minutes ago, Tielemans63 said:

Agree with a lot of this. Watching Liverpool v Chelsea earlier on featured two players who personify the problem for me: Fabinho must have committed 10-15 'tactical' fouls and didn't get booked. The other is Jorginho - I've never seen a guy go down as frequently as him. Whenever he was involved in a dual he hit the deck EVERY SINGLE TIME. The guy goes down whenever a player gets even close to him. I get that Madders does this but Jorginho actually takes the piss - he's been allowed to create this weird dynamics where he's almost unplayable because if you stand off him he's a great passer and if you get close he'll just go down and win the free kick at the slightest contact. It's so frustrating to watch this legitimised cheating.

It pisses me off when Maddison does this because I actually think it hurts us and breaks up our attack too often. I'd rather he get rid of the ball and keep the attack moving then give the whole opposing team time to defend. Free kicks don't seem to give us much of an advantage.

[Foxxed]

2 hours ago, Guest said:

I think I've said pretty much exactly this before but I do find it surprising how quickly and aggressively some people turn on him when things start to go even slightly wrong. There seems to be a section of our fanbase that just fundamentally dislike him and I don't think there's anything he can realistically do at this point to win them round because somehow the successes happen in spite of him and the failures happen because of him. If we play badly it's because he's lost the dressing room, if our players get injured it's because he's overworking them, if they look unfit it's because he's not working them hard enough, if we don't sign a winger it's because he has complete control of our transfer business and decided we don't need one. 

 

I know it's stupid to read anything into match threads because it's mostly just people who can't control their emotions venting but the way he was getting talked about at times you'd think he was an absolute moron and we'd spent the last couple of seasons sleepwalking towards relegation, not fighting for European football.

I figure that fans are venting their everyday frustrations in the match thread and in the terraces. I share most of the same worries about the injuries and the tactics. And the quality of our team borders easily on Champions League quality and we should aim for that and question when we don’t reach that. But we’ve finished fifth twice. Two of our top three finishes. We’ve had European football twice. We’ve won the FA cup. I’m willing to give some leeway.

 

[Ric Flair]

2 hours ago, Guest said:

I think I've said pretty much exactly this before but I do find it surprising how quickly and aggressively some people turn on him when things start to go even slightly wrong. There seems to be a section of our fanbase that just fundamentally dislike him and I don't think there's anything he can realistically do at this point to win them round because somehow the successes happen in spite of him and the failures happen because of him. If we play badly it's because he's lost the dressing room, if our players get injured it's because he's overworking them, if they look unfit it's because he's not working them hard enough, if we don't sign a winger it's because he has complete control of our transfer business and decided we don't need one. 

 

I know it's stupid to read anything into match threads because it's mostly just people who can't control their emotions venting but the way he was getting talked about at times you'd think he was an absolute moron and we'd spent the last couple of seasons sleepwalking towards relegation, not fighting for European football.

I thought this, but I don't think its Rodgers specifically. Our fan base are incapable of warming to a manager since Pearson and Ranieri. There's no goodwill in the bank for a manager who has achieved us our highest back to back finishes in the top division in the modern era and won us the FA Cup for the first time in our history.

 

We are entitled, we cannot tolerate not playing like a team who isn't top 6, the fact there are fans genuinely considering us being better off without him because we have won 2 of our opening 3 games but for the last 2.5 of those games been crap is jaw dropping.

[Guest Chocolate Teapot]

We're pretty much bottom of the league on xg. Fortunately that doesn't count but demonstrates we've been absolutely honking all season.

 

Credit to the players and manager for grinding out a win.

[Le Renard]

Can we have some perspective on here about Rodgers and the style of football!  Yes he can make mistakes, he has his favourites and can be stubborn, but haven't all our managers had these traits.  MON's teams could be very boring to watch and be a bit of a snooze fest, lump it up/cross it to the big man up front to hold it up.   I still hold him high regard for what he done for our club, and the same goes for most of our succesful managers. 

