Brendan Rodgers appreciation thread

[coolhandfox]

23 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

Yeah the transfer window is why we imploded against the likes of Bournemouth etc. He's gone, get over it

Get over yourself boy.

[volpeazzurro]

With the squad Rodgers had compared with other competitors at the time, 5th was hardly a massive achievement. I'm not saying that we should have expected it but nevertheless it only looks good to some because of our history of not doing it before.

 

Each of those seasons our players came out of the blocks well until Mr Depression Football sunk his teeth into them. 

 

I've absolutely nothing good to say about him, his overall presence and weedling his way into the fabric of our club has set us back years if we can ever get back near to challenging the top 6 again. A once in a lifetime opportunity to kick on ruined by a charlatan ego maniac. Bloody good riddance, far too late.

[Happy Fox]

For me I cannot warm to him his persona and lack of humility compared to Pearson or Ranieri it’s hard to like the man and there was no connection with the fans , on the whole he’s done a good job cannot dispute that and thankful for the FA Cup and community shield win as well as competing in Europe.

 

We should have got rid sooner but didn’t, anyway thank you Rodgers for the good times.

[stourbridgefox]

For a couple of seasons I really believed the league win was no fluke and we had broken the strangle hold of the same old clubs.

 

Our recent fall from grace means he had to go, but anyone expecting Champion's League football like it is our right is as deluded as Forest fans still thinking they are thought of as European Champions.

Edited 3 April 2023 by stourbridgefox

[Blue ROI]

1 minute ago, stourbridgefox said:

For a couple of seasons I really believed the league win was no fluke and we had broken the strangle hold of the same old clubs.

 

Our recent fall from grace means he had to go, but anyone expecting Champion's League football like it is our right is as deluded as Forest fans still thinking they are thought of as European Champions.

No one was expecting Champions League Football. We haven't got that entitled!

 

A finish like 8th might be disappointing compared to 5th the seasons before but still streets ahead of the 2001-09 dark days.

 

No matter what the clubs status though relegation battles will always be ask questions about the manager. Like it or not its fair game.

[Guest Col city fan]

I still believe that the Rodgers tenure was one of the most bizarre I’ve ever seen at the club.

For two seasons running, we went from playing some quite astounding football, to surely cement at ECL spot, to then become absolutely dreadful and to blow it! Twice!

We won the FA cup in a half empty Wembley, during covid. There was Tielemans sublime goal, followed by Chilwell and the VAR decision.

It’s all been so up and down, with no consistency over time.

We’ve signed some players who looked, at least on paper, to be very shrewd acquisitions, to then see them go downhill very rapidly. Eg Faes, Daka, Tete.

We’ve had some really nasty, long term injuries at a club where injuries really hadn’t been much of a problem for us for quite some time.

It’s been very very strange. We have to applaud Rodgers for getting the team playing some sublime football, but criticise him in lots of other ways.

[Thequickbrownfox]

On 02/04/2023 at 16:59, The whole world smiles said:

I know this is going to go down like a plate of cold sick and I completely accept that it was time for him to go. But there's a lot of revisionism going on about his time at city.

 

I've seen several people describe the FA cup win as lucky, i mean with respect Fu×k off we beat 4 premier league sides including Chelsea and man United and if all you need to win it is a bit of luck how come no one else managed it in 137 attempts?

 

Anyway here are some cold hard facts that will show that despite all the bitterness, toxidity and anger on the board recently in the context of the clubs history his tenure has been one of the most successful of any manger 

 

- Brendan was in charge for 2 of 3 best finishes in the clubs entire history. 

 

- after 137 failed attempts was the only manger in our entire 139 year history to win the FA Cup beating Man United and Chelsea in process. 

 

- beat every single member of the supposed top 6 at least twice. 

 

- reached the quarter finals in cup competitions 4 times the semis twice and of course won one. 

I know exactly what you mean. For the first two and a third seasons, he did a not dissimilar job to the legendary Martin O'Neill who won us promotion, the league cup and had two very good Premier League seasons that could easily have been even better. The big difference was that O'Neill continued his success and popularity for a further two seasons whereas Rodgers wobbled noticeably last season and has fallen off a cliff this time around. I'm as pleased as anyone that he's gone now, but it's a shame that his earlier achievements have been so badly tarnished.

[Dan]

The thing I will give him genuine credit for is that for all we may have had a touch of luck in the FA Cup run, I think he made his own luck a bit by regularly naming strong sides in cups in the first couple of seasons.

