Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

I feel the switch of Palma and Maeda after the penalty to Atletico gave us our best period of play. Rodgers proved he can enter a tactical battle and not lose. We were able to bypass Atletico's press several times, but we also made some stupid mistakes in our own half.

 

If only we spent a few quid and given him the tools to have a real go at getting out the group. He’s proved he’s a level above most managers but when he turns and looks at that bench he must be horrified. The best group we could have asked for yet we are found wanting by the lack of quality within our squad. That’s not taking away from a very good overall performance last night.

 

Thought he got everything pretty much spot on.

They are light years in front of us with talent available and we didn't look out of place.

Taylor cost us. But I don't blame him either. I blame the board.

 

I think he even got the Palma sub correct. We were under lots of preassure, and Palma dont have the pace to either defend or press in that situation.

 

Falling in love with him all over again. He was meant to manage Celtic

 

Aye. That first half was sensational. If we can replicate that consistently and (i know, I know) add a few more players of real quality we'll be some side.

Huge credit to Rodgers.

 

Like what I'm seeing here. All starting to come together nicely. As mentioned, a few more quality additions and we'll reach that next level no bother.

Had no issues with the Philips for Palma sub. Thought it broke the Madrid spell at that point and moved us up the park well.

His game management is spot on. He seems very relaxed this time around as well. Now please just back him!

 

If we had gave him what we all thought was coming his way in the summer, we would have got out this group in my opinion. Or at the very least finished 3rd. I’ve noticed a big difference compared to when he was here last time as well. When we played out from the back under him previously, in a game like last night we would have struggled to transition from defence into attack as I felt we just kept possession for the sake of it. There is much more purpose now though. A couple more in the door that are “first team ready” as he said in the summer and we could perhaps kick on in Europe. That was a very good performance last night when you look at the opposition.

 

No doubt about it for me. That's the frustrating thing, with just a bit more investment we know how strong we could be. The fear is we keep the trend and never progress, signing a couple of first-team ready players and selling a couple every window.

I don't want us sitting here this time next year saying the same thing all over again.

 

I agree with all of this, but to be fair to Ange, he had no experience at anything like CL level and he's showing he's a very good manager down south. I think the big difference between Rodgers 1.0 and Ange on the one hand and Rodgers 2.0 on the other is a realism about what certain players can and can't pull off. Ange had us trying to press RB Leipzig when they were clearly too good for us to do that with our players and Rodgers used to be just as stubborn.

Now, he seems to just accept that player X can't do Y and makes changes to accomodate that. A good example would be the way he backed off from asking Taylor to be the kind of LB he wanted him to be and Taylor has been much better since.

The only other manager I've seen with that willingness to accept what can and can't be done with the players we have (at least if my memory isn't deceiving me) was Lenny. Ange wasn't like that, Rodgers wasn't like that first time round, Ronny certainly wasn't like that.

 

Think he might be starting to dispell my fear of us having all the possession but being boring.

Some great change ups in tactics last night, fair bit of risk to them too but pretty much worked out.

 

My only criticism of him last night was not putting on Oh or Iwata as well as Forrest when using our last in play substitution.

However this was before the red card. Just like Lazio if you can’t win don’t lose the game. It’s about picking up points when you can that gives you a chance of progression.

Without his tactical changes we would have lost the game. 1 point is better than 0.

I personally think it’s not possible to get third as we are gonna need to win in Rome and other results to go our way. All I’m asking of Rodgers is a win in any of our last 3 games. Give us a win and that’s progress this year for me.

 

The progress is there for all to see…..a pleasure to watch.

 

100%. Palma was knackered. One point, a few minutes before he got subbed, Ateltico were on the break and switched the ball to the left side and he was just jogging back leaving taylor 2 on 1. Played really well just burned himself out.

 

His task is to work on ways to adapt to situations where the opposition mark McGregor out of the game. I strongly suspect Atletico will start the home game with the setup they used for the 2. half.

 

His subs were perfect for 11 v 11. As soon as they went down to 10 men, we could have been doing with Kyogo and Palma still on the park. They wee whist forcing us wide which was then allowing Taylor, Johnston and Phillips possession, and they weren’t going to Atletico. Just one of they things. Rodgers had to react to what was happening and he did perfectly. We could have maybe took Phillips back off after the red card and brought on Oh up top and put Maeda wide. Splitting hairs that though to be honest.

 

If you could merge angeball and Rodgers you'd have pretty much a formidable force.
But i think Rodgers has taken some components of the last 2 seasons and put his own spin on it.

 

He's doing a really good job.

Similar to last season we're not quite getting the results we want at this level yet but we're definitely getting closer. I think Ange going all out last season helped show the core of this group that we can go toe to toe and compete. I dont think that can be underestimated. Rodgers is now refining that which hopefully continues to progress and we can get atleast 1 win in this group.

He's been smart in keeping (or reincorporating after the first few poor games) some of the better bits of Anges system, such as inverted fullbacks, Centre mids drifting around, and putting his own, more controlled stamp on it.

We're looking good with Brendan at the helm.