Brendan Fraudgers!

How?

 

We got a fortune on them for almost no outlay. Add in the money for Johansen and Sviatchenko, signing Ajer for the future... Ronny's signing record is pretty good. Not as good as Lenny's, but certainly better than Brendan's. Of course Brendan is a better manager than Ronny; but Ronny worked (successfully) with our fairly successful old scouting network (Forster, Bitton, Wanyama, Van Dijk, Armstrong, Dembele, Johansen, Ajer, etc), whereas Brendan brought in his own guy and the results since then speak for themselves.

Getting Brendan was a real coup; but he should never have been allowed to bring in Congerton.

 

Decent signings:
Dembele
Sinclair
Eduord
Ntcham

If he is working in a model where the board says this is a green light then he will get some right and some wrong. But what I will say is this, I'd imagine he had tabs on Sinclair and dembele (despite what deila might say).

Ntcham and edouard - might be his say.

Compper, hayes and hendry, probably not.

If Brendan had his own say and a bigger budget I think he would be ok. Sinclair was definitely one he wanted. Like mowbray was * bent on getting fortune, I firmly believe Brendan was * bent on sinclair

 

Sinclair I will give you. That was a good Brendan signing based on his personal knowledge and before Congerton arrived. Dembele was signed by the old scouting system, targeted under Deila and completed before Congerton ever darkened our door. Edouard and Ntcham were Lawwell's. The PSG and Man City links are Lawwell's baby.

Of course Brendan had a say in Dembele, Ntcham and Edouard; but it wasn't his scouting system that found them. To be clear, my problem isn't that Brendan can't spot a player- he clearly can; my problem is that he trusts Congerton too much and should never have been allowed to bring him in. We'd be much better if Brendan had been working with Park.

 

I watched Malmo today, it was the biggest game for a swedish team in decades and there was no other talk in the town. They might have lost, but the two goals from Chelsea were accidents and they had a really great, pressing match, making Chelsea defenders look really shaky and it was lucky of them that they had a good ball playing CB like David Luiz. Pretty much the type of match Brendan Rodgers keeps promising, on a much, much lower budget. Also refreshing was to see a manager who after the game, makes an interesting and accurate analysis of the game on interviews, and do not come with the same stupid soundbites and excuses, that at this point could pretty much be pre recorded: "we will learn from this, quantity over quality, blablabla".

Didn't watch BATE x Arsenal, but that was a team with a fraction of our budget beating a side better than Valencia.

Our board are tory * who don't have the best interests of the club in mind and look no further than their fat bonus. But those budget, growing gap between leagues excuses in Europe cannot be used forever. There is a lot more that could be done with the money we spend (nevermind the money we have), and a lot more that could be done with the squad we have if better tactics were employed.

 

Ajer alone was a coup that is unthinkable under the current regime. A signing that took creativity, a bit of knowledge about the world of football outside the premier league and the youth teams of the huge clubs, costed almost nothing for a player that already had a fair baggage of professional football, proved to be extremely useful for us and still has an immense space to develop. Might sound like an exaggeration but is basically the best type of signing possible.

Congerton is nothing short of a disaster, a charlatan, there must be a legal reason to not just sack the guy but sue him for fraud. As of now, if a player isn't at SPFL, isn't a Premier League reject, or isn't gathering dust and mould at the youth team of a really small group of clubs, the signing is simply out of our reach.

 

Fortune was mowbrays most expensive signing to my memory. As for deila are we forgetting Baily, janko, blackett, gms, berget, wakasso, scepovic, nfitci, Allan, tonev and Charlton Cole. You cannot possibly say Brendan has a worse record.

 

Even if not seville, a decent euro run, which in recent years, has come less frequent that a treble.
My main point is that it is a tougher feat to accomplish given the far higher standard of the competition.
I dont underestimate it, but i do think that there has not been a lot of strong compeition which cannot be denied. In rodgers riegn thus far, only Aberdeen have ran us close to a trophy, and they have far inferior quality and budget.

