Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

I don’t see acceptance for any transfer business the last two windows, an underlying unsettled anger about them more than anything that’s been put aside in a title race, and Rodgers bringing in two players he identified whilst poorly backed, who have made a major impact in us being in pole position now.

That, and Lawwell Jr and the other guy getting * and necked out the door amongst rumours of BR going to Desmond to make it happen and a power struggle in the background… and now a lot of links of decent players for decent money, which isn’t a normal thing this time of year. More now BR’s bought himself backing and it’s a wait and see what becomes of it.

Resentment is under the surface, and it’ll explode another summer of mediocrity and no backing. What we as fans demand, want or protest about though, board don’t care mate. Infact it’s treated with resentment and patronising sneers.

This summer with how its went it must happen, if not BR will walk. Think it was close already, but behind the scenes changed and not the manager. But maybe being naive and hopeful yet again from me.

 

Harsh though it sounds, I'll judge him at the end of the season. If he gets the league over the line, we can restart our disagreement over how he's done and how much/little he has been backed; if he doesn't, we'll be on the same page: it won't be acceptable and he'll have to go.

What makes me say that was that there was a pivotal period just after the break where we were dropping a lot of points and at times domestic opposition were the better team. Now, there are reasons for that (look at the back 4s we were playing); but it's his job to cope with that and we should never be getting totally outplayed domestically for complete halves or even games of football. He definitely still had the players for the team not to be panicking at CP against St Mirren FFS. I genuinely think (I don't have any evidence for this, it's just my interpretation) that he was in the huff for a while there and he seems to me to have come back to life since Mark Lawwell and Joe Dudgeon went on gardening leave. I don't blame him one bit for the game at Tynecastle.

I still think he was doing a good job before that and time will tell if he's doing a good enough job now to make up for the period after the break. The deciding factor there IMO is whether we win the league.

 

At the minute it feels more like Sevco collapsing rather than us being a juggernaut that will (hopefully) see us over the line winning the league. This is the most adversity we have ever seen Brendan face in regards the league. He must be backed with cold, hard cash in the summer. There can be no more excuses. The fans won't accept it.

 

The most accurate summary so far here. There seems to be a lot of picking a 'side' and sticking to it despite any change circumstance, which just does not work.

There are so many issues that have caused this season to be a roller coaster, Rodgers isn't to blame for all of it but isn't completely innocent either.

I can't understand folk not giving him credit now though. End of the day he's stuck with it and now has us looking like a team of winners, if we win the double after everything that's went on it will be a * massive achievement from him.

 

He's been far from perfect, and I didn't want him to return, but I will give him credit for a few things:

1) he's been extremely professional in the face of the flak, obstacles he's faced and never really seemed to flap or get overly agitated when others we've had would've. Ratty, yes, but calm.
2) he never got any backing from the board other than the minimum, even with our savage injury problems and international callups.
3) ref/var interference has been astonishing this year, even by the usual corrupt standards. The very fact the Huns nearly broke TWO world records this year for ref assistance, and even the WORLD media are now talking about it shows the level we've got to.

Couple those to the fan disappointment of losing a talisman in Ange and he's really climbed a downwards escalator this year. Sure, he's been far from perfect and had stumbled, but he could easily still come away with the better parts in a domestic double. If he does, I'd say some serious credit is actually due...

And it sticks in my craw to offer that to someone I'd regularly called Ratgers, but he'd deserve it. And he could still possibly lose it all, it's a lot closer than some seem to be acting... Just nail the league, and get the rebuild in summer under our belt...

 

Possibly, but it was us 'collapsing' that let them back near us, or it would've been over since about Christmas...

 

People also discount the fact its really hard to get a team fully up for it when they win everything the year before. Easier to come in after a loss, and the players are hungry to win. I have no doubt if we got another unknown we would've lost this year.

 

Yep just one of the many things that don't get any consideration usually. It's been a multitude of things that's caused us to struggle but the guy has weathered it all so surely credit where it's due.

