In June 2012, I was approached by Paul Tomkins, the brains behind the influential Liverpool FC website The Tomkins Times, about detailing Rodgers’ time in South West Wales and to evaluate what he could bring to Merseyside (which can be read here). As I began writing it I realised my emotions towards Rodgers were a strangely tinged cocktail containing sadness, pride and bitterness with a spot of good old fashion football fan anger thrown in for extra kick. However, on completion of the article I accepted that us Swansea fans had got two amazing years of service out of Rodgers and that I’d ultimately miss him. After all, we would not be a Premier League without him. On reading back through that same article just over 6 months later, in a week that is building up to my beloved Swansea City visiting Anfield to take on Rodger’s Liverpool, I began to reflect on the job Rodgers is doing at Liverpool, but also how his departure from Swansea was the most concealed of blessings in disguise.
The realisation that losing Rodgers was not such a bad thing after all came to its undoubted fruition last Halloween when Swansea, now led by Michael Laudrup, took on Rodgers’ Liverpool at Anfield in the League Cup. I was at Anfield that night to watch the new and improved Swansea City tear Rodgers’ Liverpool apart pass by pass. Yes, Liverpool started the game with Suarez, Gerrard and Sterling on the bench, but even following their introduction at half time, Swansea continued to lead the Reds a merry dance. Swansea were a different beast to the one Rodgers had shown up with at Anfield just under 12 months before – Rodgers’ Swansea was an elegant stallion of a team, but Laudrup had created a monster. Laudrup had not overhauled Rodgers’ successful and much lauded style, but instead made slight tweaks and ultimately filled in the gaping lack of ‘cutting edge’ that the Swans had lacked under Rodgers.
It is hard to argue with the fact that Laudrup has done an excellent job in improving Swansea City further, but has Rodgers done the same for Liverpool?
Swansea and Brendan’s Quest for Cutting Edge
I reveled in the possession football we played under Rodgers. I can’t remember if I always thought that the ‘tiki taka’ philosophy was the ultimate footballing philosophy or whether Roberto Martinez brainwashed me on his arrival as Swansea manager in 2007, but nonetheless, over the past 6 years I would not swap supporting Swansea City for anyone, thanks largely to the style of football I’ve been privileged to watch them play week in, week out. It has been a joy. Martinez started it, Sousa toughened us and Rodgers took it onto the next level and turned us into the media’s ‘Swanselona’. I was worried when Rodgers departed as I questioned how far another manager could really take us. Laudrup has stepped up admirably and made Swansea a more clinical entity, unlike the previous regime under Rodgers.
Rodgers gave birth to the ‘Swansea Triangle’ but my main criticism of Rodgers during his tenure at Swansea, especially during the club’s maiden Premier League campaign, was the lack of a killer blow. This was perhaps best summed up in a game at the Liberty Stadium against Newcastle last season with Swansea having 77% possession, making 912 passes, having a 92% pass accuracy and 19 shots, yet still losing 2-0.
Rodgers’ blind spot during his Swansea spell was discovering a truly lethal striker. For much of our promotion campaign in the Championship we had no real striker with the repeated testing and trialling of average strikers such as Frank Nouble, Tamas Priskin, Jermaine Easter and Craig Beattie in our main striker role. I’m almost certain if Rodgers had not pulled off the loan signing of the lethal Fabio Borini from Chelsea in the final quarter of our promotion season, Swansea may not be a Premier League team today. Last season followed a similar pattern as the Swans relied too heavily on Danny Graham; if Graham wasn’t scoring, there was no-one else really to take on the goalscoring mantle. It was only another inspired loan signing, this time the Icelandic playmaker Gylfi Sigurdsson, that triggered a more ruthless and sharpened Swansea attack in the second half of last season.
Arguably, one of Rodgers first jobs on arriving at Liverpool was discovering ‘cutting edge’. Obviously with the worldly Luis Suarez in the team, Rodgers has a player at his disposal who can almost single-handedly take on a team by himself on his day, but on arriving at the club, more attacking depth was needed. Under Dalglish, Suarez’s finishing could be suspect at times and this trend arguably carried on in the nascent stages of the Rodgers’ era; however, it’s safe to say that Rodgers began to get the best out of the Uruguayan who has been in scintillating form this season, although similar to Graham last season, is Rodgers relying on his main striker too much? Suarez has scored almost half of Liverpool’s goals (38% of the team’s league goals) and he certainly needs help from his midfield. Rodgers has partly remedied this Suarez-reliance with the January signing of Daniel Sturridge and his impact at the club was accentuated by his absence in the West Brom fixture at Anfield, where Liverpool hunted desperately for a goal; with no Sturridge available for that game and Suarez shackled admirably by the West Brom defence, Liverpool looked constricted.
