Was watching Goldbridge again this morning (I know, I have a problem), but what amused me, in his bigging up Rodgers for the United job, was he said 1) his signings are great 2) he develops players and 3) his teams play good football.
Now, I haven’t followed his career all that closely since he left Liverpool, but it amused me that a United fan’s top 3 reasons in Rodgers’ favour are probably the three biggest areas he was criticised for while here.
Leicester have signed some good players admittedly, but as far as I know the manager there isn’t involved in player purchases.
Edit: Another interesting nugget, Goldbridge was saying he has good inside information that Man City want Rodgers to replace Pep. I’d be happy with that as well
Not sure I fully agree on this. I mean he did improve some players, and there were occasions were the football was good. Where it fell apart was largely because of the mess we made with the transfer windows post Suarez. I thought the bigger criticism was around his team selections and infighting with those helping out with recruitment, including through the leaks to the media. Then there was the dumping of his assistant manager, which a lot of fans thought was wrong.
There was a guy he took to Celtic to work on transfers, and brought him to leicester, so he may have more input than before on incoming players?
My issue was when he threw that mate of his under the bus when evidently he was driving it. That last full season was terrible. And then brought in some further mediocrity to help him “assist”.
That and them blaming his tools after a loss after he had spent all summer courting Benteke.
He should have gone after Stoke and if Klopp had been available no doubt he would have done, maybe it was a blessing he didn’t.
As for signing players his record was atrocious and the best thing is we know exactly who he wanted as he told his mate James Pearce all the time.
He mistook having a once-in-a-generation player as his striker for his own brilliance, then struggled brutally when that was removed. When his three center-back set had a solid run, the rhetoric returned. Our ‘valley of despair’ was the point when Swansea (irony!) put on a template for how to tear it apart, and it seemed like every manager in the PL except Rodgers understood it.
Remains to be seen where he is now on the Slope of Enlightenment
I think he handled a lot of that wrong, but I don’t think that is a fair description of the issues faced in the following season. He didn’t just lose Suarez, but also he also almost immediately lost Sturridge as a meaningful player and faced a Sterling who more or less quit.
That’s fine. The thing is though, if he had been given two paintings, one was of a dog, a high quality painting, and the other was him, not as well painted, then we all know which one would be hanging on the wall.
I feel like I’m remembering this wrong, but what I recall is that he left Sterling up front on his own for a significant period of time, and generally mismanaged him. There was no direction in what he did, and he was just floundering, which Sterling suffered for. I don’t recall his effort levels decreasing, more just his looking more and more like a headless chicken…
With Sturridge out and Suarez gone we were one of the slowest sides in the league. Sterling was put in a position in which suited the needs of the team and in which he actually did well. But he made a fuss out of it as doing so suited his desires to push for a move.
Sturridge really reverted to type, the 13/14 season was the real outlier. But I agree, there were other challenges that year, but there were challenges the year before as well. The defining problem was that he had Suarez, then he didn’t. While that would have been problematic for any manager, Rodgers’ management of it was simply poor. It called on a tactical knowledge that he had boasted about, but did not truly have.
There really wasn’t a more depressing period than that run from mid-March to the end of the season.
I seem to remember our tactics at the time amounted to hoofing it over the top and asking Sterling to chase it.
We then got Benteke in who is a player that comes short. That has to rank as one of the oddest transfer decisions I can ever remember. It was a complete departure to how we were playing at the time.
I would imagine all men who live their lives with pride and ego walk through their own Valley of Despair at some point. He just did it publicly. Since then he’s managed his career well and IMO is deserving another chance with a top club, with which, if the timing and circumstances are right, I think he will do well.
The only club I really wouldn’t care to see him manage is United. At the same time, not sure he could (or should) turn it down, if it is ultimately offered.
Hoping for an Ole rally into acceptable mediocrity.
I dont think that helps his case any. He basically upset the whole dynamic of the side because he wanted someone 6’4" (or however tall). He basically got one guy in that pretty much forced a change in the whole team rather than working with the squad he had and developing that.
I suspect that he’s developed a long way since then though.
I don’t agree with everything you said about BR as I think you are laying every problem that a shambles of a club had at the time at the foot of the manager only.
But I totally agree about him thinking his shit didn’t stink immediately after 13/14. Those preseason press conferences showing him chest puffed out full of smugness was just nauseating, moreso because he was somehow blind to what even the ever-positive fans could see about the problems with the squad.
Was he just putting on this public image to instill confidence in the squad or did he genuinely believe he’d made it? Unfortunately for Rodgers he had a talent for blaming everyone else for the problems and crediting himself for the good stuff so you couldn’t even ask him that question today and expect an honest answer. It makes it easy to imagine that all the talk of his incredible ego is true.
I might enjoy it if he goes there as the ‘great character’ phrases might feel less like poison when it’s the enemy he’s talking about.
It’s one of the reasons why Sterling wanted out so quickly at the time. He felt that we’d lack significant progress as long as Rodgers was at the club, and he was right about that.
