Are The Odds Stacked Against Brendan Rodgers Already?

BRENDAN Rodgers has been in the Anfield hot-seat for some two months now and many, if not all, Liverpool fans and observers have been left impressed by the new man.

Quietly assured and confident, not only with his handling of the press but also with his seemingly natural ability to command attention, Rodgers cuts a somewhat inspirational figure and one that seems quite at home with the pressures involved with being in charge at one of European football’s great institutions.

As we are all more than well aware of by this point in time, Rodgers carries with him a definite footballing philosophy, one which he believes in fully and one which he is intent on implementing at Anfield. This is, of course, the so called “tiki-taka” style, which emanated from the Total Football of the Dutch side of the 1970’s but, in more recent years, has been brought to great prominence by Barcelona and the Spanish national side.

Unfortunately for Rodgers, he has little time to get the ball rolling before the beginning of the new campaign and, in terms of being able to implement this “new” way of playing in such a short window, he faces a tough task. In any normal year the job would be difficult enough, however, this year in particular sees a number of extra hurdles being thrown in the manager’s way. These extra difficulties include: the shorter pre-season because of the European Championships, the Olympics, and Liverpool Football Club’s tour of North America; not to mention the Europa League qualifying stages, which begin in less than a fortnight, and Liverpool’s incredibly tough opening Premier League fixtures.

The European Championships which took place in Poland and Ukraine during June involved eight Liverpool players from various countries, (with Fabio Borini now an LFC player that number has risen to nine) the majority of whom were first team regulars last season. Borini cut short his holiday after the competition to join up with the squad in the U.S. but he won’t arrive until Monday and Daniel Agger’s rest period has ended so he has made the trip too. However, the six England players, Downing, Carroll, Henderson, Kelly, Johnson and Steven Gerrard have only flown out this week.

This is obviously not ideal, with Brendan Rodgers keen to assess the players that he has at his disposal at the club, sooner rather than later. Thankfully for Rodgers, apart from Steven Gerrard and Glen Johnson, none of the LFC players who were with England played for any real significant period of time and therefore shouldn’t be too exhausted.

Borini didn’t play a minute and is a notoriously committed, hard-working player who already knows the manager and how he likes the game to be played. Agger played excellently in the three games for Denmark and would appear to be exactly the type of confident, assured, ball-playing centre-back that Rodgers likes. The jury is still out on the England lads though, except for Gerrard and again probably Johnson. There is no doubt that with the likes of Downing and Carroll especially, Brendan Rodgers would have much preferred more time on the training ground to assess their attributes and see where they might fit in to the new system.

The club’s tour of North America has been undertaken for commercial purposes in order to spread the LFC brand on that continent. With Liverpool now owned by the Boston based Fenway Sports Group, a tour of this nature was entirely to be expected, however, choosing to stage it this summer was, perhaps, less than wise in terms of preparation for the new campaign.

It is a fantastic way for the club to reach out to its fans across the pond, the numbers of which appear to be multiplying exponentially and are, it seems, largely concentrated in the East Coast area. This is a market that could, potentially, be a massive money spinner for the club in years to come. However, the tour involves the players racking up ever more air miles, which can have an effect on fitness both at the beginning and end of the season, even more so on those that were involved in the Euros. With games, press conferences and all the fanfare surrounding the trip, it may also detract from the amount of work that Rodgers can actually get through on the training pitch.

The Olympic football tournament which is part of this summer’s London games will also affect Rodgers’ and Liverpool’s preparation for the beginning of the season. Not only will the club be missing the likes of Luis Suarez and Sebastian Coates for their initial forays into the Europa League but also, it means that Rodgers won’t have a chance to see them or work with them until approaching the end of August. Craig Bellamy will be involved as well, however, his Anfield future remains in doubt as a move back to Cardiff seems to be on the cards.
[ad_pod id=”unruly-video” align=”center”]
The possible upsides of the Olympic tournament are: that it will only involve LFC players who didn’t play in the Euros, it will act as a pre-season for those involved so they should come back match-fit and, should Uruguay do well, Suarez and Coates may return bang in form. However, the potential for injury must be a concern, given that Uruguay will be taking the competition very seriously and that Suarez is their captain and talisman.

