Brendan Rodgers

[Webbo]

I see we've invented a new stick to beat Rodgers with now. We we only finished in the disastrously terrible position of 8th last season because we didn't play Nelson, even though nobody had heard of Nelson last season. Must be something to do with Brendan's ego or summat. 

[foxfanazer]

20 minutes ago, Guest454545 said:

Which points to it being an anomaly season. It's the lowest Rodgers has finished in 10 years

Not true. He finished top of the SPL a few times 

[sacreblueits442]

1 hour ago, Dames said:

I have a feeling that the club are reluctant to back him with any serious finances this summer. We would have had some movement now to at least get 1 or 2 people in for the start of preseason, as it stands we dont even have any serious links with someone. 

 

...the premise that the fiscal year begins in July could explain why we have not announced any deals as yet!!!

  Not going to worry too much now, we were promised a rebuild and expect we will see one.

[The Year Of The Fox]

5 hours ago, Guest454545 said:

Which points to it being an anomaly season. It's the lowest Rodgers has finished in 10 years

He’s suffered third season syndrome too at other clubs 

[Guest454545]

3 hours ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

He’s suffered third season syndrome too at other clubs 

He's only got to the third season with Liverpool and Leicester. And when he left us, we were well ahead in the league, won the league cup, and would eventually win the Scottish FA Cup as well. 

Edited 27 June 2022 by Guest454545
Spelling

[coolhandfox]

2 hours ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

He’s suffered third season syndrome too at other clubs 

Pretty standard stuff for most managers, how many last 3 seasons

 

As of March 1st 2022, the average Premier League tenure was 772 days, which is a little over two years and one month. 

 

 

Edited 27 June 2022 by coolhandfox

[volpeazzurro]

13 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

Find that a little curious to be honest, as Top would be well aware of the contracts implications, and is clearly a savvy guy, so must have had enough confidence to sign it.

I think Vichai would have been more likely to call Rodger's bluff when getting his contract improved in the first place and also more likely to fire him now.  Vichai was an experienced shrewd operator. I think, unfortunately, Top had the wool pulled over his eyes by a silver tongued slimy operator and is now suffering the consequences. It's a huge decision for him but if he backs Rodgers too much in the transfer market it could ruin the club.

[The Year Of The Fox]

16 minutes ago, coolhandfox said:

Pretty standard stuff for most managers, how many last 3 seasons

 

As of March 1st 2022, the average Premier League tenure was 772 days, which is a little over two years and one month. 

 

 

Exactly 

 

Which means it’s time for him to move on 

[volpeazzurro]

18 hours ago, moore_94 said:

So when things go wrong it is all Rodgers' fault and not the players, but when everything goes well it is all the players and no credit to Rodgers?

 

Right...

I think all players, whoever they are, for various reasons, can have bad games. It therefore should follow that managers can also make the odd game changing bad decision, even Ferguson occasionally had the honesty to admit it. Pep has too. Therefore Rodgers deserves that leeway too imo.

 

However, over a long period of time now, Rodgers seems to have gone that bit further by insisting on a poor style of play and, despite injuries, made questionable decisions regarding player selection and positioning, formations, tactics and substitutions. Many of the results we scraped, imo, were due to individual quality moments from some of our players, some of whom throughout were better than those of our opponents in terms of their abilities. Rarely was it down to Rodgers influence. I think had it not been for a run of good end of season results against very poor, sometimes second string or already relegated sides, then our true positioning would have been achieved. Those results papered of the cracks for me and 8th place in the table flatters to deceive. 

Edited 27 June 2022 by volpeazzurro

[gerblod]

13 hours ago, Dahnsouff said:

Find that a little curious to be honest, as Top would be well aware of the contracts implications, and is clearly a savvy guy, so must have had enough confidence to sign it.

I'd have echoed your belief had you been referring to Vichai. However, Top took over before either had fully been familiar with the English Premier landscape.

I think Top is still on the learning curve and there are significant figures he has to (or does listen to) when decisions have to be made. We assume he's savvy yet his vision manifests primarily in his plans for the development of the infrastructure of the KP.

Rodgers sells himself well - and his motivational abilities have resulted in a string of good results since his arrival. But this close season is a critical juncture for him. He needs to act and act well on his proposed refresh. 

Were I a Prem manager, I'd only trust my own assessments of players who were recommended to me. And I'd trust in my ability to assess them. Last season's recruitment has turned out to be middling to dire - with three players being dire. Only Lookman has impressed me enough to make him a 'keeper'. Daka has still much to prove.

Whoever is involved in this summer's recruitment should not be thinking about satisfying the fans but satisfying themselves that they've left no stone unturned in coming up with exceptional players to continue City's ambitions as an institution of real solidity and depth are matched by its team.

