Well that's a good omen, if the last one won the league ...

There's the risk that he'll emulate his step up from Watford to Reading, where he had to deal with players long established in a completely different style to his preference. I think he was sacked within a few months.

Good luck to him all the same. Will the fans get on his back like they did with Hodgson?

Some will, some won't. Just like with every manager we've had. The difference will be the prevailing zeitgeist in the press.

Hodgson came with a sense of certainty about him - a vastly experienced European manager, just taken a far lesser squad to a Europa League final, etc etc. That he couldn't immediately take a Liverpool squad, many of whom 3 years ago had played in a Champions League final, right back to their assumed place at the top end of the table, was the cause of many people's immediate disappointment (including clearly the owners').

There'll be no similar sense of certainty or immediate expectation about Rodgers (or whoever else comes next). It's obvious it will take a season or two to drag the club back up to CL standard, so I reckon there will be a much more forgiving reception season. As long as he finishes in the top 6 and wins a Cup.

Janik wrote:


What? You mean he isn't Welsh?

He is Irish rather than Scottish?!? You are kidding, surely...

He's northern Irish, which is different. It's like being super glaswegian. I think that clubs appoint so many glaswegian managers, because it seems as though coming from such a confrontational masculine culture helps establishing authority. An angry scottish person is very frightening to the average footballer. But an angry nordie is a truly terrifying prospect. Imagine what would happen to you if you made martin o'neill angry? And he's a softly spoken man with glasses and a law degree.

but people from the north antrim coast talk in a way that is not very disimilar to the scottish. it's directly across a fairly narrow stretch of water.

My worry for Rodgers would be that a significant number of Liverpool supporters – probably a majority – would not consider his appointment an upgrade on Dalglish. As he isn’t a ‘big name’ manager, his time for winning over his critics is likely to be short.

The proposed manager structure also seems rather top heavy, if reports are to be believed. A statistician, a negotiator and a Director of Football. Plus Ian Ayre to co-ordinate. If Van Gaal does get the job of DoF, his vulture like presence will loom large, even more so if things don’t go according to plan.

It depends what targets FSG set Rodgers and the backing they give him – and what the fans expect him to deliver. I think it is realistic to expect some improvement in league form, but if they expect him to conjure up Champions League qualification with the current squad they’re likely to be disappointed, certainly in the short term.

I think the suggestion now is that there will be no Director Of Football role, so Rodgers would answer in to, well who knows who within the football board set up.

It's an interesting appointment assuming it happens and certainly an upgrade on Dalglish. One reservation I would have if I were a Liverpool fan is his top flight experience. He's done very well so far, has learned with the best and seems a thoroughly decent man, but he only has a single season in the top flight so far - very decent thought it was.

I would be looking for at least a couple of years at that level myself. Swansea could yet have turned into a George Burley era Ipswich and collapse to relegation next season, then his reputation might not look so stellar.

I have said a few times that as nice to watch as his team was last season, they lacked the pace and intensity they would need to build on what they had and advance next year. Of course a club like Swansea cannot get players with technique and intensity so that is no reflection on him, but with the novelty factor of playing at the top level gone and Premiership football becoming a weekly slog for hard won points, well, I could see them dropping off a lot.

Still, having worked under Mourinho he will know that teams who want to challenge for CL places need to play quicker, so I imagine he will build Liverpool with this in mind.

but people from the north antrim coast talk in a way that is not very disimilar to the scottish. it's directly across a fairly narrow stretch of water.

This. The Antrim accent has more in common with Ayrshire than it does Belfast.

Dalliance makes a good point about Rodgers' relative lack of experience at the top level, but it's also interesting that his Swansea team was light years ahead of his Watford and Reading ones. Has Rodgers been developing steadily as a manager, or does he need exactly the right circumstances to succeed?

Possibly both. Swansea were a well run club that were moving steadily forward when he arrived. The circumstances at Liverpool will be different on a lot of levels.