 

As for our current style of football, yes it can be boring sometimes, but that also has to do with the opponents and the way they view our small club now!  We as fans should take this as a complement that teams now see us as threat and don't want to outplay us.  Counter attacking football only works, if you have a team that wants to come on to you.  After the 15/16 season a lot of teams our size, sat deep with a low block, and guess what.......the games were s***e and most of us were crying out for a different style.  Last season Rodgers became more pragmatic and stopped trying to play possession football against Citeh, Liverpool and Chelsea etc.  So it shows he can adapt and learn, but as I said he has a stubborn streak, and needs to god damn bring on the subs earlier, but those who think the grass is greener, need to get a reality check and remember the bad times, like Levein, Holloway and Berty Bassett.  I think Rodgers has the best win ratio of any long term manager in our history and he's been in the top flight, and not had a promotion season in the championship like Pearson, who IMO is the best Leicester manager for building the 2015/16 side. 

 

P.S.

If we ditch Rodgers we could go the way of Arsenal, but we are smaller and will fall further,  we don't have the resources, so please be careful what you wish for!

Edited 29 August 2021 by Le Renard

[dayday]

9 hours ago, Milo said:

Couldn't agree more.

 

Equally, we're not stuck in 2008 taking rainy trips to Hereford. 

 

We are where we are on merit and we all know we can play better than we have done for the past few months. We were poor at the back end of last season, won the FA Cup (), were poor pre-season, bar 30 minutes against QPR, and have been largely poor against Wolves, West Ham and Norwich.

 

Of course I don't think that we have any divine right to win any of these matches - but I certainly don't think any debate on our current form should solely be viewed through the prism of where we were 10/15/20 years ago.

 

My tuppence worth - Brendan is a great fit for us, but he's not above criticism.  

I think our big problem at the moment is this slow boring painful to watch passing game, we have become so predictable in our play.

 

We’re much better when we move the ball quickly, I really cannot understand why Brendan has stopped doing this, is it because some other teams build from the back and that’s the route he want to play or is it he thinks the players he has cannot play this way.

 

 

[Guest Danny Clender]

52 minutes ago, dayday said:

I think our big problem at the moment is this slow boring painful to watch passing game, we have become so predictable in our play.

 

We’re much better when we move the ball quickly, I really cannot understand why Brendan has stopped doing this, is it because some other teams build from the back and that’s the route he want to play or is it he thinks the players he has cannot play this way.

 

 

I guess Fofana’s forward play out of defence is a huge loss to us. Cags is also great at this, but without Evans, he’s not as confident, whether this is from instruction or instinct I’m unsure.

 

An in form Maddison who doesn’t get fouled as often also solves many of your issues. I have a hopeful feeling we’ll see a different set up for the next game.

[Dahnsouff]

3 minutes ago, Danny Clender said:

I guess Fofana’s forward play out of defence is a huge loss to us. Cags is also great at this, but without Evans, he’s not as confident, whether this is from instruction or instinct I’m unsure.

 

An in form Maddison who doesn’t get fouled as often also solves many of your issues. I have a hopeful feeling we’ll see a different set up for the next game.

Why does Maddison get so many excuses made for him? He does not deserve the special treatment Vardy, Kasper, Marc and other immortals rightly get. He needs to stop being so poor or get out the way for KDH, Praet, etc. If he is that injured, he should not be picked.

[FoxyLeon]

What worries me, is the defence doesn't actually look that bad, when you consider all of our injuries!

 

Nobody in front of them can control or pass a ball!

[Chrysalis]

11 hours ago, Guest said:

I think I've said pretty much exactly this before but I do find it surprising how quickly and aggressively some people turn on him when things start to go even slightly wrong. There seems to be a section of our fanbase that just fundamentally dislike him and I don't think there's anything he can realistically do at this point to win them round because somehow the successes happen in spite of him and the failures happen because of him. If we play badly it's because he's lost the dressing room, if our players get injured it's because he's overworking them, if they look unfit it's because he's not working them hard enough, if we don't sign a winger it's because he has complete control of our transfer business and decided we don't need one. 

 

I know it's stupid to read anything into match threads because it's mostly just people who can't control their emotions venting but the way he was getting talked about at times you'd think he was an absolute moron and we'd spent the last couple of seasons sleepwalking towards relegation, not fighting for European football.

 

Trying to put things into perspective here, I think there is a section of fans who will ignore tactical mistakes, how bad we play etc. as long as we get results.

There will be another section who will ignore all the bad things simply because they like the manager as a person.  You possibly fit into this category as you seem to have took it as a personal dislike of the man.

Then there is the fans who accept what he has done, not calling for his head as that would be silly with 5th place finishes and 2 trophies, but are just frustrated at the style of play.  If you take note of whats been said instead of just skimming and taking it as "hate Rodgers" then we would see more constructive comments.