That brings us on to the Europa League qualifiers, the first leg of which is scheduled for August 2nd, just four days after the Reds face Tottenham in Baltimore. The draw was made and Liverpool will face either Gomel of Belarus or Renova of Macedonia. With the away leg up first, that means more flying for the squad, something which can’t be good for muscles and fitness having just returned from America.

This is obviously a preliminary round and, with neither potential opponent ever having made the competition proper, should be relatively straight-forward for the Reds. I am of the opinion that Brendan Rodgers may well use a second eleven for the early stages of the competition, perhaps strengthening should the club make it to the knock-out stages. I say this not because I think he won’t respect the competition, but because he has to prioritise and that using a second eleven, perhaps captained by Jamie Carragher and incorporating youth and some fringe players, may well benefit the club in the future by allowing those players to gain priceless European experience and helping with their development.

So on to the style then, “tiki-taka” or short passing, possession football incorporating hard pressing without the ball; how will all these disruptions affect the Rodgers revolution? Well, the first thing to say is that it is not a revolution, rather an evolution. The Liverpool sides of the 70’s and 80’s were world famous for their “pass and move” style of play. Synonymous with possession football, “resting with the ball” was known and loved by the Anfield crowds of that era and they were quite happy for players to keep the ball and pass it around until they’d drained the energy and fight from their opponents, before going in for the kill, or to score early and then play the game out in comfortable possession.

Short passing, pass and move, “tiki-taka”, whichever term you prefer to use, is the Liverpool Way, in fact, Brendan Rodgers has been at pains to point that out on several occasions. Kenny Dalglish returned it to Anfield after Roy Hodgson had kidnapped it and locked it in a dungeon during his time in charge and, with a few “tweaks”, Rodgers should be able to evolve this already existing ethos and mould it to suit his requirements. Of course, it won’t come overnight and its development is bound to be hindered slightly with all the pre-season disruption mentioned above, however, he has a head start at Liverpool. I mean no disrespect to other clubs, but Rodgers chose Liverpool for a reason and he has stated that the club’s style of play historically and its devotion to passing football played a significant part in his decision. After all, it’s not like he’s trying to bring tiki-taka to the Britannia.

There are just over three weeks to the start of the Barclays Premier League season. Three weeks for Rodgers to assess, educate and begin to implement. He is likely to shuffle the deck before the West Bromwich game (Liverpool’s season opener) and perhaps even after it, because the new manager faces the sternest of tests in the immediate aftermath.

Manchester City, Arsenal and Manchester United all visit Anfield by September 22nd (barring any fixture changes), a true baptism of fire for the man from Carnlough and his new look side. However, it may not be as bad as it seems. Liverpool always play well against the big teams, especially at Anfield, all LFC fans know this to be true and, whether the smaller teams fear playing in front of the Kop is neither here nor there, the big boys do.

If Rodgers kicks off his tenure with a win at the Hawthorns then Anfield will be buzzing for the visit of City the following week and, as long as the crowd are fully behind the team for ninety minutes and not getting frustrated after twenty, as was the case last season, there’s no reason why we can’t beat them. It will be the beginning of the season for them too, they may not have hit their stride yet or we may just be better and more determined on the day, it makes no difference. If we had to go away to those teams in the first month then perhaps I would not be so positive, but we don’t so I am.

All things considered, Brendan Rodgers hasn’t been handed an easy situation to deal with at Anfield. Limited pre-season, players arriving at different times from different places, undoubtedly at different stages of fitness, the Olympics keeping players away until late August, a foreign tour which involves thousands of air miles and playing in less than ideal conditions, followed up immediately by Europa league qualifiers before hurtling headlong into a really tough programme of Premier League fixtures. All this while trying to evolve a playing style into a permanent philosophy at a new club, where the weight of expectation is enormous; a daunting task to say the least. However in his short spell in charge, Rodgers has at no time looked or sounded unsure of his capability to be at least equal to the task at hand and therefore I have no doubt that he is the man to take us forward. Can he succeed? Of course he can. In Brendan Rodgers we trust!
[ad_pod id=’DFP-MPU’ align=’right’]
Live4Liverpool is recruiting columnists. For further info contact the site editor at live4liverpool@snack-media.com

Follow us on Twitter here: @live4Liverpool and ‘Like’ us on Facebook