Light years ahead of in terms of quality of football? He did inherit a good footballing side at Swansea anyway, from a Watford fan I used to work with I am not sure his team there was especially pretty.

If that is true then that's in his favour for me actually. I think we get too bogged down with the romance of managerial ideologues like AVB and Guardiola, guys for whom the system is paramount and the players must adapt to it, even if as we saw at Chelsea the players are not suited to playing a certain way.

I think a good manager should pick a system that fits the type of player he inherits, even if it not a style they would prefer. Then sure, get the results that buys you the time you need to gradually move the club towards where you think it should be.

blamelesz wrote:


Our side under Rodgers was barely even a work in progress, as he'd taken over us at a particularly low-ebb (Boothroyd had gone into delerium-mode by that point so we were quite a shambles). In a season, the work he did was very impressive, which was one of the big reasons we were narked when he hopped it, as you could tell he was building something good. With a couple of years of further building with us, who knows, but the signs were good. In any case a year's work with us showed he at the very least had promise.

Going into Swansea, they were already relatively well developed in a style he appreciates, so he could really just get about honing the style, rather than having to make wholesale changes or bring in tons of new players, which I suspect is what gave him the advantage, though I'm sure he's developed considerably even through his time at Reading (agree with the earlier point re: his difficulties there; Watford were a disaster zone and we needed help so he had free reign with us, players included, whereas Reading were a different proposition entirely)

I think I'm probably one of them. Not that I was overly enamoured with the idea of Dalglish coming back of course. My rationale was that he couldn't possibly be worse than Hodgson, which was proved correct especially in the first six months.
But I'm used to Liverpool having ordinary managers since Benitez was given the boot and Rogers cannot possibly sign someone as completely fucking useless and ludicrously overpriced as Downing AND fuck up a situation as badly as Kenny did with Suarez, so in that sense it's a step up.
And who knows, these left-field appointments can sometimes work. Although more often they don't.
I'm finding it hard to care to be honest.

dalliance wrote:



Well, they had just agreed a £7.2m deal to sign Sigurdsson who was the best loan signing in the EPL last year. They appeared to be upping their sights in terms of transfer targets.

That sigurdsson deal makes it look like he really didn't expect to move to liverpool at all. I can't help feeling that he should have stayed at swansea for a couple of seasons, added some good premiership quality players, and worked on perfecting his system. This might just be too much too soon. The task facing the next liverpool manager is enormous.

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote:


I think I'd tend to agree, given that his move to Liverpool is more akin to walking into a Reading (i.e. it's going to be difficult for him, in that vein) than a Watford or a Swansea. And that's aside from the other issues currently at Liverpool, which are admittedly manifold, it's just I'm going on previous form for Rodgers.

Could it be that Rodgers has been hired specifically to apply sabermetrics to Liverpool football? The Red Sox were/are well into that and Swansea's somewhat laborious possession game is suggestive of that kind of approach.

I think liverpool's problem is that they are in the europa league, with a mid table squad, on champions league wages.

It's one thing to pay dirk kuyt £80k when you are in the champions league and he is 28. It's another to be paying that when you don't have european football, he's 32, and managed 2 league goals and one assist in 34 appearances.

Rodgers needs to completely rebuild the squad, on cheaper, more sustainable, and hopefully better lines. He also needs to give them a recognizable style of play, and that could take some time. I hope that liverpool fans are prepared to be patient because rodgers could do them an awful lot of good. But it's going to be a painful process.

via vicaria wrote:


Yeah, crucially I don't think Rodgers is anywhere near as good as he thinks he is and is happy to take far too much of the credit for many years of work that the entire club has done at Swansea, including his predecessors.

£5m compensation is not a bad deal as long as they don't fuck up with his replacement.

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote:[quote]

He's northern Irish, which is different. It's like being super glaswegian. I think that clubs appoint so many glaswegian managers, because it seems as though coming from such a confrontational masculine culture helps establishing authority. /quote]

Who are you calling confrontational ya fuckin Irish poof, you wouldn't dare say that to my face.