[smudgerfox]

8 minutes ago, volpeazzurro said:

However, over a long period of time now, Rodgers seems to have gone that bit further by insisting on a poor style of play 

I usually agree with you V but I can’t agree with this. I don’t think he insists on a poor style of play rather he insists on a style of play which is difficult to execute well…the safe sideways passing everyone complains about is not a matter of manager instruction but it’s an inevitable consequence of trying to control possession - when an attack is repelled and the killer ball doesn’t happen , the ball is unavoidably recycled back to the back four or even to the keeper who then have to bide  their time to play forward through the lines again. Man City play roughly the same game and sometimes even they struggle to make their possession pay. The question for me is whether a team with our calibre of player can really afford to play that style at all and whether the manager should stick to it so rigidly.. 

[Dahnsouff]

1 hour ago, volpeazzurro said:

I think Vichai would have been more likely to call Rodger's bluff when getting his contract improved in the first place and also more likely to fire him now.  Vichai was an experienced shrewd operator. I think, unfortunately, Top had the wool pulled over his eyes by a silver tongued slimy operator and is now suffering the consequences. It's a huge decision for him but if he backs Rodgers too much in the transfer market it could ruin the club.

Perhaps so   But I dare say that Susan holds way more sway that Rodgers ever could, and I see no world where she gets bamboozled by Rodgers. I also realise that Rodgers is an extremely divisive figure at this club, but to frame him as some form of Machiavellian saboteur is a bit of a stretch imho.

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, volpeazzurro said:

I think Vichai would have been more likely to call Rodger's bluff when getting his contract improved in the first place and also more likely to fire him now.  Vichai was an experienced shrewd operator. I think, unfortunately, Top had the wool pulled over his eyes by a silver tongued slimy operator and is now suffering the consequences. It's a huge decision for him but if he backs Rodgers too much in the transfer market it could ruin the club.

But Rodgers doesn't have the complete say on transfers so backing him is backing the club not just the manager. If we don't have the correct scouts and analysts to aid us in this then that runs bigger than Brendan as its very rare for a head coach to be hugely responsible for identifying and making signings. 

[Merging Cultures]

From the Merc: “It’s resetting all of that off the pitch as well as on the pitch. I always said, one game a week is a holiday, but let’s hope it’s a good holiday and we can really push on again.”

 

What sort of nonsense language is that?! A holiday? What is he trying to imply or say? That because they are not playing twice a week, they can be more relaxed? They'll be fitter? There are much better ways of saying this.

 

"and we can really push on again." After the holiday? You don't push on during a holiday...

 

Maybe the Merc just got the quote wrong?

[StanSP]

3 minutes ago, Merging Cultures said:

From the Merc: “It’s resetting all of that off the pitch as well as on the pitch. I always said, one game a week is a holiday, but let’s hope it’s a good holiday and we can really push on again.”

 

What sort of nonsense language is that?! A holiday? What is he trying to imply or say? That because they are not playing twice a week, they can be more relaxed? They'll be fitter? There are much better ways of saying this.

 

"and we can really push on again." After the holiday? You don't push on during a holiday...

 

Maybe the Merc just got the quote wrong?

Like several others, you've read a lot into that. 

 

We get a better and more frequent rest and recovery time between games. 

 

That's all there is to it. No need to make a big song and dance about it. 

[coolhandfox]

1 hour ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

Exactly 

 

Which means it’s time for him to move on 

All about personal opinion, mine is he has done enough to have another season. 

[coolhandfox]

6 minutes ago, Merging Cultures said:

From the Merc: “It’s resetting all of that off the pitch as well as on the pitch. I always said, one game a week is a holiday, but let’s hope it’s a good holiday and we can really push on again.”

 

What sort of nonsense language is that?! A holiday? What is he trying to imply or say? That because they are not playing twice a week, they can be more relaxed? They'll be fitter? There are much better ways of saying this.

 

"and we can really push on again." After the holiday? You don't push on during a holiday...

 

Maybe the Merc just got the quote wrong?

It's just a way of saying one game a week is easier than 2 or 3. 

 

Hardly something to get winded up about. 

 

 

[Les-TA-Jon]

14 minutes ago, Merging Cultures said:

From the Merc: “It’s resetting all of that off the pitch as well as on the pitch. I always said, one game a week is a holiday, but let’s hope it’s a good holiday and we can really push on again.”