 

I like Rodgers, but the way the football is going is tough to watch. I felt we played well in the community shield game, as bad as the Norwich game was it was by far our best league performance this season purely because we didnt ping pong between defenders at the back, we did play quite direct in the game, the issue was the players didnt seem to be giving 100%.

 

I think both types of football could be combined, when we have the ball in our own half, especially in our own third, the ball should be pushed forward with urgency, best way is via counter attack but if we cant do that we need to have players going for forward passes or dribbling forward.  We have/had players that are comfortable doing that, Maguire, Fofana, Kante, Mahrez, Barnes, Chilwell, Ricardo.  Most of these players are now sold or injured :(.  I think once we in the opponents half then by all means do a bit more passing, I think doing it right in front of our keeper between two defenders is neither entertaining or effective.  It seems to be deployed as a defense tactic, because for every minute we ping ponging it between two defenders, its a minute without defending against attacks.

 

The turning point seemed to be after the two large defeats in the season we won 8 games in a row early on, our performances after that had took a nosedive and we have never really recovered from it.

 

I seen a news article talking about Maddison, and apparently last season the amount of dribbles he did took a massive nosedive vs the season before, I think Rodgers is anti dribble which is hurting us.

 

Every now and then we play more direct, and we seem to have a higher win ratio when doing it not to mention its more fun to watch, so Rodgers lets the team do it sometimes. 

 

It goes without saying though if we were to change manager its almost certain we wont finish as high, as a club we are hitting our ceiling by competing in the top 6.  But the day when Rodgers decides to leave us, I agree on the suggestion Potters would be a good replacement.  He is a manager who likes to see passing of the ball which makes him compatible.

Edited 29 August 2021 by Chrysalis

[Guest Danny Clender]

5 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

Why does Maddison get so many excuses made for him? He does not deserve the special treatment Vardy, Kasper, Marc and other immortals rightly get. He needs to stop being so poor or get out the way for KDH, Praet, etc. If he is that injured, he should not be picked.

I totally agree.

I have no idea who is making excuses for him at the moment? perhaps Rodgers by selecting him over the options you've stated? Soumare is an excellent option over him as well.

 

Maddison's role, at the moment, is justifiably being questioned and there are very few excuses available right now other than when he is on form, he is an extremely effective player. 

 

He does not start for me against Man City.

[Dahnsouff]

 

26 minutes ago, Danny Clender said:

I guess Fofana’s forward play out of defence is a huge loss to us. Cags is also great at this, but without Evans, he’s not as confident, whether this is from instruction or instinct I’m unsure.

 

An in form Maddison who doesn’t get fouled as often also solves many of your issues. I have a hopeful feeling we’ll see a different set up for the next game.

11 minutes ago, Danny Clender said:

I have no idea who is making excuses for him at the moment? perhaps Rodgers by selecting him over the options you've stated? Soumare is an excellent option over him as well.

…

I took the bit in bold in the first quote as an excuse being made on behalf of Maddison, apologies if I was wide of the mark. 

[dayday]

1 hour ago, FoxyLeon said:

What worries me, is the defence doesn't actually look that bad, when you consider all of our injuries!

 

Nobody in front of them can control or pass a ball!

Amartey surprisingly doing well Soyuncu has been terrible 

[Guest Col city fan]

We don’t look good at the moment for some reason? Apart from Vardy scoring goals still, and glimpses from Pereira, we’re definitely not right somehow.

Wilf is off it, Tielemans looks under-par, Maddison is just… wrong

And Barnes yesterday was useless 

Cmon Brendan, we need our mojo back

In terms of points, we’re doing great but how we’re playing isn’t great 

Good job we had a relatively easy start

[dayday]

1 hour ago, Chrysalis said:

 

Trying to put things into perspective here, I think there is a section of fans who will ignore tactical mistakes, how bad we play etc. as long as we get results.

There will be another section who will ignore all the bad things simply because they like the manager as a person.  You possibly fit into this category as you seem to have took it as a personal dislike of the man.

Then there is the fans who accept what he has done, not calling for his head as that would be silly with 5th place finishes and 2 trophies, but are just frustrated at the style of play.  If you take note of whats been said instead of just skimming and taking it as "hate Rodgers" then we would see more constructive comments.

