Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

And yet he still signed them, then proceeded to complain about a bloated squad and a lack of quality. Both despite doing nothing over the summer but add fat to that bloat and further dilute the quality

What? Wait, where did I even make an inkling of a suggestion that I thought the window was acceptable? That's a fairly weak strawman argument but I'll crack on anyway.

You seem to be absolving rodgers of any blame for the current situation, claiming the squad is "awful", while ignoring any part he has played in that process. And, lets be honest here, the squad is not awful. It's still better than 91%, arguably 100%, of our domestic opposition and should be performing much better than it has been all season.

 

That’s the crux of the whole argument for me. That goes back to the board. Rodgers was telling us in the summer he needed first team ready players. He had said it again since he needs quality. We all know this. We knew in the * summer when we had everything to play for. Yet the inept shower of * running us took us from a position of unbelievable strength and in the best financial position ever, and somehow have managed to make us weaker. The root of this problem is the board for me. Until there’s change at the top, we are * against the wind.

 

I know he gets the final say but when it comes to recruitment this time around, I don't think he's responsible. Yes, we all know he signs off on players, or so he says. He's not going to say anything else, really? How bad would that look to outsiders. The board/recruitment team pushing players on the manager.

So, I think it's genuinely different than the last time. He doesn't have his pal in recruitment. I don't think giving any sort of money to the recruitment team right now is the right way to go, in all honesty. My personal view is we need someone to come in, who can sign players he knows will thrive here. A bit like Ange did in his first couple of windows. He knew of the Japanese boys, he knew of GG... so, we need something like that again.

While we bring in a manager to do that? We need to completely change up our recruitment team. Bring in proper scouts and change up the Head of Recruitment. I also think we need a Director of Football or a Sporting Director.

 

Then why was he asking for first team ready players in the last few weeks of the window? I’m not believing for one second he come here expecting us to sign the likes of Kwon and Yang and that would be the norm.

Seriously. Look at our starting eleven and bench yesterday and the last few games. It’s terrible.

 

The thing about the recruitment for me is, since Kyogo has looked completely off it since Rodgers came in, how do we know if we'd made the same signings the last couple of years under Rodgers instead of Ange that we wouldn't also think Kyogo, Hatate etc are all * players? By the same token maybe Yang etc would look unreal under Ange? I'm willing to give the signings a lot more time than I am the manager personally.

 

Like Lennon it’s everyone else’s fault. Get him to *. He rolled up in the summer and praised the recruitment (which was utter *) then praised the board at the AGM confirming he has the final say on transfers. He’s been found out and is now blaming everyone else.

 

I've been thinking the same. Tilio, Yang and Kwon have been scouted while Ange was here. We even bid for Kwon in January, but were told he will be let go in the summer.

* knows what Ange's plans for them were, but the man always had a plan- nobody can say to me he was disorganized.

 

A fair point.

Also quite a worrying one.

 

Nah, that's bollocks mate..

 

How so mate? We had boys playing yesterday who are bang average SPL players.

 

There’s no real way of knowing that. We can only go on what we see from the players. Yang doesn’t look like a footballer who is anywhere near good enough for us though. Kwon likewise. Ange signed a lot of good, he also signed a fair amount of * as well that he couldn’t get playing however.

 

I think there's a massive difference here, though. Kyogo, Maeda and Hatate were all massive players in Japan. Kyogo was still the 3rd highest scorer in the league, 3 months after leaving when the season eventually ended. Maeda was the top goalscorer and Hatate was voted his teams MVP and won the league and cup double. GG was the top goalscorer in Holland, Juranovic was the first choice right back for Croatia and had an incredible year with Legia beforehand.

Yang was bogging in Korea before he came here. 1 goal in 25 games or so. Tillio had done nothing of note in Australia, even the regular A-League watchers were perplexed as to why we signed him. I'll tell you why we signed him, he was another city group project from that part of the world who Mark Lawwall knew. Kwon, genuinely, the less said about him the better. a 21 year old guy playing in the Korean 2nd division, I don't even know why we were in for him. I watched a few of Busan Parks games when they were on Bet365 and it was a completely bizarre signing.

I've already said I like Holm and think he could come good and I think Palma gets far better and consistent with an overlapping fullback. I think Nawrocki really showed glimpses of class and I don't think Gus was as bad as what some feared, even though I think the emergence of Scales has changed where he fits in here.

 

And they would get games for SPL teams. It is not necessary to have a team of 11 excellent players to win the league- that's more a CL requirement. The core of last season's team is here, but is being poorly managed.

 

If we all knew the summer transfer window wasn’t good enough, which the majority of us did, why is it such a shock that we look pretty pish just now? Add in the injured to key players we’ve had for most of the season and it’s not surprising for me whatsoever. I’ll say it again as well. When we know Rodgers has a certain style, why bring him here and then not give him the players he needs to play his system.

There’s a reason the likes of Turnbull and Forest hardly kicked a ball under Ange. They simply didn’t fit his system. He just didn’t need to really play them as he had players available that could. Right now, we don’t have players in key areas who can play Rodger’s system.

 

And that’s why we are still top of the league and could still quite easily win it. It’s also why results like yesterday will happen fairly regularly however. Because the squad is honking.

 

I was talking about buying from the SPL if these players are better. Which is slightly different from what I am seeing suggested elsewhere.

On the basis that you are saying other teams players are better.

 

The starting 11 yesterday had our 1st choice keeper and 4 in defence, 2 of our best 3 midfielders, our best winger and our best striker. 7 of those 9 played regularly last season and the other 2 are Palma and Scales - 2 of our best performers this season. We were basically playing weaker players in 2 positions.
The starting 11 would have been fine if we had a decent manager.

 

Is he gone yet?

 

I agree that most of our summer signings haven't done well. But every one of them has at least one redeeming quality, while coaching can help fix some flaws. Are we even working with players? Since the board and Rodgers have agreed to buy unfinished articles, there should be a system to get the best out of training sessions.

I'm not a licensed coach or manager. But I can see that Yang and Mikey would do much better after intense crossing drills. They have the pace and dribbling. Lagerbielke is tall, but could use positioning training to mask his lack of pace.