[Adrian]

It's not like he took over a bag if turds and turned it into FA cup success ...the squad was arguably stronger than any previous year....

 

 

[foxinsox]

22 hours ago, Happy Fox said:

For me I cannot warm to him his persona and lack of humility compared to Pearson or Ranieri it’s hard to like the man and there was no connection with the fans , on the whole he’s done a good job cannot dispute that and thankful for the FA Cup and community shield win as well as competing in Europe.

 

We should have got rid sooner but didn’t, anyway thank you Rodgers for the good times.

Sure, the FA Cup and Community Shield were successes that we should thank Brendan for, but the last two seasons in Europe we were not competitive. Some decent matches, and I enjoyed the novelty but there were quite a few poor performances too.

[Daggers]

Clearly leaves the club in a much worse condition than he inherited, that is the only valuable measure. 
 

I don’t wish him dead - I wish that he does something similar to Spurs or Forest now. I want the world to acknowledge that he is overhyped and deeply limited. 

 

There will never be a softening of my position. 
 

And I want those who have been supporting him to understand they clearly know next to nothing about football, motivation, potential or man management - and the same applies to the board and Top. 

 

The Mail gets it:

The timing of the decision is odd. There's no succession plan and backroom staff members Mike Stowell and Adam Sadler will take charge of a monumental game against Aston Villa at the King Power Stadium on Tuesday night.

"History suggests changing the manager this late does little to alter your fate. Since 2010, all managerial changes from March onwards at clubs in the relegation zone have still seen those sides go down.The tightly-squeezed bottom half of the table will give Leicester hope.

"Whoever replaces Rodgers has a job on his hands. Not just to keep Leicester up but to fix the mess that's left behind."

[Guest Mee-9]

That FA cup win was not a great performance.

 

Yeah it was a great day because we won it, but we hung on massively, chelsea were bang average and we had a huge stroke of luck twice in the game.

 

It was not a Rodgers masterclass, yeah we won the thing but it was not a fantastic performance, and neither did we light the world on fire in his four years. The same for the ‘Semi final of a European competition’ nonsense. The Conference League is the competition for losers, and we should have won it, but yet again he disappointed. Same with the Europa League, there were some shocking performances. It was in a sense celebrating failure as he could not rally his players against Slavia Prague.
 

He is a manager who has coached the life and freedom out of his players. Oppressive tactics based on a fear of losing possession, you can see that as players are fearful of losing the ball. You can also argue that many players have got worse throughout his time here, with players like Thomas, Barnes and Ndidi looking woeful at times.

 

Things went incredibly stale a few years ago, when we got that second 5th place finish, we should have parted company then. Brought in a more elite manager and coach, and then progressed the club. But placing the trust in Rodgers has been dangerous, and will probably cost the club. But the board only have themselves to blame if we get relegated. They’ve played a dangerous game all season and quite frankly from our lack of action in sacking Rodgers, (something we have all said for months/years on here) we deserve everything we get over the next few months. 
 

Our club has been run into the ground, I just hope there’s logic in the decision to appoint a new manager, and we don’t go after people like Benitez who have shown that they cannot rebuild clubs like Everton. (Wasting a fortune on talent that still today haunts them) We need a progressive manager, along with their Director of Football/Assistants and Scouts. It’s costly but a whole new set up is what’s needed, like what Eddie Howe has done at Newcastle. 

[Fox92]

15 minutes ago, Mee-9 said:

That FA cup win was not a great performance.

 

Yeah it was a great day because we won it, but we hung on massively, chelsea were bang average and we had a huge stroke of luck twice in the game.

 

It was not a Rodgers masterclass, yeah we won the thing but it was not a fantastic performance, and neither did we light the world on fire in his four years. The same for the ‘Semi final of a European competition’ nonsense. The Conference League is the competition for losers, and we should have won it, but yet again he disappointed. Same with the Europa League, there were some shocking performances. It was in a sense celebrating failure as he could not rally his players against Slavia Prague.
 

He is a manager who has coached the life and freedom out of his players. Oppressive tactics based on a fear of losing possession, you can see that as players are fearful of losing the ball. You can also argue that many players have got worse throughout his time here, with players like Thomas, Barnes and Ndidi looking woeful at times.

 

Things went incredibly stale a few years ago, when we got that second 5th place finish, we should have parted company then. Brought in a more elite manager and coach, and then progressed the club. But placing the trust in Rodgers has been dangerous, and will probably cost the club. But the board only have themselves to blame if we get relegated. They’ve played a dangerous game all season and quite frankly from our lack of action in sacking Rodgers, (something we have all said for months/years on here) we deserve everything we get over the next few months. 
 