 

I like Rodgers, but the way the football is going is tough to watch. I felt we played well in the community shield game, as bad as the Norwich game was it was by far our best league performance this season purely because we didnt ping pong between defenders at the back, we did play quite direct in the game, the issue was the players didnt seem to be giving 100%.

 

I think both types of football could be combined, when we have the ball in our own half, especially in our own third, the ball should be pushed forward with urgency, best way is via counter attack but if we cant do that we need to have players going for forward passes or dribbling forward.  We have/had players that are comfortable doing that, Maguire, Fofana, Kante, Mahrez, Barnes, Chilwell, Ricardo.  Most of these players are now sold or injured :(.  I think once we in the opponents half then by all means do a bit more passing, I think doing it right in front of our keeper between two defenders is neither entertaining or effective.  It seems to be deployed as a defense tactic, because for every minute we ping ponging it between two defenders, its a minute without defending against attacks.

 

The turning point seemed to be after the two large defeats in the season we won 8 games in a row early on, our performances after that had took a nosedive and we have never really recovered from it.

 

I seen a news article talking about Maddison, and apparently last season the amount of dribbles he did took a massive nosedive vs the season before, I think Rodgers is anti dribble which is hurting us.

 

Every now and then we play more direct, and we seem to have a higher win ratio when doing it not to mention its more fun to watch, so Rodgers lets the team do it sometimes. 

 

It goes without saying though if we were to change manager its almost certain we wont finish as high, as a club we are hitting our ceiling by competing in the top 6.  But the day when Rodgers decides to leave us, I agree on the suggestion Potters would be a good replacement.  He is a manager who likes to see passing of the ball which makes him compatible.

I was thinking this yesterday, after the 4-0 defeat against Liverpool on Boxing Day 2019, was the beginning of the end for the high press.

 

I don’t know what we’re doing these days we don’t have any real system in place other than build from the back.

 

ordinary sides have sussed us out 

 

I really hope it is injuries that’s is holding Rodgers back from being so negative.

 

When he first came he was breath of fresh air talking about the high press and attacking football.

 

 

[Strokes]

14 hours ago, StanSP said:

If Rodgers was to go - who would we get in as a replacement?

 

I feel like whenever this question is asked of any person who isn't a fan of his who tells the club to send him to Arsenal, I feel like there's never a realistic or legit answer.

 

So I'd like to ask it again - if for some bizarre weird stupid reason we got rid of Rodgers, who would you bring in?

I asked this question to a friend who was laying into him after last Monday.

The answer was Antonio Conte , this is the level of delusion we are dealing with.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Ric Flair said:

I thought this, but I don't think its Rodgers specifically. Our fan base are incapable of warming to a manager since Pearson and Ranieri. There's no goodwill in the bank for a manager who has achieved us our highest back to back finishes in the top division in the modern era and won us the FA Cup for the first time in our history.

 

We are entitled, we cannot tolerate not playing like a team who isn't top 6, the fact there are fans genuinely considering us being better off without him because we have won 2 of our opening 3 games but for the last 2.5 of those games been crap is jaw dropping.

If I were to guess I think part of the problem is his personality. I think the perception of him from his Liverpool days as a bit of a charlatan is unfair but it will have stuck in a lot of people's minds. His talk of philosophy and controlling the game is probably quite off putting for the section of our fans who pine for the days when football was all about hitting the big man and think that passing the ball backwards is a sin. 

 

The other thing is that we have essentially hit the ceiling barring an unprecedented financial change or another massive collective dropping of the ball by the teams above us. I don't think we're winning another title any time soon and regular Champions League football is a huge, huge ask, so at best we're kind of stuck where we are. After a decade or so of being upwardly mobile that's hard to take and it's probably easier to think "well, we could obviously keep on going but the manager's holding us back" than to accept we might have plateaued and this is more or less as good as it's going to get.

[Ric Flair]

9 minutes ago, Guest said:

If I were to guess I think part of the problem is his personality. I think the perception of him from his Liverpool days as a bit of a charlatan is unfair but it will have stuck in a lot of people's minds. His talk of philosophy and controlling the game is probably quite off putting for the section of our fans who pine for the days when football was all about hitting the big man and think that passing the ball backwards is a sin. 

