Brendan Rodgers

[BoyJones]

21 minutes ago, LC/FC said:

I take it from the lack of replies or responses to that question means everyone's in agreement that we played shit tonight.

 

And guess ultimately who's responsible for that?

The manager.

Who kept Perez on, started Maddison, dropped Iheanacho, didn't put on Praet, not rotating enough of his squad options, continuously starting an out of form Vardy and everything else that's been spotted and spoken about on this forum tonight.

 

I’m gutted that we lost tonight, but I don’t blame BR. Two mistakes cost us the goals, an unnecessary corner and unnecessary challenge in the box with a player heading towards the corner flag. Chelsea had all the stats in their favour but essentially just huffed and puffed. Bit like the Spurs game on January 13th 2016 when they wiped the floor with us but we held out and Huth scored his iconic header late on. Nobody bitched then about our negative and uninspiring performance!
 

My only beef with Perez is that his technique let him down when he had a straight forward shot that only had to hit the target. 
 

I thought Rodgers game plan was ok, but meant a zero mistake requirement, which didn’t happen. After 60 years following the lads, I’ve seen plenty of back to the wall games where we have triumphed from a defensive set up. You can’t go out all guns blazing against a team like Chelsea who are in the Champions League final! Some people need a reality check. 
 

We still have a great chance for the top four, so you negative know all supporters better get behind the team on Sunday. I wasn’t allowed to apply for a ticket, so I am relying on you lot to get us over the line. Don’t let us down. 

[Clt1900]

Rodgers outsmarted himself today.

[Fizo]

He has done well this season. Kudos to him. The truth is that true greatness beckoned and he spurned it. I have not seen any evidence that Maddison was in any shape to get back into this team this season. The guy is practically struggling to jog. He is limping half the time. To bench Kelechi after one bad game to make space for Maddison is self destructive. Even when he came on when players were tired he made no impression, so why start him?

With the number of goals Kelechi has scored in the past 3 months, all Rodgers is looking for is an opportunity to fit Maddison back in.

[LC/FC]

11 minutes ago, BoyJones said:

I’m gutted that we lost tonight, but I don’t blame BR. Two mistakes cost us the goals, an unnecessary corner and unnecessary challenge in the box with a player heading towards the corner flag. Chelsea had all the stats in their favour but essentially just huffed and puffed. Bit like the Spurs game on January 13th 2016 when they wiped the floor with us but we held out and Huth scored his iconic header late on. Nobody bitched then about our negative and uninspiring performance!
 

My only beef with Perez is that his technique let him down when he had a straight forward shot that only had to hit the target. 
 

I thought Rodgers game plan was ok, but meant a zero mistake requirement, which didn’t happen. After 60 years following the lads, I’ve seen plenty of back to the wall games where we have triumphed from a defensive set up. You can’t go out all guns blazing against a team like Chelsea who are in the Champions League final! Some people need a reality check. 
 

We still have a great chance for the top four, so you negative know all supporters better get behind the team on Sunday. I wasn’t allowed to apply for a ticket, so I am relying on you lot to get us over the line. Don’t let us down. 

Difference is that the title winning team was designed to be defensive. We were known for counter attacking which meant we defended like dogs in our low block and we were amazing at it and usually depended on some Mahrez or Vardy magic to nick a goal.

But that comes back to my initial point in this thread that I rank Pearson higher than Rodgers for being able to instill a stronger mentality than what we currently have.

 

I have no issue with having a strong defensive base to build off of, being able to play from the back. But to have a zero mistakes game plan to just neutralise Chelsea without an attacking outlet for 70 minutes is in itself a mistake.

In this forum there's probably only me and @StriderHiryu that actually look at things tactically and strategically compared to 99% of this forum, and I can see that tonight's problems were all our own doing.

