Rodger’s vs the board (chicken vs egg)

[dmayne7]

1 hour ago, Stuntman_Mike said:

Never say never, football changes so quickly in both directions. 

 

We just need to force a change of board.

Na, we blew it. Of course things can change and we could win an FA Cup or even finish top 4 as a one off but other clubs have all raised the bar off the field (or at least mirrored out successful model, or that of a Brighton/Brentford) so your chance of getting a competitive advantage is very limited. Couple that with PSR and it's very hard to ever get to a secure place.

 

We really should have secured ourselves as a PL club for 10+ years if we'd got over the line with top 4 and managed it better.

[ajthefox]

I hold no animosity for any past players or managers but Rodgers is somewhat of an exception. He is a rotten fvxking egg.

 

What he was saying the entire relegation season for me is almost as bad as his insistence on playing Ward and not playing Cags. He didn't give a shit about what was happening to the club. 

Edited 4 March by ajthefox

[LCFCJohn]

5 hours ago, Stadt said:

He had the opportunity for a rebuild but the head of recruitment he had installed signed Daka, Soumare, Vestergaard & Bertrand AND we didn’t sell anybody that summer.

 

The recruitment under Rodgers and Congerton was largely shit.

 

Justin and Fofana were the only outright successes in 4 years (Tielemans’ permanent signing doesn’t count). There were a few ok signings like Castagne too.

 

If he’d have just played a side with more defensive responsibility we’d have been fine. Just dropping Ward after his 3rd bad game would have kept us up.

Not aimed at you, just the latest post mentioning Daka and Soumare as terrible signings.

 

If you look at the threads from when their signings were announced, this place was buzzing. Everyone was falling over themselves at how good these signings were.

 

They haven’t worked out at we would have liked, and I am a huge critic of the club, but I think there are plenty of signings we knew wouldn’t crap but these ones you can’t really criticise the club on.

 

The wages yes, as this is what has made it difficult to move them on.

[oldbluefox]

I look at Tielemans now playing a positive role for Villa and I can't help looking back at the fat lump of lard,  his head rolling from side to side as he was overtaken by the ref when our defence was under attack. 

Clearly there was a very lax fitness regime meaning Tielemans and the rest just were not fit for a Premiership team. 

That was the responsibility of Rodgers and I will never forgive him for what he did to our club. 

[Lambert09]

1 hour ago, LCFCJohn said:

Not aimed at you, just the latest post mentioning Daka and Soumare as terrible signings.

 

If you look at the threads from when their signings were announced, this place was buzzing. Everyone was falling over themselves at how good these signings were.

 

They haven’t worked out at we would have liked, and I am a huge critic of the club, but I think there are plenty of signings we knew wouldn’t crap but these ones you can’t really criticise the club on.

 

The wages yes, as this is what has made it difficult to move them on.

Agree with this. Daka was doing similar numbers to haaland it was worth a gamble. 
 

I remember seeing angry spurs fans online because they didn’t understand how we were getting him and that they weren’t after him. 
 

Really hard to get those ones right but on the flip side, if it wasn’t Daka it would have been edouard, so we’d have been doomed either way

[Stadt]

2 hours ago, LCFCJohn said:

Not aimed at you, just the latest post mentioning Daka and Soumare as terrible signings.

 

If you look at the threads from when their signings were announced, this place was buzzing. Everyone was falling over themselves at how good these signings were.

 

They haven’t worked out at we would have liked, and I am a huge critic of the club, but I think there are plenty of signings we knew wouldn’t crap but these ones you can’t really criticise the club on.

 

The wages yes, as this is what has made it difficult to move them on.

They are completely defensible signings - I agree with that. Soumare I wouldn't have signed as he played in quite an odd system and his pressure numbers (available via fbref at the time) were just too low for the type of position he plays. I said as much on here at the time.

 

However, the weird thing is they were just completely supplementary signings, none of them were ever going to be first choice immediately. That was consciously our biggest net spend as we didn't sell anybody for the first summer in a while.

 

Perez and Albrighton were our right wing options and demonstrably not good enough. They started 15 and 17 games respectively the season before - had we have signed a decent RW that summer instead of a second (or third) choice striker and fourth choice CM we'd have been in a far better position.

[fazzyfox]

The summer leading into the relegation season, other than the Fofana / Faes activity which came after the season had started and losing Kasper we signed just Smithies / Smithers / Whassisface a 3rd choice goalkeeper. No Premier League Club has ever done less in a summer window (unless under embargo). With that I greatly sympathise, he often said the players need "help" that season meaning fresh faces, a bit more quality around them, a bit more cover to rotate and rest.

BUT -

 

a) We were in the FFP situation we were after his signings  had come in, some failing, some unused, some alienated and no-one coming in for them. For a rebuild you need other clubs willing to come in for your players. We had been financing "his way" and run out of FFP wiggle room. I think Tielemans was massive in this, had he attracted £40 millon pound bids in his last 2 seasons he'd have been sold and some of that money made available, he wasn't and our model of moving on a "star" player was broken. I think Maddsons' hip injury prevented clubs coming in then as well.  

