Brendan Rodgers

[BKLFox]

31 minutes ago, smudgerfox said:

 

But for instance we signed Vestergaard. He hasn't been injured. And yet throughout the defensive crisis he's barely had a kick. Had we signed an injury free, experienced centre back leader, a sort of younger Jonny Evans, Amartey and/or Soyuncu might have played better, the set piece problem might have been less severe and we might have won more games. You can't complain about lack of squad depth when you have new and expensive signings sitting on the bench and playing once a blue moon. Would Bertrand being fit have made any real difference? The squad is thin because of the poor quality of the signings in summer 2021. That is being skilfully glossed over. 

I really do get the Vestergaard signing being a waste he hasn't turned out, if only he could head the ball he might have been 'an' answer to the corner situation, prior to injury (namely pre-season) Bertrand was putting in some decent performances & knew he was only cover for 'x' amount of games.
The other 3 are in different positions & have played & have shown some potential, we were short in defenders even if Vestergaard turn out ok the drop of form in Cags & the fullback positions still would have made it an issue.

 

Everyone has played despite the call of Rodgers doesn't trust certain players, here's a list of those players he doesn't apparently trust & how many overall games they have played:
Hamza 12, Amartey 37, Perez 22, Soumare 30, Mendy 16, Soyuncu 41, Vestergaard 20 & Nacho 41 + Daka 38 & Lookman 40
So he's hardly sent them to coventry.

Incidently Praet has only played 23 games in Turin

Edited 17 May 2022 by BKLFox

[daddylonglegs]

21 hours ago, Dan LCFC said:

It's a very fickle game. A cloud has lifted somewhat after the Everton debacle but have we shown any serious signs of our issues going away? If you're being harsh I put yesterday largely down to the quality of our attackers and abject opposition. We've clearly missed Vardy but we didn't look any more organised at the back to me. Similar to the game we played at home to Watford actually.

 

Morale should be up but I don't think this set piece situation is going to go away. It was as bad yesterday as it's been all season.

I think for fans that literally just look at results & don't think about the bigger picture, the cloud is going to life/drop basically every game. 

 

If your mind has changed based on wins against Norwich & Watford, you're as fickle as the people who's mind changed when we lost to Wolves at the end of Feb which was apparently the 'last straw' for a lot of fans.

 

 

[smudgerfox]

30 minutes ago, BKLFox said:

I really do get the Vestergaard signing being a waste he hasn't turned out, if only he could head the ball he might have been 'an' answer to the corner situation, prior to injury (namely pre-season) Bertrand was putting in some decent performances & knew he was only cover for 'x' amount of games.
The other 3 are in different positions & have played & have shown some potential, we were short in defenders even if Vestergaard turn out ok the drop of form in Cags & the fullback positions still would have made it an issue.

 

Everyone has played despite the call of Rodgers doesn't trust certain players, here's a list of those players he doesn't apparently trust & how many overall games they have played:
Hamza 12, Amartey 37, Perez 22, Soumare 30, Mendy 16, Soyuncu 41, Vestergaard 20 & Nacho 41 + Daka 38 & Lookman 40
So he's hardly sent them to coventry.

Incidently Praet has only played 23 games in Turin

Vestergaard agreed - waste of time and money - my point is we’d have been in a better place with a higher quality signing

Bertrand - thats about as positive as it gets

Hamza - chronically under-used because of the ridiculous skill set demanded by Brendan and even after a couple of times when he’s played out of position

Amartey -  BR has criticised him regularly - lets see if he can find a better squad centre back this summer, he’s racked up that number of games because there has been  literally no-one else 

Perez - how many starts? How many 90 minutes? How many consecutive starts?

Soumare - see Perez.

Mendy - a talent belatedly recognised by BR but only after he arranged for him to leave,  preferring to select Hamza (see Hamza). What happened to change his mind?

Soyuncu - if the Vestergaard signing had been better he could have been dropped during his run of wretched form - again only played in the absence of any alternatives (see Vestergaard)

Nacho - again it sounds a lot (41) but how many starts?How many consecutive starts? How many 90 mins?

Praet has been injured but a huge success at Torino 

 

 

 

 

[Dan LCFC]

8 minutes ago, daddylonglegs said:

I think for fans that literally just look at results & don't think about the bigger picture, the cloud is going to life/drop basically every game. 

 

If your mind has changed based on wins against Norwich & Watford, you're as fickle as the people who's mind changed when we lost to Wolves at the end of Feb which was apparently the 'last straw' for a lot of fans.