I should point out that the stats show that Rodgers has certainly improved Liverpool as an attacking unit, despite a Suarez-central strategy (what manager wouldn’t make him a focal point though?), Liverpool scored 44 goals in the opening 25 fixtures compared to the mere 30 goals scored under King Kenny’s reign at that stage last season. In fact, Liverpool circa 2011/12 only managed 47 goals all season. Incidentally, Liverpool’s 44 goals in that period equalled Swansea’s tally for the whole of last season perhaps indicating Rodgers learned lessons from his first ever top flight season (or that maybe Swansea just don’t have a player of the quality of Suarez).
Similarly, the man following on from Rodgers at Swansea has also sharpened the Swansea attack and just like his predecessor there’s a strong case for the Swans relying on one goalscoring threat: Michu. There were murmurs preseason that the Spaniard could be a force in this league, but few would have predicted how much of an impact the Spaniard would actually have. Michu’s assuredness in front of goal in the opening months of the season prompted Laudrup to convert Michu from an attacking midfielder to Swansea’s main number nine, where he has the flexibility to be an en vogue ‘false nine’ or an outright target man when needed. However, with Danny Graham now gone and only the sporadically good Luke Moore and the utterly useless Itay Shechter on the bench behind Michu, Swans fans must prey that Michu can stay fit for the duration of the season.
The signings
It was very hard to judge how shrewd Rodgers was in the transfer market with Swansea as the Northern Irishman largely stuck with the same squad that he inherited from Paulo Sousa and he even shied away from wholesale changes when the club stepped up from the Championship to the Premier League, instead favouring the players that were established in his system in the second tier.
As mentioned previously, finding a striker was always a weakness of Rodgers, but his signing of Borini was inspired and was the final piece in Swansea’s promotion puzzle. Clearly, Liverpool fans are not so bowled over with the Italian. The Italian is one of the most natural finishers I’ve seen play in the flesh, but I’m concerned that his year in Italy, largely playing in wide areas for Roma, has disintegrated his clinical streak and turned him into a more pragmatic soul. Borini has been deployed on the wings for Liverpool, but he looks a shadow of the clinical Pippo Inzaghi-lite who was so effective for Swansea. Unfortunately for him, I can’t see him claiming a central role anytime soon with the burgeoning ‘SAS’ partnership looking more exciting with every game.
Which brings us to Joe Allen – another with Swansea ties. Allen was brought through the Swansea academy and went on to become one of our most influential players over the past two seasons. It makes me laugh today to recall the night I witnessed his first start for the club, then in League One, on a Tuesday night League Cup game against Steve Coppell’s Reading of the Premier League. 17 year old Allen earned himself the man of the match award that evening – I was blown away by how assured such a young player looked on the ball; my friend who came along to the game with me commented: “He does look a good player – but he doesn’t pass forward enough for my liking.” Nothing changes. Allen arrived at Liverpool as the personification of Rodgers’ philosophy and I find it a shame that a player who was venerated so highly at Swansea is now consigned to the bench; however, I think it is currently understandable. For whatever reason, the Lucas/ Allen partnership is just not clicking into place at the moment and with Gerrard playing so well in a deeper role it is going to be tough for Allen to force his way back into the starting XI. Allen is far from a lost cause though; as many football fans and pundits deride the Welshman’s lack of forward passing, I think they are forgetting that the highlight of Liverpool’s stuttering start to the season was Allen’s performances.
Despite the couple of days of mourning that followed the non-signing of Clint Dempsey, I feel Liverpool should have pushed harder to secure the signing of another ex-Swan, Gylfi Sigurdsson. From January to May last year Sigurdsson was truly magical for Swansea and was perhaps the one player at the club that ‘made things happen’ on the pitch. It shouldn’t be understated how much Swansea improved with the Icelandic midfielder on board with Swansea’s chance creation and chance conversion rising dramatically from the’ Gylfi-less’ first half of the season. ‘Siggy’ has not exactly shone at Spurs, but under his mentor Rodgers, the man who gave him his debut for Reading and played a huge part in his development as a player, I feel he could have been an excellent acquisition for Liverpool and the intricate playmaker they seem to be lacking at the moment.
The £20 million Swansea received from Liverpool for both Rodgers and Allen helped Laudrup put his mark on the team with the excellent acquisitions of Michu, Pablo Hernandez, Jonathan De Guzman and (my personal favourite) Chico Flores.