 

The other thing is that we have essentially hit the ceiling barring an unprecedented financial change or another massive collective dropping of the ball by the teams above us. I don't think we're winning another title any time soon and regular Champions League football is a huge, huge ask, so at best we're kind of stuck where we are. After a decade or so of being upwardly mobile that's hard to take and it's probably easier to think "well, we could obviously keep on going but the manager's holding us back" than to accept we might have plateaued and this is more or less as good as it's going to get.

It's our fans that are the problem, we're still not comfortable in our identity. Many are unrealistic and many not yet fully appreciate of our change in stature, if and when those view points meet in the middle we might be less of a laughing stock. 

[winteriscoming]

15 hours ago, StanSP said:

If Rodgers was to go - who would we get in as a replacement?

 

I feel like whenever this question is asked of any person who isn't a fan of his who tells the club to send him to Arsenal, I feel like there's never a realistic or legit answer.

 

So I'd like to ask it again - if for some bizarre weird stupid reason we got rid of Rodgers, who would you bring in?

Our history would suggest we’d go with someone with pl experience so realistically imo it would be Potter or Hassenhutl. I’m not convinced with either. 
I would like Mancini but think that would be unrealistic. 
Better options abroad but can’t see going that route. 
Overall no one stands out that would be better than Rodgers. 

[The People's Hero]

I'm getting emails to say I'm mentioned in this thread; but I'm not. It's likely just some sort of abuse; but in the unlikely event I'm being touted as a replacement for Rodgers; I think I'll kill that momentum now and suggest we keep BR in charge.

 

 

[StriderHiryu]

13 hours ago, SO1 said:

It seems as if the league has changed and not for the better in my opinion. Feel as if the end to end games that I used to watch in '11 through '15 have largely disappeared from the game. They were exhilarating to watch and left me breathless in their skill and speed. Nobody wants to go mano a mano anymore as everyone seems to have too much to lose.

 

Its not something new to me as the same has happened in American sports like Basketball where the rules, how they are enforced and philosophy changes back and forth from offensive to defensive.

 

There has to be a better balance because football for me is becoming more tedious to watch and that takes away much of the enjoyment for me. Tired of watching Maddison and Tielemans get fouled constantly breaking up our ability to attack. Did refs stop giving yellow cards for repetitive fouling? Sad that the offensive side of the game seems to be diminished more and more. Really don't want to watch the Scottish League.

Sorry but that’s big time rose tinted spectacles. Coaches like Guardiola and Klopp and to a lesser extent Rodgers and Poch have transformed the league. Pretty much every team in the league presses the game now, yesterday the team in 19th who just sold their best player in the summer played a high press against a team that finished 5th and won the FA Cup. It’s more helter skelter than ever before. Leeds play a man marking system across the pitch quite literally turning the game into 10 1v1 duels and 2 goalkeepers!

 

These things did not happen 10 years ago. 

[Dusty]

5 minutes ago, winteriscoming said:

Our history would suggest we’d go with someone with pl experience so realistically imo it would be Potter or Hassenhutl. I’m not convinced with either. 
I would like Mancini but think that would be unrealistic. 
Better options abroad but can’t see going that route. 
Overall no one stands out that would be better than Rodgers. 

I think potter would be brilliant tbh, I love watching Brighton play. The intelligence he has instilled in those players is incredible, they know the exact movements they need to make to open up vertical passing lanes. They change system so effortlessly when going from defence to attack and vice versa, so great to watch. He also loves working with young players which matches our philosophy. His main issue is a lot of his signings don’t work out, not sure if it’s him making them or a wider recruitment team at Brighton but hopefully we’d help him there. 
 

I still think he’s some way off Brendan and would never consider swapping them atm, but if Brendan leaves in the next couple of years then I think Potter would be a sensible replacement.

[winteriscoming]

1 hour ago, Dusty said:

I think potter would be brilliant tbh, I love watching Brighton play. The intelligence he has instilled in those players is incredible, they know the exact movements they need to make to open up vertical passing lanes. They change system so effortlessly when going from defence to attack and vice versa, so great to watch. He also loves working with young players which matches our philosophy. His main issue is a lot of his signings don’t work out, not sure if it’s him making them or a wider recruitment team at Brighton but hopefully we’d help him there. 
 

I still think he’s some way off Brendan and would never consider swapping them atm, but if Brendan leaves in the next couple of years then I think Potter would be a sensible replacement.

I’m just not that convinced with Potter. Yes they play decent football but they consistently finish between 17th and 15th Maybe he would do well but I’m not sure.