Yeah I agree completely. I've had reservations the majority of the season - had big concerns with the transfers and performances, that's made me think he's had his best days here and it's only really going one way.

 

I'm not going to swing back based on beating those two. Like I said if you're being very critical none of the actual issues looked fixed, we just played a simply far worse pair of sides. We'll get away with it against those two but not often.

[honeybradger]

13 hours ago, Aus Fox said:

We did though, and this is the point that some seem to miss, although we didn’t sell anyone, we lost our whole first choice back four and much of our second choice back four for well over half a season.

Fofana, is for me, alongside Maddison the best player we have and will go on to be world class, we lost him for most of the season. 
Vardy, Ndidi, Evans, Ricardo all key players and have all missed large chunks of the season.

So no we didn’t lose anyone in terms of selling them, but we did lose all of our key players at one point or another for significant periods of the season and I still don’t think we’ve put out or first choice XI for about 18 months

Has our defence improved since we've gotten fofana Evan's justin castagne and Pereira's back? I think it has but not nearly as significantly as most on here were hoping, we still look shaky. Maybe with ndidi back we'll finally look solid but even with our first choice back four I dont have faith in us keeping a clean sheet against any team that's not in the relegation zone.

[Fox92]

13 minutes ago, daddylonglegs said:

 

If your mind has changed based on wins against Norwich & Watford, you're as fickle as the people who's mind changed when we lost to Wolves at the end of Feb which was apparently the 'last straw' for a lot of fans.

 

 

I've not changed my mind, as I've always backed him, (though the Everton result really frustrated me), but it does make me laugh how for Rodgers, people say "we've beaten two relegated sides" yet it's a different story for the players scoring against these relegated sides.

 

I enjoyed Watford. Even with them being a relegated side, we still scored 5 and quite frankly could have had 8.

[filbertway]

1 hour ago, Dahnsouff said:

So you feel this isn`t true?  

Of course it's true, but it's all relative isn't it. Tiatto was part of a team that was generally expected to be mid table at best. I remember Mark Yeates scoring an open goal from about 20-25 yards and being amazed how easy he made it look.

 

We had very little expectation going into any game and were just happy to be competitive in the game.

 

Regardless of what level you're at, when you follow a team that's performing below their capabilities you should rightfully be disappointed and expect more.

 

I know what this team is capable of, I've seen it. They've been playing within themselves for a large portion of the season just as they did for a good portion of last season. Watching players on £100k plus a week playing risk averse football (especially against teams that we're clearly superior to) doesn't sit right with me in the slightest.

[An Sionnach]

14 minutes ago, honeybradger said:

Has our defence improved since we've gotten fofana Evan's justin castagne and Pereira's back? I think it has but not nearly as significantly as most on here were hoping, we still look shaky. Maybe with ndidi back we'll finally look solid but even with our first choice back four I dont have faith in us keeping a clean sheet against any team that's not in the relegation zone.

As we have conceded 107 goals so far in the last two league seasons using every combination of defenders available , the problem goes beyond personnel. We have to aim for a maximum 40 conceded next season if we want to push toward the top six.

[Dahnsouff]

2 minutes ago, filbertway said:

Of course it's true, but it's all relative isn't it. Tiatto was part of a team that was generally expected to be mid table at best. I remember Mark Yeates scoring an open goal from about 20-25 yards and being amazed how easy he made it look.

 

We had very little expectation going into any game and were just happy to be competitive in the game.

 

Regardless of what level you're at, when you follow a team that's performing below their capabilities you should rightfully be disappointed and expect more.

 

I know what this team is capable of, I've seen it. They've been playing within themselves for a large portion of the season just as they did for a good portion of last season. Watching players on £100k plus a week playing risk averse football (especially against teams that we're clearly superior to) doesn't sit right with me in the slightest.

That wasn`t the argument I took from your previous post, so my bad. I took it to mean that standard of the Tiatto team was much worse than this current team (obviously) and due to this we should be competing to the best of the current teams potential. Even then potential is relative, the eyes of the fan see a 9/10 squad or potential, but reality is usually some way from this perception Then we have the competitors, who are also improving and pushing to be their best, so no matter how good we could be on our day, there are so many factors involved in an actual performance, form, injury, improvement from competitors, etc, etc.

 

Do I think we should have had a better season? Absolutely yes. Do I feel this squad has the potential, even after a terrifying rebuild, to improve on this season? Yes.