The style
At Swansea, Rodgers was entirely focused on ball retention. A risky pass was a pass not worth making. 2011/12 saw Swansea become the ultimate ball-hoggers with the team getting upwards of a 1000 passes a game at times and with little Leon Britton having the best pass accuracy percentage in the whole of Europe – even ahead of Barcelona pass maestros Xavi and Iniesta. Since joining Liverpool, Rodgers has reeled off his now famous quote:
“I’ve always worked along the statistic, that if you can dominate the game with the ball you have a 79% chance of winning a game of football.”
Rodgers has to try to bring his Swansea philosophy to Merseyside, but although the Reds have shown patches of the neat, passing football now synonymous with Swansea, the guile of the passing football played on Merseyside has not quite lived up to the standard of the South Wales school of passing present last season. This is where I believe Rodgers must be given time. It must be remembered that Swansea had been playing this brand of football for 3 and half years before Rodgers showed up and many of the players that were there at the start of club’s philosophical switch under Martinez in 2007 are still there now. There were times at the start of Swansea’s switch to more possession-based football where our fans would be uproarious when the team attempted to play repetitive short, simple passes, seemingly leading nowhere, instead of more daring and incisive passes; now, our fans are disgusted if any of our players dares aimlessly hoof the ball. The Swansea fans have been educated along with the players. I notice a very similar pattern developing with the Liverpool support with the way some fans are reacting to some of Rodgers’ tactics and ideas. I’m sure it will all fall into place over time, but time is the key. This style will not just flourish overnight. Swansea had the fortune of his honing their brand of football outside the pressured environment of the Premier League, Liverpool do not.
As Liverpool battle to grasp Brendan Rodgers 101, Swansea’s style has transformed under Laudrup. Laudrup came in saying that he would not deter away from the established ‘Swansea Way’, but that he would be making the Swans a more direct, attacking force. “For me, possession is to keep the ball while you are waiting for the possibility to penetrate. Every pass is for a reason” declared Laudrup in an interview with The Guardian during preseason. The amount of passes made by Swansea in a game has plummeted, but we have returned to the quicker passing and quicker movement I enjoyed watching under the Martinez regime. Also, unlike last season, the Swans now have a Plan B and even Plans C,D and E, which have helped us start winning a lot more frequently away from home.
The other notable adjustment that Laudrup made to Rodgers’ footballing formula was taking a step away from Rodgers’ obsession with making the wingers hog the touchline. Laudrup made it very clear on his arrival that Swansea would be playing with very narrow wingers pushing behind the striker to create a piercing attack. This worked to perfection in the opening game of the season with Swansea thrashing QPR 5-0 and has worked particularly well when Hernandez, Routledge and Dyer have played behind Michu; the first half of football played by Swansea in their November fixture against WBA which featured these players as the front 4 is considered by some to be the greatest 45 minutes of football played by any Swansea side in recent history.
Rodgers has almost shunned his former love of widening the pitch and similar to Laudrup has moved his team towards a more centralised style of play, although I think this is largely out of necessity rather than choice with Liverpool’s lack of out and out wingers; players such as Jordan Henderson, Fabio Borini, Suso and Suarez have all taken to playing an ostensible wider position, but inevitably all of these players have driven through the middle rather than rampaging down the line as none of them are natural wide men.
Long Live the Laudrup Era
I like Brendan Rodgers. Unfortunately, I do find myself laughing at him a lot these days, particularly in his pre and postmatch talks to the press which as many have pointed out have a touch of David Brent to them. Rodgers is the ultimate PR man and more than likely I missed out on his more cringeworthy soundbites last season with my love of Swansea City fogging my vision. He made the Jack Army feel loved with his repeated declarations of affection towards the fans, mingling with fans regularly and his saluting of the Swansea fans at every game. Rodgers has adopted similar chummy tactics with the Liverpool fans. There is no such forced love from Laudrup. In fact, he can appear quite cold at times. Fortunately for him, he’s winning, so consequently the Great Dane is adored by our support. We’ve also come to respect his humble yet honest statements to the press. We’re yet to really see the ever calm Laudrup criticise an opponent or more amazingly slander a referee.
Of course it is easy for me to say right now, but I’m loving life without Rodgers. I thought life as a Swansea fan could not get any better than last season and I repeatedly found myself saying “Enjoy it while it lasts” throughout last season. It looks like I’ll be enjoying myself for a while yet, especially since it looks like Laudrup is on the verge of signing a new contract. I’m enjoying our style of football more than last season with the new offensive-minded approach, we’re claiming points away from home regularly, our defence looks as strong as ever and, amazingly, we have our first ever cup final coming up and a potential adventure on the continent.
Cheers for the good times Brendan and I wish you all the best, but I think you may have taken us far as you possibly could. In Laudrup we trust.