I agree, a treble is an amazing. But without doubt the domestic scene has not been nearly as competative as once it was.
I have to disagree on RD. we were in evident decline and that Rangers team should never have taken us to penalties.

 

Let's go, one by one:

Baily was signed to be a backup goalkeeper. Had very few chances and did no harm when he had it.
Janko was useful for a while. Went to have a relatively decent career outside of Celtic. Same thing can be said for Berget. Maybe the system didn't suit them.
Mackay Steven was a good player for quite a good time. I think it is unfair to have him in that list.
Blackett and Tonev come, as I said, from our policy of not looking beyond England. Also terrible signings, I will give that, specially Blackett.

Same thing for Scepovic, Ciftci and Carlton Cole. The last two visibly would not cut through from the beggining. Just as Hayes and Hendry.

But worth noticing is, all those players you mentioned, except Scepovic and Ciftci, costed very little. When I say very little, it is not the 1,5 million we spent in Hayes, Hendry and Compper. It was almost nothing, when not nothing at all. His entire tenure can be defined as a cost saving measure. Without any sort of threat in league, as a certain team founded in 2012 could not compete with us, It was a time when our board were even tighter * and signed an unexperienced manager on purpose so they had a great excuse to not trust him with funds. The board would simply never trust Ronny with signing a guy as expensive as Edouard or Sinclair.

I am very critical of Ronny, I don't think at all those were good times, he was clueless, bit of coward in his tactics and selections. But given the level and resources, he did better in a job he was visibly not prepared for, earning a fraction of what BR does.

 

So only the signings that were a success are his? Embarrassing.

If he’s so good and deserves a bigger budget to prove it then explain his European record with Liverpool?

 

Would you have baily as a backup keeper now?
Would you have Berget or GM's back? If not these are all for the bin. In that respect Brendan has a considerably better record

 

Of course Ronny made some mistakes. Even Lenny signed some duds; that's the nature of our model.

Look, the model isn't perfect and I'm not arguing that our board is completely blameless, but the facts are stark: 3 years in and not one player in our best 11+ 3 subs came from Brendan's scouting network headed by Congerton. Not one. Oh, there are Brendan signings and loans from his own personal knowledge of the English and Scottish markets (Bain, Sinclair, Burke), from Lawwell's contacts (Ntcham, Edouard) and players Brendan's brought through or developed; but not one from that * Congerton and his team. In contrast we are still benefiting from players brought in by the old scouting system (and indeed the phenomenal money from some of the earlier sales).

The record of the scouting network Brendan brought with him is an absolute car crash. The board aren't blameless, but that should be taken into account before we scapegoat them.

I know Brendan can spot a player, mate; but the fact remains that Congerton is his fault.

 

This game had * all to do with Brendan, he done the best with what he had to work with. Blame the board

 

Don't give a * about Liverpool. He was competing billions league. Millions wouldn't cut it.

Again not a terrible point but honestly our board just downsize and downsize. Brendan is a quality manager. He isn't immune from criticism but he is doing a better job than anything else we can take on. He is a man operating with ridiculous constraints. I truly believe if he was allowed to spend more we would go a round or two more in these competitions

 

It's only become less frequent in recent years because of Rodgers, though.

 

I’m talking about his European record with Liverpool but I’m sure kmyou knew that but realised it was * awful as well.

 

I love Brendan, whoever we get after him will be a step down. The board should be backing him more, I agree; but (and this is important) I don't blame the board for not backing him enough while Congerton is here. First get rid of that *, bring back Park or someone like Park and then back Brendan (I agree).

Otherwise we're going to * a lot of money on bad investments.

 

He also has a brilliant record for getting us in CL group stages (2 out of 3), or past Xmas in Europe stages too. But then I guess your forgetting that too?

 

100% agree

 

How is qualifying for the CL 2 years out of 3 a 'brilliant record'? It's the bare minimum when we are coming up against sides like Astana, Rosenborg and, let's be honest, a bang average AEK side.

The first time he kept us in Europe after Christmas, we finished a CL group with 3 points. We finished third on goal difference. This year, yeah we had a great win against Leipzig at home, but we needed a freak Rosenborg result in Germany to go through.