KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum after all the nonsense

Let me start by saying I fully agree that Rodgers should be given time, and constant chopping and changing (though sometimes sacking is the right thing to do) is a small club mentality.

Though I disagree with your cherry picked clubs from other countries, you picked nearly all clubs who have achieved pretty much what they set out to achieve if not better, and then said they kept their managers for a few years. Well of course they did? I don't know how into those leagues you are and I wouldn't like to presume either, but I can tell you in my experience the fans in Italy and Spain, media, and owners, are just as trigger happy as their counter parts in England. Though Germany, like you say, are less so.

3 years and no progress? Sure. But Rodgers just gave us one of if not our best seasons in premier league history, playing some the most beautiful football I've ever seen and getting us back to the CL well ahead of schedule. And let's be honest, it's been a weird season so far throughout the league. Arsenal have been just as shyte as we have, and United have been worse, even though they've signed the "guaranteed word class" signings like Falcao, Di Maria, Sanchez, Ozil, and so forth that we haven't. Everton fell away despite losing no one and getting a few new faces, and even city has been only slightly better than ourselves, despite not losing anyone and adding more quality. We're not out of anything yet.

But even if we're disappointed this year, he's shown us that he brings something special to the table, and a bad season doesn't erase that. The players believe in him, and Suarez even mentioned recently that dumping Rodgers would be daft.

Fine, maybe they are. But which model wold you rather have? Germany seems like their league is the healthiest.

I'm in agreement with you, I'd be proud to have a league run the way Germany's is, though it does lead to the never ending cycle of someone rises up to challenge Bayern through shrewed management and purchases, Bayern and other European big boys buy their best players. Bayern go back to being quite comfortable winners.

But like you say, Rodgers has earned a bit of time to show he can get it right, and most teams seem to be somewhat in flux, even those who did buy a raft of superstars. My only disappointment is with our transfer window and the stadium plan. I could quite easily grit my teeth through some of the poor results this season if I felt there was momentum forward, but we spent a lot of money on players not gifted enough to take us up a level, and we have an outdated, determined to be not good enough in the 90's, vision of how to improve our stadium. But they are somewhat different issues, I believe Rodgers deserves at least the rest of this season to see if he can replicate some of last years football.

BigredKop, you claim we lost the biggest part of our plan A and didn't replace him and bought only for plan B, hence our window was a failure. Thats not exactly so, firstly we only played our plan A once, against spurs, and Mario was great. We haven't been playing the same style as last season at all. The players we brought in have done alright...Lallana is doing well and getting better, Manquillo has been great and Balo has not been bad at all, the fact we aren't playing to his strengths is not his fault. We parent even playing with 2 upfront. Markovic has been injured on and off.

I disagree our window was poor, or that money was wasted. Not because i am overly optimistic but because i believe in our players, the same way i believed in Hendo, Raheem, Danny....they will click and we will be unstoppable.

Furthermore, if i am right, and our aim for the season is top 4, we are doing just fine.

And why should our aim be only top 4 should we not aim for top spot after coming second last year and spending more than both Chelsea and City either gross or net? I think that you are the only one in the world (maybe with Steeve Bruce) who see that Balo hasn't been bad at all. Regarding 20m Markovich, it's better not to comment except that so far he is a disaster and hasn't been injured that much you are making of it, Tadic who was cheaper was way better having hardly even trained under Koeman. You like to be optimistic but unfortunately IMO wear blinkers very often

It's fair enough to say you believe in them and that they will click, I've got no problem with that. But you can't say players like lallana are doing well, he's had something like four chances created in hundreds and hundreds of minutes of premier league football according to opta 2 weeks ago and that hasn't really improved since. So far he's failing his job to the tune of 25 million. Markovic despite being incredibly woeful thus far does need time to adjust to league which hasn't been helped by injury so jury is still out I grant you. Manquillo is a step up from Johnson and has time to improve but again his final ball etc is poor, but he's a loan signing so it's not money wasted is it.

So I can't see in what world you can claim lallana and baloteli et al have done well but it's fair enough to say you expect them to click. And I agree our objective is probably to get 4th place, so points wise that's more than achievable, but we completely and utterly ballsed up a 120 million pound opportunity to have a first team that was almost nailed on to get 4th. The signings we made have quite clearly ruined morale like not replacing alongside did, everyone's dropped a level. And clearly we just differ in opinion on if these players fit what was best about us last season and that is subjective so fair enough, and you're right we haven't been playing the same system as last year at all, we don't have the ability to because of the players we bought (again in my opinion).

‘Oh Christ on a bike what a beautiful strike’;
The screaming Kopites roared,
And the stadium shook for a strike well struck,
When Balotelli Scored!
The doubters blinked ’n the wide boys winked,
And said we told you so;
For to sign up this bloke was a master stroke’
and goals are bound to flow!

Now sort out your heads, you doubting reds’,
And gird your lions and belly’s 'o;
For your great red ship’s on a whirlwind trip,
With Mario Balotelli ‘o!
'Tis twice he’s struck for to break his duck,
and that was just a sortie ‘o,
Not a whit diminished and before he’s finished,
He’ll bag another forty ‘o!

Utter [oops].

Souness didn't take over a side that was one of the best in the world, we were barely the best in England, he took over an ageing, injury prone bunch of prima-donnas who were left in the [oops] by Kenny.

We only won 4 out of the last 10 league games before Kenny left, dumped out of all cups early doors, Kenny sold Aldridge the season before despite him scoring over 30 goals and didn't bother to replace him (sound familiar), Hansen was [oops] for most of the season before retiring. George Graham's legendary young Arsenal squad only lost once all season, whilst we were still pushing our oldies. Not to mention the emerging talent of Arsenal, Leeds United and Man Utd. Who ever takes over Rodgers has more work to do.

It wasn't as easy as some people like to think, Souness had a massive job to do, even a few Anfield legends have said that he was left a complete and utter mess to sort out, but he still managed to sort out the academy and blood in future LFC legends whilst winning the FA Cup in his first full season.

What mess did Rodgers inherit or how did he have to build from ground up, as far as I can see he inherited a squad that reached 2 finals the season before, had a great defensive record, but just needed to sort out the attack and after spending over 200 million what has he actually achieved/won?

+1

Well said