 

Not having Evans organising the defence and holding the defensive line means that Fofana and Soyuncu couldn't push up with the ball. And without Evans do we really need a 3 at the back? And we only played a 3 to fit Soy, Jonny and Lil Wes in the side anyways. 

 

Every part of our play goes through Tielemans, literally every single thing in our team seems to be just going through him which means the rest of our players aren't doing enough to facilitate it.

Also the idea of Youri playing in a deeper role this season is essentially to be able to dictate but also be a quarterback and break lines but that's practically impossible if there aren't willing runners to take the passes further up field.

 

I have literally wrote in the tactics thread about how Rodgers this season has kinda found a tactical fluidity with our squad to try and get the best out of the available players. But tonight we were anything but fluid. Starting both Perez and Maddison in theory was probably meant for us to try and keep the ball but that failed miserably because neither of them could keep the ball and we didn't have anyone up top that could stretch Chelsea until Iheanacho and Pereira came on.

 

It is what it is. Tonight is done. Just like Saturday is done. But it doesn't change the fact that for me, looking at tonight tactically, Brendan screwed the pooch hard.

[Bptiger]

This is way he cops all the crap , he should have had Ricardo on much sooner his pace was worrying  them , Maddison and Perez’s should have been dragged off earlier, and the fact is he has not used the squad very well in the last 20 games at all , I hope we don’t miss out again like last year but if we do it all falls at the manager’s feet .

[LC/FC]

https://www.lcfc.com/news/2149576/we-needed-to-play-forward-more-says-rodgers

 

This is what's getting my goat!

Brendan saying that we needed to play forward more...

YOU HAD NOONE TO PLAY FORWARD TO!!!

[deanolegend1989]

3 minutes ago, Bptiger said:

This is way he cops all the crap , he should have had Ricardo on much sooner his pace was worrying  them , Maddison and Perez’s should have been dragged off earlier, and the fact is he has not used the squad very well in the last 20 games at all , I hope we don’t miss out again like last year but if we do it all falls at the manager’s feet .

Spot on. 👏

 

2 minutes ago, LC/FC said:

https://www.lcfc.com/news/2149576/we-needed-to-play-forward-more-says-rodgers

 

This is what's getting my goat!

Brendan saying that we needed to play forward more...

YOU HAD NOONE TO PLAY FORWARD TO!!!

Exactly, unbelievable comment. Will never be better than a decent manager because he’ll never admit when he gets it wrong, or even more worryingly, actually doesn’t know himself what to do.

[LC/FC]

2 minutes ago, deanolegend1989 said:

Spot on. 👏

 

Exactly, unbelievable comment. Will never be better than a decent manager because he’ll never admit when he gets it wrong, or even more worryingly, actually doesn’t know himself what to do.

And when you can't admit your mistakes then you're doomed to never learn from them.

 

Funny how the same article he says we started playing more progressive in the last 20-25 minutes... Which is when he finally made the substitutions and had Kele and Riccy P doing some runs.

I wonder if there's a correlation...🤔

[deanolegend1989]

19 minutes ago, LC/FC said:

And when you can't admit your mistakes then you're doomed to never learn from them.

 

Funny how the same article he says we started playing more progressive in the last 20-25 minutes... Which is when he finally made the substitutions and had Kele and Riccy P doing some runs.

I wonder if there's a correlation...🤔

Theres a huge correction. He did the same away at West Ham and brought on Albrighton for a defender and pushed , too late as usual. Also Newcastle at home too little too late after strangely subbing Ndidi at 2-0 and in a blink of an eye was 4-0 and he realised too late again.

He’s too scared to lose and he is too scared to change it and mix it up if it’s before his customary 60-65 min range.

[dayday]

We knew Chelsea was going to come at us that’s why I would’ve of liked to see Choudhury starting with Ricardo, we would of had a much better balance than the team that started.

 

 

[Claudio Fannieri]

We were poor last night and looked out on our feet but I am really not sure what people expected Rodgers to do .....