Our club has been run into the ground, I just hope there’s logic in the decision to appoint a new manager, and we don’t go after people like Benitez who have shown that they cannot rebuild clubs like Everton. (Wasting a fortune on talent that still today haunts them) We need a progressive manager, along with their Director of Football/Assistants and Scouts. It’s costly but a whole new set up is what’s needed, like what Eddie Howe has done at Newcastle. 

How many times do I see this?? It's what happens in finals. I can give you loads of teams that "did not deserve to win" on the day. Chelsea didn't even deserve to beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League finals, but they did. The best thing about finals, and cup competitions in general, is that there is an ounce of luck and fortune. That's the great thing, especially in the FA Cup, if the favourites and "best teams" won then it wouldn't be the competiton it is.

 

We won the FA Cup. I don't care how but we won it. In years to come I will be saying I was at Wembley to see us win the FA Cup, I won't be saying "we didn't deserve to win it".

 

Why do our fans talk us down, it's bad enough hearing it from other fanbases, ffs.

Edited 4 April 2023 by Fox92

[Izzet is God]

Never seen a manger divide a club’s fan base so much.

 

He’s done exactly what he’s done at other clubs. Take over a largely good squad and get a good season/18 months out of them. 
 

I thank him for the FA Cup but I’ll damn him for ripping the foundations we’ve laid over the last 9/10 years to be a side that the top 6 thought would upset them.

 

He’s completely drained us in anything positive whilst continuing to make excuses like he wasn’t backed.

 

Bought absolute dross players in and made baffling decisions that only he knows why he did it? 
Couldn’t solve our set piece defensive issue for over 9 months.

Failed to secure a top 4 position in 20/21 by 1 point by not winning 2 out of the last 5 games of the season, with one of those game being Southampton away who spent 80 mins of the game with 10 men. Did the same pretty much the season prior (19/20) by not being able to get results towards the end of the season against the likes of Norwich, Watford and Bournemouth.

 

Look at where we are now. We’re miles away from what he inherited. 
 

I’m not going to deny he’s been one our most successful managers but that’s purely because he’s been the manager of us at a time when we’ve been able to give such a title away.

The guy is not an ‘elite manager’ that the press make him out to be. He’s a fairly decent manager for a 2 year stint, which he’s proved at the majority of clubs he’s been at.

 

The fact that we’ve trusted him to lay a solid tenure and take us to ‘the next level’ and we are now fighting for Prem survival is downright criminal.

He’s taken the soul out of LCFC and that I cannot ever forgive him for.

 

 

[Sampson]

I’m sorry, but dislike Rodgers all you like, but trying to play down our FA Cup win and make out we didn’t deserve it makes you sound like a spoilt Arsenal fan when we won the league.

[markko]

Puel gets little credit. He bought in good young players and Rogers benefited from that. As time has goes.on and he has added to the squad it has been weakened. He then complained about the squad he had and said it needed to be rebuilt. Puel bought the average age of the team down. I know the football was bad under Puel but he should be given some credit for what Rogers was able to achieve.

[CosbehFox]

10 minutes ago, Sampson said:

I’m sorry, but dislike Rodgers all you like, but trying to play down our FA Cup win and make out we didn’t deserve it makes you sound like a spoilt Arsenal fan when we won the league.

And as much as the revisionism about the final annoys me as it wasn’t an easy run through the competition either. Had a really, really, really good performance v Man U in amongst it too

Edited 4 April 2023 by CosbehFox

[An Sionnach]

Undoubtedly the PL's best business brain . He has become a very rich man from very lowly beginnings. He was always overrated on here of course , most of his success was based on the players he inherited. However he got them playing for a couple of years that is undeniable, but then it began to fall away and he had no idea how to halt that. He should have gone a year ago but Top thought he could rescue himself and therefore save paying him off and that was a crucial mistake. No more long managerial contracts.

[Mickyblueeyes]

Too many times did he give that bottom of the stomach sickly feeling. You know that feeling everyone one of us got when Deeney scored in the play offs. Well with Brendan that was a regular thing every season. 
 

We gave him a good squad and for that I thank Macia. We let him be part of our journey. I don’t think Rodgers was paramount to our successes. In fact, I think with a more astute manager we could perhaps have done better. 
 