 

In my uninformed opinion, we need a psychologist who can instill belief, and you could argue thats Brendan's job, something he himself may well believe   but not for me, get a proper psychologist, and iff we already have one, sack them.

[Foxxed]

8 minutes ago, Dahnsouff said:

That wasn`t the argument I took from your previous post, so my bad. I took it to mean that standard of the Tiatto team was much worse than this current team (obviously) and due to this we should be competing to the best of the current teams potential. Even then potential is relative, the eyes of the fan see a 9/10 squad or potential, but reality is usually some way from this perception Then we have the competitors, who are also improving and pushing to be their best, so no matter how good we could be on our day, there are so many factors involved in an actual performance, form, injury, improvement from competitors, etc, etc.

 

Do I think we should have had a better season? Absolutely yes. Do I feel this squad has the potential, even after a terrifying rebuild, to improve on this season? Yes.

 

In my uninformed opinion, we need a psychologist who can instill belief, and you could argue thats Brendan's job, something he himself may well believe   but not for me, get a proper psychologist, and iff we already have one, sack them.

You need a psychologist and a manager who can deal with the players and team psychology. We had that in 2015

 

 

 

Edited 17 May 2022 by Foxxed

[daddylonglegs]

19 minutes ago, Fox92 said:

I've not changed my mind, as I've always backed him, (though the Everton result really frustrated me), but it does make me laugh how for Rodgers, people say "we've beaten two relegated sides" yet it's a different story for the players scoring against these relegated sides.

 

I enjoyed Watford. Even with them being a relegated side, we still scored 5 and quite frankly could have had 8.

I think there's an interesting split on here of:

a) people supporting Rodgers seemingly regardless of his obvious shortcomings

b) people hating Rodgers seemingly regardless of his successes as a manager here

c) people being swayed enormously by results regardless of performance or ability of opposing team

and then the smallest minority, d) people who have built up an opinion of him but are open to changing their mind...

 

And re your second point, absolutely. Maddison in particular (who has surprised me enormously this year) has been the definition of a flat track bully this year, yet this point doesn't seem to be allowed to be made .

 

[Ric Flair]

What's fascinating about Rodgers very iffy record at clubs in the transfer windows, the longer he's at clubs is he doesn't even persist with the players for very long, you'd think he'd ignorantly claim they're doing well and keep playing them but he doesn't. It makes his position as having anything to do with transfers untenable.

 

Keep him away from it, he's a calamity.

[Aus Fox]

36 minutes ago, honeybradger said:

Has our defence improved since we've gotten fofana Evan's justin castagne and Pereira's back? I think it has but not nearly as significantly as most on here were hoping, we still look shaky. Maybe with ndidi back we'll finally look solid but even with our first choice back four I dont have faith in us keeping a clean sheet against any team that's not in the relegation zone.

Have we had a game in the league yet where we have started Ricardo Evans Fofana Castagne/Justin together? I could be wrong, but I am not sure we have?

You have to say our defence looks 100 times better with Fofana and Evans as CB pairing.

[daddylonglegs]

4 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

What's fascinating about Rodgers very iffy record at clubs in the transfer windows, the longer he's at clubs is he doesn't even persist with the players for very long, you'd think he'd ignorantly claim they're doing well and keep playing them but he doesn't. It makes his position as having anything to do with transfers untenable.

 

Keep him away from it, he's a calamity.

As much as I agree... there's no chance he's not at the forefront of everything we do this summer. 

[Aus Fox]

26 minutes ago, An Sionnach said:

As we have conceded 107 goals so far in the last two league seasons using every combination of defenders available , the problem goes beyond personnel. We have to aim for a maximum 40 conceded next season if we want to push toward the top six.

Maximum 40 goals conceded if we want to push the top six? 

So far this season Spurs have conceded 40, Arsenal 47, Man Utd 56 (only 1 less than us this season) and West Ham 48 these are all in and around the top 6 this season. Last season, everyone apart from Man City conceded more than 40 goals. The defence does need to improve, and we can't argue that having a settled back line will do wonders for our goals conceeded, but lets not go overboard. We shipped 50 last season and were easily in the top 6. 

[Dames]

13 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

What's fascinating about Rodgers very iffy record at clubs in the transfer windows, the longer he's at clubs is he doesn't even persist with the players for very long, you'd think he'd ignorantly claim they're doing well and keep playing them but he doesn't. It makes his position as having anything to do with transfers untenable.