 

Evans out injured - our squad options are Morgan, Amartey and Fuchs, two of which are way past their best. whilst big Dan is nowhere near top 4 prem standard 

 

I even got why Kels was rested, he looked tired and was poor on Saturday and the ball wasn’t sticking with him at all, and clearly last night we felt a smash and grab 1-0 was going to be the way to do that, 2 mistakes put pay to that game plan. 

 

We are also missing James Justin and Harvey Barnes who are big misses for us, and as a consequence of their absence we have found a formation and way of playing that has kept us competitive and in with a shout of champions league and we have just won our first ever FA Cup Final. 

in reality who from the bench would you have started last night except for Kels - 

 

Riccy P - unlikely as most have said he is still battling back from injury and needs to build up match sharpness

 

Fuchs, Morgan and Amartey - see above 

 

Mendy - only if you drop/rest big Wilf 

 

Choudhury - wouldn’t trust him over 90 minutes in such as big game, has a mistake and/or red card in him 

 

Praet - possible starter in place of either Madders or Perez, only one I would trust to start in last nights circumstances.

 

so in reality not many options to mix it up or rotate without fielding a massively weakened team

 

Last night was always going to be a challenge, quick turnaround, we had just delivered the same opponents a bloody nose and revenge was always going to be on the cards. Credit Chelsea they came at us from the first minute and we just didn’t have the legs to deal with it. 
 

Our lack of squad depth and the horrendous injuries we have had was always going to play a part and hopefully in time we will keep strengthening and improving. 
 

Of course it will be disappointing if we miss out on UCL but we have secured our first ever FA Cup win and again battled with the better equipped big 6 and forced them into a dogfight for the big prizes, all that under a global pandemic and horrific season of injuries, this has been some achievement, as we could easily been looking at a season of mid table mediocrity. 

[casablancas]

I know one thing for sure. Saturday 15th May 2021 will be a day that lives on forever. The game we lost to Chelsea a few days later and maybe dropped outta the top 4 (for the first time in like a year, near enough) will not. I know that when my time comes I’ll remember that Youri goal, that lift, top and all the other emotions. Missing out on top 4 would be long forgotten. Brendan has immortality amongst most fans for this. Alongside a few others. 

[Manini]

The attitude towards him is just weird. He could win multiple trophies here and you’d still get some “yer da” weirdos coming on here saying “we’ll he’s decent but he’ll never be an elite manager because xyz”. 
 

Cold hard facts are Brendan Rodgers wins things. And that’s the sort of behaviour I can get behind. 

[ARTY_FOX]

The day I take no joy out of Leicester winning a trophy because we won't be playing Real Madrid a year later I think i'll stop watching football. 

 

[HighPeakFox]

I'm staggered by some of what's written here. I shouldn't be, but I am.

[Fox92]

1 hour ago, casablancas said:

I know one thing for sure. Saturday 15th May 2021 will be a day that lives on forever. The game we lost to Chelsea a few days later and maybe dropped outta the top 4 (for the first time in like a year, near enough) will not. I know that when my time comes I’ll remember that Youri goal, that lift, top and all the other emotions. Missing out on top 4 would be long forgotten. Brendan has immortality amongst most fans for this. Alongside a few others. 

Yep. The occassion, the day, the celebrations of Saturday will stay with me forever. That's what it's all about

[Fox92]

9 hours ago, ARM1968 said:

For those suggesting that we have done well in recent years, which we have, and that not achieving CL is not the end of the world, which it isn’t - which of a stars will you be happy to see leave now?

 

I ask because I am 100% certain failure to reach the CL will see one of our top players depart.  So who will you be happy to lose now?

You. And anybody that doesn't prioritise winning trophies. Weirdos. Go and start a European Super League together.

Edited 19 May 2021 by Fox92

[Scotch]

He got it wrong last night with the team that started the game but that happens, I'm not too fussed about that. 

