Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

You could have had a chat with the local pish-stained jakey outside the off licences who could have told you that.

As an aside, yer Newcastle/Golf * can go get *.

 

It's true that we're not the same draw that we used to be. It's the EPL and clubs like, ironically, Newcastle, with their unlimited spending that have caused that.

 

I don't see that being debatable in any way whatsoever to be honest. But that is true now of almost every team in every league in Europe when compared to the EPL.

 

Think injuries, sales, and transfer windows have been so ridiculously bad that there are mitigating circumstances.

 

You could literally name the posters, let’s be honest. He won’t win with them and he won’t win with certain elements of the wider fan base.

 

Without doubt we aren’t as fluent.

However he’s navigated all of the Hun games, we’re top of the league, in a cup final, and had some good showings in Europe.

With a bit of ambition shown in the summer we’d have had a fighting chance of getting out of our group, and most certainly would have been in the Europa League knockouts after Christmas.

I don’t think the seismic difference between the squad Rodgers has had to work with and the squad Ange had can be stressed enough. It is far and away the most predominant factor in the domestic decline from the last two seasons.

We replaced Starfelt with two guys who can’t get a game over Liam Scales.

We replaced Giakoumakis with a Korean boy who can’t get on our bench over Norwich City’s third choice striker.

Mooy and Jota, our two best players last season, haven’t been replaced. Jota, fair enough would be difficult to replicate, but the point stands.

Juranovic, for all his defensive inadequacies is a far more complete player than Johnston, and contributed so much in an attacking sense.

The majority of us were in agreement that we need better than Hart and Taylor.

Hatate has played about 10 games for Rodgers, and CCV is in and out and I’m still convinced he’s not fully fit. Abada barely played due to injury.

I think he’s doing well given the circumstances.

 

Aye, it's weird

 

Ange certainly had issues, but even when in the 80th minute and we were level I was always confident we'd win. Im not even confident we can sit out leads now. The football was also entertaining a lot of the time, it's a real * watch at the moment.

Losing Jota and Starfelt has definitely been an issue and Ange would have struggled with that too. I do still think he has enough to not lose repeatedly to * like Hearts and Killie.

 

It's pish football to watch, you are surprised when we score goals as theres never a performance where we look like scoring goals, dominating and winning. Just goals out the blue giving us a chance to win.

Whole thing looks a mess for me, midfield gets caught out too easy and we always have teams breaking on our defence with no protection. Scales plays like someone is switching him on and off every two seconds, doesn't have a good picture of the game around him and only seems to plan what to do once he gets the ball under control, murder to watch for me.

Wingers we are asking for Neymar and Messi type performances, just pass it to them and let them do everything on their own. Strikes barely sees the ball come near him. No interplay between the 2 wide men and striker or Hatate/O'Riley just constant passing around to the winger and back, nothing happening throught the middle.

You * yourself every time the opposition have a set piece delivery into the box or just punt a high ball in towards a back post.

As a season over all the League performances I think are the worst we've seen since Mowbray was in charge, covid hard to say as the games were like training sessions but actual normal football it's Mowbray/Strachan type football we're playing, pure mediocre tactically I think.

 

Those defeats aren’t ideal but in Scottish terms Hearts and Killie aren’t *.

Celtic teams with Henrik Larsson, Stan Petrov, and Paul Lambert in them have lost to teams of their equivalent quality.

Also, we’ve fielded players this season who wouldn’t get a game for those two.

 

Yeah, I highlighted two of those factors in my original post but lots of people including myself feel we should’ve performed better even taking in to account the mitigating factors we’ve mentioned. We’re almost at full strength and have been really poor the last 2 games plus the 1st half against St.Mirren at home. If we manage to get over the line, I think he probably deserves to stay on & hopefully go through a transfer window where he is given proper funds to choose his own players. Then we can make a more informed judgement on whether he’s the right person to take us forward. But if we win it & he chooses to walk away, I wouldn’t be too bothered. Think a lot of folk feel that way including people who backed him when he returned.

 

Whatever happens he will and should get next season to try and improve on things. This season has been so calamitous for so many reasons, a lot of it outwith his control but still plenty he's been at fault for.

If it's personnel that's left him unable to produce a team and style worthy of the jersey then he'll have the chance to rectify it. You've got to assume he'll be the only one dictating who we bring in now this summer, so he has to get it right.

Am I confident he'll get us back to consistently putting 4/5/6 past teams and playing confident, attacking football? I can't say yes or no tbh. It's a wait and see for me.

One thing I know is that absolving him of any sort of blame for our patchy form this season is blinkered in the extreme. He's played his part in it, but he'll have the chance to improve on it next year so hopefully things pan out for him.

 

I agree there are mitigating circumstances for sure. I can't argue with that and wouldn't want to, it's facts. It's not a disaster by any means.

My gripe is just the intensity. We should be going at teams throats and pressing much better than we are, that's not a talent thing, we have the players to do it and I think it's a massive regression. It wasn't always 100mph under Ange, but we were much more intense off the ball and quicker to move it on it.

I dont think there is an excuse for that shift.

 

Get the * to * at end of the season regardless of outcomes.

Even winning the double doesn't cover over fact that the football is * dire to watch.

 

You do wonder whats meant to be going on tactically because it looks like nothing is.

Like Kyogo doesn't come deep now like he did at the start of the season and we never pass the ball to him from deeper. Sp is he meant to be playing Ange style and if he is, the ball doesn't come forward enough and the midfield aren't high enough up the park to cut through teams.

You could be here all day ranting but I don't see any type of set up to help us win games.

The only thing we do well is hold and move the ball about and look composed and in control against "better teams" against * teams we look like we don't know what we're doing and just hope someone cuts in and scores at some point or a cross lands at someone or maybe once a bluemoon we score from a set piece if not maybe a penalty will get us out of jail.

Feels like we are watching the huns rather than us, just pure mediocre football, scoring random goals and playing pish even this season getting a lot of penalties that have helped us open the scoring or got us out of jail.

Usually we are used to outlpaying and dominating teams and waiting for goals, on a bad day we might get caught out. Now theres little hope of playing well and just random events playing out where we might win or not but you don't see anything happening different to any other team in the League.

 

Feels like we are watching Lennons teams, where it's a case of hopefully someone produces something through a bit of individual skill rather than any coherent plan or tactical set up.

The difference is this * is on a bout 4 times the wages Lennon was on

 

Even then the non Covid Lennon teams it felt like we played quite well and he was also quite flexible, especially his first spell where we played different formations near enough every week at points.

We are now watching stale, boring football thats struggling to create and then its the exact same set up every single week. He did play Idah and Kyogo 2/3 times for a wee run but that was it.

Lennon would have have been changing things much more trying to find a style to work better and be more fluent and dominant.

 

Aye sorry I was referring to the bad times under lennon.

Christ even the he at least changed the formation a couple of times. It was essentially throwing * at the wall and hoping something stuck but at least he showed he was at least thinking about it. Unlike this * who's dialling it in and pickin up mega money

 

How many games have we played proper decent football this season ?

Feels like basically every game is a struggle and has done since he came back. That's my main issue. Even with the poor squad we have assembled, we should still be seeing better football.

I still have little confidence in us winning the league. Just can't trust this team, which probably sounds mental when you look at the stats. But watching us is a different story. The lack of clear cut chances created, a midfield you could fly a 747 through and a defence that looks ropey against every opposition striker no matter how big, small, fat or thin they may be.