In his first season, Brendan struck me, and many others, as a man with a clear philosophy on football, a clear strategy and a clear vision for where he saw Liverpool football club in the future, back on their perch as a team pushing for title year on year and being mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid once more.
Three years on and the man who spoke with such conviction and clarity on ‘the group’ and ‘the vision’ is barely recognisable when viewed against the man stood in the Anfield dug out for the Norwich game.
Or is Brendan Rodgers just another person who has found himself in the right place at the right time, taking over a Martinez team at Swansea and now finds himself out of his depth trying to manage and lead a team to domestic glory and European qualification?
I struggle to accept the opinion that many have already resigned themselves to: “Brendan Rodgers is lucky”. Lucky to have had the likes of Luis Suarez, recruited by Kenny Dalglish, hit a season-long purple patch just at the right time, or lucky to have few serious injuries that season, or lucky to have scored so many that it saved us the embarrassment of really putting Liverpool’s defending under the microscope.
When truly, it was not a lack of scoring that lost Liverpool the league that season. It was clearly the defending, be it defensive errors against West Bromwich Albion or fateful slips against Chelsea, not to mention the calamitous effort at Selhurst Park. These factors considered we have to examine the question is Brendan Rodgers a man that knows what he is doing?
Given the backing that FSG have given Rodgers, both by being so outspoken on their opinion of the man and also the backing of him in the transfer market, he is clearly the man that they want for the job and the man that they have chosen to helm their ship.
Having spent over £312m, there have been few successes from Liverpool’s transfer policy. I have been careful in the choice of words there, Liverpool are notoriously governed by a transfer board, on which Rodgers sits but is only one of the members. Whilst he cannot be blamed for all of the failings within the transfer market, he must be apportioned the some of the blame. The signings such as Fabio Borini, Luis Alberto and Tiago Ilori, in their own right not poor players, but players which Brendan Rodgers was charged with getting the most from; a job at which he failed.
The truth is that Liverpool are lucky to have the points total that we have so far, there have been no performances that have promoted optimism within the ranks. A last minute win against Stoke and a very lucky three points against Bournemouth. Liverpool’s true form should really see them in the relegation positions, and not 13th.
The approach with which Liverpool played their football was initially enthralling, the high intensity possession based game which served them so well has now disappeared. It has not disappeared in favour of something more direct, nor something more counter-attacking. It has been abandoned in favour of what appears to be, no apparent style of play whatsoever.
The Norwich game showed how Brendan Rodgers has changed; a man who was once praised as the saviour of the club and the man to lead Liverpool through the wilderness to a golden sky, stood, unanimated and bereft of ideas. It appeared from my seat in the Kop that Liverpool only really started putting high balls into the box once Benteke had been replaced by Ings.
If you spend £32.5m on a strong, tall centre-forward with the highest number of headed goals in the league for the last few years, conventional logic would suggest that you put a couple of high balls into the box for him. Alas, there was little for Benteke to work from, be it as a target man or balls getting put in from the wings.
The introduction of Ings at half-time proved valuable, not only with the return of a goal within three minutes but also with his work rate. The tenacity with which he hassled, chased and harangued defenders was something not seen at Anfield since Suarez left as arguably the best player in the world.
A starting berth, most definitely in the cup game must be afforded to Ings after a string of good performances from the bench. Maybe as part of this ‘realignment’ it must be considered whether a team built around Christian Benteke best suits what we all want to see from a Liverpool team. Whilst he is a player comfortable with the ball at his feet, this is not perhaps his chosen method of getting his name on the score sheet. He perhaps relies more on his aerial prowess than his technical ability with the ball on the floor. Ings, Origi and Firmino, along with Sturridge will play with the ball on the floor more often and make the runs that were so absent last season.
This is essentially all conjecture on my part. The point is that there a myriad of options available to Rodgers, none of which it is clear to say he has adopted. For a man who once got me out of my seat when talking about football and the way in which we wanted to see Liverpool play, he is now a pale reflection of that man.
In order to win back the Anfield faithful, he must adopt a style of play and run with it. In his own pre-match notes he stated that he was aware that the previous performances against West Ham and Manchester United were not good enough, saying that when the group fails it hurts them all, collectively and individually.
He fails to see the despondency that this lack of direction is promoting within the team. There are few people that are fighting for the shirt and the crowd know it. If Brendan Rodgers does not start to produce convincing displays in the Carlisle game midweek and then against Aston Villa he is going to be in a very precarious position, especially with the likes of Ancelotti and Klopp sitting in the wings checking their CVs over.
In order to keep his job, he really must get them to play to a system and stick with it; a system that he believes in and wants to play to. Having bought the players, he must now own the group of which he talks about so much and have them work for him, each other and the fans.