 

b) The way he reacted in the Brentford game by not using his bench on the hottest of days was an embarrassing tantrum, one we spent £50-£60 each to witness and those 2 dropped points ultimately would have kept us up. P***k.

 

c) I just think he stopped fancying the job, the financial situation wouldn't be great for a while yet even if we stayed up (but still better than it has been), he wouldn't quit and lose his compensation.

[Foxmeister]

Is there any possibility we could get rid of the apostrophe in the thread title? 

[LCFCJohn]

1 hour ago, Stadt said:

They are completely defensible signings - I agree with that. Soumare I wouldn't have signed as he played in quite an odd system and his pressure numbers (available via fbref at the time) were just too low for the type of position he plays. I said as much on here at the time.

 

However, the weird thing is they were just completely supplementary signings, none of them were ever going to be first choice immediately. That was consciously our biggest net spend as we didn't sell anybody for the first summer in a while.

 

Perez and Albrighton were our right wing options and demonstrably not good enough. They started 15 and 17 games respectively the season before - had we have signed a decent RW that summer instead of a second (or third) choice striker and fourth choice CM we'd have been in a far better position.

I agree it wasn’t addressing the glaring weakness in the starting 11. 
 

I do think Daka was signed to be Vardy’s successor although given we were moving away from that sort of system it was perhaps odd. 
 

I guess I am just being picky, in a way that there is so much that we can put at the clubs door where we as fans, would have been putting our head in our hands at the time, such as Skipp and Ayew (the latter just because although he has offered a bit, he doesn’t seem the leader you’d expect from a senior player).

 

So I guess I’m just applying some balance on a couple of cases where the fan base were buzzing.

 

But you would also expect the club to do more due diligence on things like leadership qualities and mentality than we as fans do.

[don_danbury]

27 minutes ago, Foxmeister said:

Is there any possibility we could get rid of the apostrophe in the thread title? 

no we keep

[HighPeakFox]

I feel venom towards unnecessary apostrophes. 

[OldBob]

7 hours ago, ClaphamFox said:

Rodgers was correct in identifying a cultural problem that was developing within the club, and he was also correct in saying we needed a major refresh of the squad to continue being competitive. His frustrations were understandable - he got an early glimpse of the kind of issues that we're all frustrated about now. Unfortunately he dealt with the situation poorly and lost the dressing room by repeatedly moaning about the squad in public. So while he was not responsible for the terrible decisions at board level (eg allowing Schmeichel to leave and not replacing him), he didn't have the character or managerial skills to navigate the situation and ended up making it even worse.

The culture on the field was down to him and his head of recruitment (who he’d brought with him from Celtic) . Not Rudkin or anyone else behind the scenes. He set the tone. I actually believe the board put all their eggs in one basket with him in terms of backing him in transfer markets, letting him sink our club so far into his final season with us. Everything wrong about the current squad stems from his time at the club

 

yes behind the scenes we have made way too many mistakes with buying and selling players etc but in my opinion, if we had at least a decent manager and not a career manager, we would of stayed up. That Scottish league has worked wonders for truly average coaches at best (Rodgers, Gerrard, Neil Lennon etc)

[murphy]

3 hours ago, Foxmeister said:

Is there any possibility we could get rid of the apostrophe in the thread title? 

I hadn't noticed it until you pointed it out.  Now its making my eye twitch and causing me to make an involuntary fist.

[honeybradger]

Similar to how Klopp can still take credit for the sucess of the current liverpool team due to the foundations he laid, Rodgers also still has the failures of the current team on his hands.

 

Many of them were brought in during his time with us and whilst some on here like to eulogise about Rodger's 2 top 5 finishes, the weak mentality of the current squad started taking root during those two late season collapses.

[surrifox]

The writing was on the wall when he brought in Congerton . All the clubs he worked at said what a twat he was , they were right 

[Lambert09]

8 hours ago, Foxmeister said:

Is there any possibility we could get rid of the apostrophe in the thread title? 

Oh ffs. Hang me with the rest of them 

[ozleicester]

10 hours ago, Foxmeister said:

Is there any possibility we could get rid of the apostrophe in the thread title? 

No... its their for a reason
 

2 hours ago, surrifox said:

The writing was on the wall when he brought in Congerton . All the clubs he worked at said what a twat he was , they were right 

Yep.... FFS anyone who watched that Sunderland doco couldve told us about Congerton

[Tom12345]

This post poses a very good question.

 

I will write more later, but I think a key bit of unluckiness was Fofana getting his leg break in pre-season. With Fofana, we had a really good and complete squad to be competing at the very top. In hindsight, knowing what we know now about club finances, that may have been the last major gamble the club put into this. I still remember us looking so good in pre-season before the leg break.