I look forward to his thank you note for us letting him be a part of it. Allowing him to rebuild his PL career. Allowing his little experiment  of control which I hope he doesn’t try anywhere else (for his next clubs sake). I don’t think we have anything to be thankful for. I wish we gave more thought to the manager appointment when Puel was sacked. We had the pull and squad to really attract talent. Instead we brought in this guy, who has benefit far more than we have in his time here. 
 

 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

UFS wrote to him when he first came here and to be fair to him he actually wrote back. Just a shame the connection with the fanbase was never really there. 

[dmayne7]

On 03/04/2023 at 07:35, volpeazzurro said:

With the squad Rodgers had compared with other competitors at the time, 5th was hardly a massive achievement. I'm not saying that we should have expected it but nevertheless it only looks good to some because of our history of not doing it before.

 

Each of those seasons our players came out of the blocks well until Mr Depression Football sunk his teeth into them. 

 

I've absolutely nothing good to say about him, his overall presence and weedling his way into the fabric of our club has set us back years if we can ever get back near to challenging the top 6 again. A once in a lifetime opportunity to kick on ruined by a charlatan ego maniac. Bloody good riddance, far too late.

I think you have to give him so credit, and maybe you will when the dust has settled but I think 2 highlighted sentences should be pinned and shared to every pro-Rodgers person out there. Some people just don't seem to get the fact that we were best of the rest by a long way (West Ham beginning to challenge that) and I'd we had got CL in 1, let alone 2 of those seasons, the club had an outside chance of breaking into the 'big 6', and at very least, cemented is as team that should be challenging for Europe every year with the odd bad season being a 12th place finish.

[oz was my hero]

It really has been a jekyll and Hyde 4 years. Played some great football in his first 2 years but fluffed the lines when it mattered. Won the cup for the first time  but then played some of the most dire football ever with absolutely  no clue how to change things . Over the last 18 months I have been calling for his head despite previous achievements, to the point were Brighton at home was my last game at home. I got completely  fed up with watching us and my weekend  being ruined.  Even my little one was bored of going so £60 was better spent elsewhere.  As much as I wanted brendan out I also have issue  with top, rudkin and wheelan  for not pulling the trigger a long time ago and also sanctioning  the awful transfers we have made recently. Tonight is the start of a new era and time to really back the side. Hopefully we can survive . 

[Fox92]

On 02/04/2023 at 21:48, coolhandfox said:

Let see how long it is before we finish in the top 6 again before we dismiss how good a season 19/20, 21/20 were.

We won't do it again and especially won't win the FA Cup in the same season.

 

We threw away two top 4 positions but Rodgers had us in that position in the first place. Finishing 5th and winning a major trophy is probably the second greatest season ever behind 15/16.

 

I know we finished 2nd in the 20's and threw away a potential double in the 60's but that's not actually winning anything.

Edited 4 April 2023 by Fox92

[foxfanazer]

Just now, Fox92 said:

We won't do it again and especially won't win the FA Cup in the same season.

 

We threw away two top 4 positions but Rodgers had us in that position in the first place. Finishing 5th and winning a major trophy is probably the second greatest season ever behind 15/16.

5th position twice at face value is obviously incredible for a club like ours and maybe it should only be judged in that way. It's just a massive shame that both have somewhat of an asterix next to them due to the nature of our collapses. Who knows what players we could've signed if we'd have just held on to one of those top 4 spots. Maybe the club would've been more inclined to invest into the squad, something I'm willing to accept they haven't done adequately. 

 

As you say though, to win the FA Cup and to finish 5th in the same season can only be seen as a huge achievement 

[Fox92]

9 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

5th position twice at face value is obviously incredible for a club like ours and maybe it should only be judged in that way. It's just a massive shame that both have somewhat of an asterix next to them due to the nature of our collapses. Who knows what players we could've signed if we'd have just held on to one of those top 4 spots. Maybe the club would've been more inclined to invest into the squad, something I'm willing to accept they haven't done adequately. 

 

As you say though, to win the FA Cup and to finish 5th in the same season can only be seen as a huge achievement 

It is disappointing we didn't finish top 4, I do agree with that.

 

I never expected us to finish top 6 anyway. Finishing 5th is a good achievment, we have finished 5th or higher only 5 times (I think) in the top flight and two of them times were under Rodgers. I don't personally see either season with an asterix against them and I stand by my comments that I don't think we'll do it again. 20/21 was the better season because 5th plus an FA Cup is much better than just finishing top 4.

 

Onwards and upwards now, hopefully.

Edited 4 April 2023 by Fox92