The Beginning of the End for Liverpool or just Rodgers?

Fischer finally breaks and can no longer defend Brendan!

So far 2015 has started out to be a really awful year to be a Liverpool fan. Entering the year in horrendous form, crashing out of the Champions League, riddled with injuries, and the further two month delay on Sturridge’s return put a big damper on our chances of finishing in a top 4 position. But it’s gotten even worse because in North England, when it rains – it pours.

The sudden announcement of Gerrard’s future departure to the MLS shook the entire football world. No one could’ve ever foreseen Gerrard choosing to end his career at another club. News that hurt even worse when he admitted that had he been offered a new contract during the summer after retiring from England to commit to the club, he would’ve signed it. Yet another horrendous bit of management from Rodgers and FSG’s transfer committee that occurred this summer. Then the announcement that esteemed club icon and long-serving team doctor Zaf Iqbal has departed the club, further crippling an already diminished physio staff. To know we will no longer see a player getting #Zaffed is crushing. And now it appears Liverpool will not be strengthening our horrendous first team. FSG don’t seem to trust Rodgers with anymore money and he’s stated (albeit to keep his job) that he can manage with the signings he made during the summer, which were incredibly inadequate at the time and still maintain that status.

It’s been incredibly apparent since the signings he made over the summer, and the players that have been passed up on, that Rodgers is completely delusional. At the moment, it’s looking more and more likely that he should be wrapped in a straightjacket and forced to watch Lovren errors on repeat. He managed to spunk over 100m on squad quality players yet before the summer he claimed that he needed Champions League football to sign top class talent. Now he’s claiming he needs a large budget to sign top quality players to replace Gerrard and make up for the signings he’s made during his tenure with at least 13 players needing to be sold and replaced. I use to criticize Rafa who’d waste the occasional 7m on a random nobody, but Rodgers managed to waste 81m on nobody’s. It’s understandable why FSG won’t give him money this month, but if that’s the case then why is he still in charge? He clearly isn’t attempting to conduct a fire-sale to generate funds and isn’t approaching players that could’ve been signed this month for next to nothing. So what exactly is he still doing here when it’s extremely apparent he can’t upturn our current performances? It only took van Gaal roughly 2 months to figure out the weaknesses in his defense, corrected them and they sit towards the top of the table. If it hadn’t been for Johnson & Lovren’s injuries they would still be starting every week. But if you think this is just a fluke let me tell you the undeniable facts about his form as our manager.

He is statistically the highest scoring manager in Liverpool history purely due to last season while also claiming the title as worst defensive manager in Liverpool history. His goals conceded and defensive error stats are off the charts and he shows total ignorance in addressing these issues claiming he doesn’t need to hire a defensive coach. He statistically makes Hodgson & Souness look decent. That’s terrifying.

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He sacked the entire physio staff we had just hired before his arrival which was the best in the entire league and the stats of our healthy squad backed that up very clearly. We had the least number of injuries in England the entire season, managed to get an entire season out of Daniel Agger and kept Gerrard in the best shape of his life. They have carried on their top performance for the Australian cricket team who has publicly accredited a portion of their success to the great work of their physio staff. Why they were sacked is unknown and baffled the remaining physio staff (who wishes to remain unnamed). He’s followed that up be sacking our team doctor, for obvious scapegoat reasons to our injury woes yet he’s done all this without hiring any replacements. He just promotes the current staff and increases their workload. He also famously sacked Rodolfo Borrell and Frank McParland, two of the greatest assets to ever happen to the Liverpool academy in its history thanks to Rafa. Borrell helped develop the likes of Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique and Cesc Fabregas at Barcelona and Rafa brought him in to help us find our own talent. He brought us some of the brightest talent in the nation like Raheem Sterling and Suso while also developing the likes of Jon Flanagan, and Andre Wisdom.

Source: liverpoolfc.com

Source: liverpoolfc.com

The more I think about it, the more I shake my head in disbelief how things went downward so quickly. I foresaw things going sour without Suarez’ goals to cover our problem of leaking goals over the summer and consistently stated we needed to invest the money we got in bolstering our defense, central/defensive midfield, and goalkeeper before anything else; but nobody could’ve predicted it turning out this bad. Liverpool’s season and entire future begin to look bleaker and bleaker the longer this month has rolled on. Liverpool have had the opportunity to tie up a multitude of signings and staff hiring/firing before and during this month to correct our current, devastating path but look to have no intentions of doing so. It looks as if Rodgers and the transfer committee will now start sacking staff through scapegoating, we’ll be lucky to finish 7th, and we’ll be back at square one. But this time square one is in far worse conditions than when Roy Hodgson was sacked. I thought Roy’s tenure at Liverpool had emotionally prepared me for the worst but Brendan has surely surpassed that. I tried to give him a chance, backed him through gritted teeth multiple times, and wrote articles trying to be supportive but it’s time for a change. Rodgers is clearly nothing more than an over-glorified public speaker who can coach the hell out of attacking football; but can’t defend, strategize, spend, sell, or even do tactical substitutions properly. Thanks for the memories, Brendan. You were almost the one, but it’s time to resign before things get worse.

Merseyside Fischer

Merseyside Fischer

Sports Coaching & Sports Business Management student working towards being involved with professional football or talent management. Boyhood Liverpool fan with an obsession of scouting unearthed talent and constantly looking in to transfer dealings worldwide. Reasonably opinionated about transfers & tactics.
Merseyside Fischer

  1 comment for “The Beginning of the End for Liverpool or just Rodgers?

  1. nick
    January 10, 2015 at 5:59 pm

    This articles so biased and completely overlooks the progress the teams made recently with top 4 still remaining a very realistic prospect. And to be quite frank without saurez and sturridge and having to settle in lots of new signings (none of which were of the quality that they would make instant impacts like sanchez)getting top 4 would be an impressive achievement. Especially if we can win some trophies which is a reasonable possibility.

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