 

Keep him away from it, he's a calamity.

To play devils advocate you could give him a smidgen of praise for at least recognising they are duffers and catapulting them away from the first team. 

 

The problem is like you say that he’ll just casually brush it off and go and make the same costly mistakes again and again. 

[Aus Fox]

19 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

What's fascinating about Rodgers very iffy record at clubs in the transfer windows, the longer he's at clubs is he doesn't even persist with the players for very long, you'd think he'd ignorantly claim they're doing well and keep playing them but he doesn't. It makes his position as having anything to do with transfers untenable.

 

Keep him away from it, he's a calamity.

Surely that’s a good thing?

How much would he be criticised if he carried on playing Vestergaard over Amartey just because he was his own signing that he persisted with? If a player isn’t playing well or putting in the desired effort he doesn’t play them? It would be worse surely if he did continue to ignorantly claim they were doing well.

[He aint bald]

28 minutes ago, Foxxed said:

You need a psychologist and a manager who can deal with the players and team psychology. We had that in 2015

 

 

 

Any chance of the psychologist doing a little on-line community service of an evening?

[He aint bald]

double post

Edited 17 May 2022 by He aint bald
he is bald posted the same thing

[foxinsocks]

14 minutes ago, pmcla26 said:

You can be "a)" and acknowledge the shortcomings - there's two very obvious reasons behind pretty much all of them from this season. 

2 reasons behind his own shortcomings?  Like his ego (inability to admit his own weaknesses)  and his obsession with possession football?

[sm1]

1 hour ago, honeybradger said:

Has our defence improved since we've gotten fofana Evan's justin castagne and Pereira's back? I think it has but not nearly as significantly as most on here were hoping, we still look shaky. Maybe with ndidi back we'll finally look solid but even with our first choice back four I dont have faith in us keeping a clean sheet against any team that's not in the relegation zone.

Exactly, Watford looked like scoring everytime they had a corner, pretty much the same story all season. JJ has come back from injury and seems to have forgotten how to defend. In the end I think it's more then personal, the organisation from the manager and his assistants just isn't there. 

[HybridFox]

Best signing he could make is an experienced coach to his backroom staff. There are former Premier league managers and coaches knocking about, bring one of them in for the season. Having a second opinion on this squad will make such a difference 

Edited 17 May 2022 by TK95

[Ric Flair]

22 minutes ago, Dames said:

To play devils advocate you could give him a smidgen of praise for at least recognising they are duffers and catapulting them away from the first team. 

 

The problem is like you say that he’ll just casually brush it off and go and make the same costly mistakes again and again. 

Any praise in that regard is probably negated by turning his back quite quickly on talented players like Praet whom we then see their value plummet and struggle to shift for what we know they are worth. It's a balance and I suppose its good he won't idly pick players, even Perez whom he appeared like he was going to do that with, eventually got relegated to peripheral player.

 

So much mo ey wasted though in his tenure.

[smudgerfox]

1 hour ago, Aus Fox said:

Surely that’s a good thing?

How much would he be criticised if he carried on playing Vestergaard over Amartey just because he was his own signing that he persisted with? If a player isn’t playing well or putting in the desired effort he doesn’t play them? It would be worse surely if he did continue to ignorantly claim they were doing well.

I think the point is we needed the squad to be deeper this season so we brought in five players to do that. But it hasn’t done that because other than Lookman and Daka there’s no sign BR wants to play the other three - RB was already being sidelined before his op, it seems Soumare has been given up on and Vestergaard the same. 

 

it’s not about the individual merits of the players - Amartey v Vestergaard, it’s about a summer of squad deepening that hasn’t deepened the squad. And then came a defensive injury crisis which might not have been so bad had the money been more wisely spent and succeeded in deepening the squad …

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, Aus Fox said:

Surely that’s a good thing?

How much would he be criticised if he carried on playing Vestergaard over Amartey just because he was his own signing that he persisted with? If a player isn’t playing well or putting in the desired effort he doesn’t play them? It would be worse surely if he did continue to ignorantly claim they were doing well.

On the flip side if you chin players off very quickly then a) their value diminishes rapidly and b) very unlikely to work their way back in to the team and be a success. 

 

I am thankful he does recognise when a player isn't good enough but the end result is still huge waste of money and he seems very quick to disregard players. Praet binned, Soumare looks set to be binned, Benkovic binned, Vestergaard and Bertrand hopefully binned, Perez soon to be binned (rightly so).