One can interpret that however you like. Personally I read it as more of a mentality thing

 

The top clubs are used to playing 2-3 games a week and competing on 4 fronts for a lot/much of the season. He's saying comparatively, 1 game a week is a 'holiday' so it could be that he's laying down a marker to the squad - 'If you can't play well when you've only got one game a week, then are you actually any good? Show me what you're capable of' 

[Dusty]

2 hours ago, volpeazzurro said:

I think all players, whoever they are, for various reasons, can have bad games. It therefore should follow that manager can also make the odd game changing bad decision, even Ferguson occasionally had the honesty to admit it. Pep has too. Therefore Rodgers deserves that leeway too imo.

 

However, over a long period of time now, Rodgers seems to have gone that bit further by insisting on a poor style of play and, despite injuries, made questionable decisions regarding player selection and positioning, formations, tactics and substitutions. Many of the results we scraped, imo, were due to individual quality moments from some of our players, some of whom throughout were better than those of our opponents in terms of their abilities. Rarely was it down to Rodgers influence. I think had it not been for a run of good end of season results against very poor, sometimes second string or already relegated sides, then our true positioning would have been achieved. Those results papered of the cracks for me and 8th place in the table flatters to deceive. 

I think you are right to a degree that there were results that were gained solely through individual brilliance, as we were struggling to create, the Brentford game really rings true of this.

 

But then the opposite of this argument is there were plenty of games where we were the better team and winning games, only for really awful individual mistakes to lose us those games. There’s that ridiculous stat that if we’d won every game we’d been winning we would have finished in the top 4 so we can’t be relying on individual brilliance all the time, there’s clearly a system that works even if it was boring for lots of the season. Lots of the reasons we lost points were because of players losing their man at the back post from crosses, or just generally from set pieces, we gave away late penalties, kasper had a few nightmares etc. 

 

Whilst Rodgers made mistakes last season, so did many of the players. With our strongest back four I think we reduce those mistakes, reduce the number of set piece goals we concede and improve our progression form the back. Obviously easier said than done as we have too many injuries, and Rodgers has his part to play in that too I’m sure.

[The Year Of The Fox]

1 hour ago, coolhandfox said:

All about personal opinion, mine is he has done enough to have another season. 

Of course

 

All mine are are personal opinions too

 

He won’t turn this around 

[The Year Of The Fox]

2 hours ago, Merging Cultures said:

From the Merc: “It’s resetting all of that off the pitch as well as on the pitch. I always said, one game a week is a holiday, but let’s hope it’s a good holiday and we can really push on again.”

 

What sort of nonsense language is that?! A holiday? What is he trying to imply or say? That because they are not playing twice a week, they can be more relaxed? They'll be fitter? There are much better ways of saying this.

 

"and we can really push on again." After the holiday? You don't push on during a holiday...

 

Maybe the Merc just got the quote wrong?

To be honest I took it as being a holiday is something that you always come back from. And so he’s implying we’ll be back in Europe soon.

[Ric Flair]

1 hour ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

Of course

 

All mine are are personal opinions too

 

He won’t turn this around 

What constitutes turning it around, have we got to get top 6 again? This is where I think he's now got no hope anyway. For me, he turns it around by rectifying the set piece debacle, maintains the style of football seen in the last handful of games and proves he can keep a squad fit enough to not have a plethora of injuries constantly.

 

Do all that with a real desire to bring through some of our academy players and hit 60+ points and don't really care where we finish as that's a positive season.

[Fox92]

1 hour ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

Of course

 

All mine are are personal opinions too

 

He won’t turn this around 

I believe he will.

 

I believed Pearson could turn us around after the shocking second half of 12/13 and similarly I think Rodgers will.

 

Top 6 and a decent run in one of the Cup competitions would be enough for me as an improvement and I think he'll achieve that. The big issue for me will be whether he has us defending set pieces better.

Edited 27 June 2022 by Fox92

[coolhandfox]

25 minutes ago, Ric Flair said:

What constitutes turning it around, have we got to get top 6 again? This is where I think he's now got no hope anyway. For me, he turns it around by rectifying the set piece debacle, maintains the style of football seen in the last handful of games and proves he can keep a squad fit enough to not have a plethora of injuries constantly.

 

Do all that with a real desire to bring through some of our academy players and hit 60+ points and don't really care where we finish as that's a positive season.

I think the top 6 is difficult this season, with Arsenal and both Spurs strengthening, I can only see 6th &7th being up for grabs, between us, Man U, West Ham and Maybe Newcastle. 

 

I think good attacking football and better game management (Defending), being in the fight for a European football at the death of the season and going well in both the Cups would be a successful season.

 

With the 5 subs rule, I would be disappointed if we don't see a few appearances for academy players. 

Edited 27 June 2022 by coolhandfox

[Les-TA-Jon]

1 hour ago, The Year Of The Fox said:

He won’t turn this around 

I suppose the burden is on you to define what 'turning it around' would consist of?