 

All the subsequent decisions starting with recruitment sowed the seeds for our downfall (in addition to Brendan). To begin, and the biggest mistake we made (or the Board allowed Brendan to make) was the recruitment of Vesty (who Brendan immediately benched and whom we wasted precious millions on) and then Faes (whose mistakes then and now haunted us and continue to haunt us). Our downfall started with a

loser mentality instilled by Brendan, but then it was the fact that we keep leaking goals. We once had a backline the envy of many - we won the league with Morgan and Huth who were a rock at the back - and then we had top class defenders in Fofana, Soyuncu and Evans. We now have Faes and Vesty - come on; even Macguire is better than them.

 

So it is a combination of trusting the wrong guy in Brendan and then indecisiveness and wrong decisions by the Board. Ultimately, the buck stops with the Board I guess.

[LCFCJohn]

5 hours ago, honeybradger said:

Similar to how Klopp can still take credit for the sucess of the current liverpool team due to the foundations he laid, Rodgers also still has the failures of the current team on his hands.

 

Many of them were brought in during his time with us and whilst some on here like to eulogise about Rodger's 2 top 5 finishes, the weak mentality of the current squad started taking root during those two late season collapses.

And the fact Newcastle and Villa finished top 4 in the years since, and the likes of Forest this season (though they show signs of dropping off), goes to show that even the 5th place finishes were not the achievement many made them out to be. The likes of Spurs, Man U and Chelsea on and off have been underperforming for years and any team and manager with anything about them would have seen that job through.

[Scanchez]

Apple's.

[Chrysalis]

Both parties hold blame, the board 100% were wrong to agree to a rebuild, and then only inform Rodgers way too late they were backing out of it, likewise the board are to blame for the financial management.

Rodgers holds blame as he kept making blatant mistakes in his decision making, some have suggested it was because he wanted to get sacked for a payoff, its possible, but whatever the reason his final 18 months or so was really bad.
The not lose the ball mantra had got way too far, including laying into his team on a first half performance that had them 3-0 up.
I think with Kasper there, and Soyuncu in the team, probably would have been mid table or lower mid table, not relegated.

Edited 5 March by Chrysalis

[Bob Hazels shorts]

Look at the playing infrastructure Pearson/ Walsh left to the one Brenda left.

 

Pearson built it, Rodgers killed it and we are still feeling it. . It wasn't money, his signings were atrocious and some deals corrupt it seems. (Bertrand from his sons agency? etc etc)

 

Tielemans was on loan, JJ was already scouted, Fofana basically squatted (ironically from Puel, who could spot a player) 

 

His only signing of note was Castagne and he fell out with him.

 

He did ok with player he inherited until they saw what most supporters did.

 

Never trust a man who.... -

 

Binned his previous club for dosh, they now love him.

Sold Kasper as so poor then signs him for Celtic!!

Repeatedly fails and sacked

Best mate was our HOR (failed at Celtic)

His son is an agent

Sold his house he was 'never gong to leave' at Bradgate for a rental near Seagrave... Bought a house near Celtics TG before getting the boot from LCFC

Systematically orchestrated our demise so he'd get sacked and paid-off 

Money is his god (quote from a player)

If he was chocolate he'd eat himself (quote fro another player)

 

[indierich06]

If you look at the squad he had, we never should have been relegated - yeah he was one part of bigger problems at the club, but him and the players who were there that season should hang their heads. We were in decline, but he turbo charged it.

[ClaphamFox]

1 hour ago, Bob Hazels shorts said:

Look at the playing infrastructure Pearson/ Walsh left to the one Brenda left.

 

Pearson built it, Rodgers killed it and we are still feeling it. . It wasn't money, his signings were atrocious and some deals corrupt it seems. (Bertrand from his sons agency? etc etc)

 

Tielemans was on loan, JJ was already scouted, Fofana basically squatted (ironically from Puel, who could spot a player) 

 

His only signing of note was Castagne and he fell out with him.

 

He did ok with player he inherited until they saw what most supporters did.

 

Never trust a man who.... -

 

Binned his previous club for dosh, they now love him.

Sold Kasper as so poor then signs him for Celtic!!

Repeatedly fails and sacked

Best mate was our HOR (failed at Celtic)

His son is an agent

Sold his house he was 'never gong to leave' at Bradgate for a rental near Seagrave... Bought a house near Celtics TG before getting the boot from LCFC

Systematically orchestrated our demise so he'd get sacked and paid-off 

Money is his god (quote from a player)

If he was chocolate he'd eat himself (quote fro another player)

 

Kasper's departure had nothing to do with Rodgers.

Edited 5 March by ClaphamFox

[VG Fox]

On 03/03/2025 at 20:19, lcfcbluearmy said:

No, I still absolutely can't stand him, whether or not he was lied too in that summer/ January is no excuse for how he acted. He had been heavily backed and had wasted it on people that he didn't want/ were not good enough, then as soon as things started not going his way he through a temper tantrum and purposely excluded players and played out of form players because he wanted the sack. That team was more than capable of mid table and was severely, imo purposely, mismanaged because he wanted a pay off.

 

Disgusting ego, disgusting behaviour I will never forgive him

agree... lets not forget he was being paid huge sums that most of us could only dream of to motivate and manage a squad perfectly capable of staying up...instead despite these vast sums he gave up because his ego got in the way