Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

It feels like a cheek to level too much criticism at him but it’s a consistent worry I have about him that he’s very tactically inflexible.

The final we got away with it, but the signs were there. He said before the game these things happen in a one off game. 15 mins into that game it was clear not a one off, and he didn’t change it at all. Tactically outdone

 

Fair enough let the opening period play out to an extent but he’s been a lot more rigid in shape since he came back. I think he’s world class but theres a lot less in game tweaks shape wise than his first spell. Although i think that’s the case with football generally now.

I actually think the players were just a * mile off it today tbh, how Scales didn’t get whipped at HT is mental though.

 

I agree a lot with that. I can always remember first spell struggling against Aberdeen’s tactics, the man marking, and he made one wee tweek Eduard in the false 9 and midfield running behind and it completely destroyed it.

He doesn’t adapt like that anymore. A lot of the time trusting the process works but other times there’s more than a wealth of evidence we need to adapt sometimes. We had the same angles of passes attempted when they just weren’t there

 

There was a lot of it just players not being able to string 2 passes together, you can’t legislate for that as a coach.

can lead a horse to water etc

 

They shut down the usual angles of passes we play, and the more that happened the worse it got. Changing it to something less expected can sort that I think. At least a better chance.

 

Our midfield 3 weren’t doing enough to make angles to receive the ball. We got outworked and outfought. That is on the players. If it was a common theme you could look at coaching. Yesterday I just think our players shat themselves though.

 

Agree if it was a one off I wouldn't be so angry but the final and now today they are using their midfielders with a aggressive press and surrounding our one player with the ball in packs and shutting down the space in the wings .
Rogers better get his tactics right for the next derby especially the * money we have spent on players and the zombies should not be taking 6 goals off us in 2 games but Clement seems to found a tactic that we are struggling badly to cope with .
If you look at the Kyogo goal that was chopped off we hit it long over their midfield where we got space .

 

There were other long passes that we tried, but were slightly overhit or cut out. Our insistence on short passes means we don't have the practice in going long successfully.

 

Not exactly a master stroke from their manager, other teams have done the same thing to us before him. Yet here we are months down the line and it still works. We just managed to get lucky, domestically at least, when it's happened before, mainly due to the poor quality of player we're up against.

Paying BR a hefty wage and if the same thing happens again the next time we play them it doesn't matter how many points there are between us, people will start turning against him.

 

What annoys me, we break the press... then instead of going forward, suddenly mcgreggor will get the ball and pass back. Thats us back at the beginning to try break the press again. He's never turning with the ball anymore, and passing to the wing or to another midfielder. Sure it's not all his fault, it's the set up, leaving him to isolated.

Then we finally pass, it's never in front of a winger to run into it, it's behind him giving them time to react and close down. Fix those 2 issues and suddenly the game will become easy again.

 

For me gross mismanagement of Engels to boost his confidence then make him 5th choice midfielder.

Scottish and league cup finals we put down to not being at best but getting a result. 2 up at Ibrox in last season and didn't win. 2 up against 10 men and got a 2-1. Were not wiping the floor with them and other teams are showing us how to get at their defence but we allow them to get set up while we knock it about the back with no intent.

Towards the end of last season we were saying how none of the new signings were playing now Trusty, Idah, Mccowan and Engels are warming the bench on a fairly regular basis.

O'Neill was flexible enough to change things when it was no longer successful and went from back 3 to a back 4. 14 years ago Lennon played 5 in midfield there and got a win. Rodgers would rather lose and stick to his system than change it to win.

 

This happened in his first spell too, him and Ange arrogantly think you just need to do the same things better instead of recognising it's not working, we need a different plan.
We get pressed, bullied, mcgregor is man marked and our defence play us into trouble against teams of similar quality or in Europe.
We get away with it against * teams.
Even Aberdeen done us at parkhead this season.

 

It's not a one off though, Aberdeen at home, Brugge and the last two hun games we've been done tactically, with no sign of changing anything. We've been lucky to get results in the other games.

 

He really does need to learn from this. This would of damaged his ego a bit no doubt about it.
Finding it difficult to be over critical but there's a few games this year that we haven't tweaked anything during the game and that's concerning.

 

Reflecting on performances this season and if we truly have ambition to improve against very good opposition, our midfield is obviously the big weakness.
It hugely impacts the forward players too, wingers always starting from standing start, strikers surrounded by 3 defenders.

With the fabulous exception, but one off, that was Leipzig, we have been schooled in the midfield by Rangers twice, Atalanta, Brugge and of course Dortmund.
Even a injury ravaged Zagreb team made our middle 3 look poor.

We may have escaped with a couple of results to paper over the cracks, but there's no denying we were totally overrun in midfield and could have lost all those games.
We look slow, cautious, negative and seem to want to play at walking pace to 'look after the ball'
Most worrying is the weak and fragile mentality, confidence drains out of us under any kind of pressure - either from our own overblown expectation or when applied directly by opposition.

Calmac is simply not a #6, but because he does a decent job as DMF he becomes a lazy choice by our management and recruitment over last 5 years.
We won SPL right, so why change?

Overall we have too many similar style midfield players, all with similar strengths - but also similar weaknesses.
There's no balance.

It's unpopular to say, but the midfield needs major overhaul - if our ambition is beyond SPL.

 

Aberdeen at home we absolutely battered them mate. Brugge are a good side, and a draw was a fair result. The game yesterday our players simply shat it, absolutely no doubt about that. When your captain is jogging about trying to make himself unavailable for a pass, you’re in bother.

 

I think to call him world class or elite is going way overboard. He’s a very good manager who, quite often, lets his ego and arrogance get in the way.

An elite manager learns from the cup final and finds a way to counter the huns tactics yesterday. They make early subs to quickly rectify it.

It’s too easy to just say the players shat themselves and that’s it. They did…but they weren’t helped by the set up and Rodgers’ inability to change it up.

Something I think being overlooked is the form of a lot of our players this season. It’s why I think it’s been a strange season so far. 11 points clear and doing well in the CL but how many players have honestly been pretty consistently good?

Schmeichel, CCV, Kuhn and Trusty (dropped for some reason) for sure. Maeda has a good return but I don’t think his actual performances have been particularly great over the course of the season. Bernardo has been quite good but not started as many games as he should have done.

I would genuinely say pretty much everybody else has been massively inconsistent, below par, or in and out of the team. Even AJ has started playing way below his ability since that new deal.

 

Players not moving for a pass or being unable to make simple passes isn’t on Rodgers yesterday. If it was something that has been happening all season I’d point the finger at coaching, but you could see our players froze yesterday. Engels being unwell didn’t help, because he would definitely have played I think. The team we sent out yesterday had more than enough to beat that hun team, absolutely no question about it, literally not one player turned up.

 

It happened 3 weeks ago against the very same team. That’s where the problem lies.

Regardless of that, given the first half was such a mess. Why didn’t he change it up at half time - be that personnel or the shape?

Absolving Rodgers of any blame is just silly.

 

Needs to make a few big decisions after yesterday. Needs Hatate out for a spell on the bench and get Scales to * out the team.

The good thing is the league is still done so no panic over that.