 

He still talks pish though

 

Aye but he can talk as much pish as he wants if we're winning, I'll dig the * for it if we start dropping points again

 

100% he hired that old woman to pretend she was the one who waited after every game for him

 

This is surely one for the conspiracy thread

 

The story about the woman rowing around the world and him using it to inspire the team after getting pulled for the ‘good girl’ comment, was right up there.

See the fundamental question about why did he come back here, it’s his personality and character essentially he wants to be seen as the main man. See things like the big Tifos with him on it the first time, he would have loved that. Even the arm in the air after the send off before the ibrox game.

It’s obvious he’s came back and been told we have this new recruitment approach, must have sounded ok. Then he’s given a list of prospects and project players that don’t meet what he was looking for. Don’t get me wrong Rodgers recruitment record is largely awful. We need to get some folks involved that are good at recruitment.

All in, let’s get this title won. If we do given it’s likely O’Riley leaves in the summer there is absolutely no excuse for not signing players in a higher price bracket. Between a guaranteed €50-60m CL prize and £25m minimum for O’Riley. Now I know the CL money is not all extra as we budget for EL at least but it’s still a big uplift.

And a little Scottish cup win would be a nice sign off on a tricky season.

 

I do think there was stuff going on in the background and not getting the calibre of player he wanted was impacting the team but I also cut him a bit of slack as I believe that having CCV , Hatate, McGregor fully fit all season and Abada not having the issues that he had aswell as the Asian cup , also Taylor and palma have missed games with no decent cover, I know injuries are part of the game but Ccv , hatate and McGregor start every week if fit and make us a better team which rogers hasn’t had the luxury of having much , I also think we have struggled majorly upfront

 

Also a nice joke about the huns being dead.

St Brendan the Zombie slayer

 

Bit too much of a love in going on here in my opinion.

Apart from the obvious fact nothing has been won yet, it's almost universally agreed the football has been dire all season and he's up against a pretty horrendous Hun side and has still struggled.

Sure he's handled the big occasions well this season - but it's the minimum I expect for a manager of his experience coming in on the salary he is on. I'm not taking away the credit there, but it has to be balanced against week-in, week-out poor football and a situation that quite simply should've been comfortably avoided.

There's some benefit of the doubt to be given around the situation with Lawwell and some pretty poor transfer windows. I defended him on this point quite far into the season.

Let's get the league and cup won, then we can reflect properly on the season as a whole.

 

No it’s not the bar, but it shows that he might well have been able to make an impact in Europe had we given him the tools in the summer.

When Rodgers signed and in his first interview spoke about being here to try progress in Europe, I can guarantee you he didn’t then expect the type of summer transfer window we had. We all expected a big window. We came out weaker. That was on the board, not Rodgers. * me, after January, we had one left back.

All season his style has been slaughtered by most, and whilst I accept it hadn’t been good enough for the most part, there’s undoubtedly been mitigating factors, with injuries and recruitment being them. It’s absolutely no surprise whatsoever that in the last few weeks when we have had a more settled team and big players returning that are looking much better. In the last 8 fixtures, we have scored 3 goals in 7 of them. The other one being Tynecastle when Yang was sent off early. At the business end of the season, we seem to be getting stronger.

Let’s get over the line now, and let’s give Rodgers serious backing and see what our success can look like. We all know the money is there. There was no excuses for the summer transfer window. None at all. There will be none again this summer. Especially if we get this league won and the money that yet again comes along with it.

 

What I would say as well. A lot wanted the guy Maresca at Leicester. He had a great start, but now we are at the business end, they are * limping over the line. They are just fortunate that the other two are also making a total * of it. That’s all down to pressure, and Maresca is struggling to get his players to cope with it. Just like Clement is with the huns. I was delighted when Rodgers come back, and there isn’t many who we could realistically attract here that I’d replace him with. * back the man. It cost us him before.