What I was more annoyed with was that the same team came out for the second half after we were absolutely hammered in the first. 

 

We somehow survived the first half and I really thought it was a small victory as he then had a chance to reevaluate and change it and he didn't. 

 

That being said, I'm not going to be overly critical of him. He's got it right more often than not this year and has earned the right to have the odd stinker. 

 

I'm disappointed that we won't finish top 4 but trying to manage my expectations and accept that 5th and a cup is still a cracking season. 

[Guest Col city fan]

19 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

I'm staggered by some of what's written here. I shouldn't be, but I am.

What are you staggered about this time?

😩

[HighPeakFox]

4 minutes ago, Col city fan said:

What are you staggered about this time?

😩

People choosing to find fault where possible. I'm afraid that certain types need to be angry. 

[LukeyZade]

Missing on that top 4 is harsh. Weve lost out best 2 players jj and barnes. Without em we look poo going forward. We need to adress a new ST. winger and for me a CM with balls

[deep blue]

9 hours ago, Jimmy said:

This result was on him, we were getting overran in midfield and he never addressed it, Praet, Mendy and Hamza are all fresh having barely played and 1 should have been on at half time, Albrighton is good for about 1 game in 4 now and Ricardo was fresh on the bench.

For all his good performances, this has been an area where he has often come up short. Someone made the comment a few days ago that Rodgers effectively plays with a 14 man squad, because he trusts so few on the bench.  Ndidi and Tielemans work wonderfully well as a midfield pair but against some teams they can be bullied and stifled.  In those situations players like Perez and, at the moment anyway, Maddison don't have the strength in combat to add the support that's needed.

 

For me there were two obvious things that we needed to prepare for in this match. One was to recognise that Mount was the mainspring for their attacks and had to be guarded very closely.  The second was that Tuchel would have recognised the importance of Tielemas and would have set up his midfield to stifle him.  On that second point, we had to set up with a stronger midfield in order to protect Youri.

 

We have to hope that we beat Spurs and that Chelsea and/or Liverpool foul up because,  as many have already said, Champions League is essential to us maintaining our upwards progress.  Without it, the ability to keep the diamond players we have and to attract (and afford) our transfer targets is severely compromised.  

[dmayne7]

2 minutes ago, HighPeakFox said:

People choosing to find fault where possible. I'm afraid that certain types need to be angry. 

Haven't been through all the posts but I'm not really seeing anyone say anything other than he got the team selection wrong and made a big mistake by not changing it earlier? And that these are his big limitations.

 

Don't think it's up for debate that he's done a great job here and winning the FA cup is what he set out to do but that doesn't mean you couldn't be frustrated that he contributed to a defeat in a big game and that he still hasn't learned from this type of mistake. The encouraging thing is that he has definitely developed as a manager this season so hopefully next year he can continue to work on these flaws.

 

Maybe you're not in this camp but I think that failure to get top 4 will take the gloss of the cup win for many which makes it all the more annoying that the final wasn't the last game of the season because then nobody would care.

[ARM1968]

25 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

You. And anybody that doesn't prioritise winning trophies. Weirdos. Go and start a European Super League together.

It’s just opinions. I’m stoked we won the FA Cup. CL is the most prestigious cup competition in club football. It is important and I think we all know that. 
 

I hope not achieving it is not as detrimental as I fear. 

[Babylon]

9 hours ago, Nod.E said:

Yeah you're not wrong there.

 

However Kane plays for Spurs who, in part due to their regular Champions League outtings are frequently referred to as part of the 'big 6'.

 

It's about longevity and establishing ourselves at the top. A cup win won't do that, just ask Wigan Athletic.

Spurs who are about to lose Kane because they don't win anything and Spurs are are regularly derided by everyone for not winning anything.

 

Yeah champions league football regularly would help the club no end, but we're not going to get it regularly. The second other clubs get their act together we'll drop out because their budgets dwarf ours whether we have champions league or not.