How Brendan Rodgers Has Coached Himself

It’s fair to say Brendan Rodgers’ tenure as Liverpool manager is at an all time high. After defeating Manchester United 3-0 at Old Trafford in the most comprehensive of manners, the young Northern Irishman is riding a crest of a wave that may take us to the Premier League title. Even if it doesn’t, the season is almost certain to be a success, with Champions League qualification all but secured. But Rodgers’ time at Liverpool has not always been as rosy.

It is easy for those who supported him to say they knew from the beginning, and those who have been critical to bide their time while they bask in the glory of our present football. Both groups of fans, regardless of differing opinions, only wanted and want what’s best for the club. The truth is that those who saw the good in him were for the most part right, but those who saw errors, misjudgements and weaknesses in him were also right.

Brendan Rodgers is a coach who often says that his biggest strength is coaching and improving players. Well, his biggest strength to me is that he has coached and improved himself, significantly.

My first article for Live4Liverpool was one regarding Brendan Rodgers not yet coming to grips with the expectation at Anfield. That too often his words were either over-eulogizing poor performances or massively downplaying what the goals at Anfield should be.

“I will never say that coming here was two points dropped”

– Brendan Rodgers after 0-0 away game at Swansea, November 2012

Was a typical comment from Brendan. A comment that highlighted the vastly different expectations at Anfield versus his time at Swansea, and that he hadn’t quite changed his mindset yet to managing the most successful club in English Football.

“I never said when I came in here we wanted to be fourth. Top four is where we want to be but Liverpool will always be judged on being the best, both here and in Europe, not against Manchester United. Liverpool has its own great history both domestically and in European football so for us the benchmark has always been the best and we will always look to do that.”

 – Brendan Rodgers prior to 3-0 win at Old Trafford in March 2014

The contrast in these two statements is massive. Not just in their content (one is justifying failure to get a result, the other demanding the best), nor in their context (one following a 0-0 draw and another prior to a massive game against Manchester United), but in their tone (one is the attitude that mid-table managers often adopt, the latter what is expected of a Liverpool manager).

Ironically, Man United fans are similarly frustrated with the tone of David Moyes whenever he speaks in front of a camera. But Brendan, as he pointed out recently, came into a team who was in 8th, while Moyes had the Champions who had just won the League by 11 clear points. And Brendan showed plenty of positive signs that allowed us fans and the board to stick with him during those tough early times. The attacking nature of his football, his willingness to discuss his thoughts and engage with fans, the belief and confidence he placed in young players and the open communication he had with each member of his squad being amongst the pluses of his early reign even when results were going against him.

In this first article I also stated that: “I must first disclose that I am a big fan of Brendan. He is a modern manager for modern times. Despite our lowly position, I am very happy we have Brendan in charge and think his bravery in trusting talented young players is something very few managers are capable of.”

This was before the signings of Sturridge and Coutinho and our climb up the table into an eventual 7th place. However I won’t claim to be a persistent supporter of Rodgers. My faith in him more than wavered, and while I felt he deserved another year to progress his ideas at the club, I was frustrated with his comments that 7th place was a success as it was an improvement on 8th.

In his first year Brendan struggled to come to terms with a number of aspects, but what he has done is learn from his mistakes and for the most part correct those errors. The change in the tonality of his language, in the management of expectations, in talking about our club in the manner that we believe it should be has only been one, and probably one of the smaller changes, he’s made to himself.

This season, Brendan has played stronger teams in cup competitions, and while we recently went out to Arsenal in the FA Cup, we did so all guns blazing and playing the type of football our fans enjoy. Much better than the previous season when we were out in the 4th round in both the FA Cup and Carling Cup, including an embarrassing exit to Oldham, and only made the last 32 of the Europa League. Lesson learned.

Despite making mediocre signings which last year he repeatedly played regardless of form, he has instead been more honest with player’s performances and picked them on merit. Borini and Assaidi were sent on loan, Joe Allen has not been able to get into the team all season until he started proving himself, and following a good defensive performance against Southampton was picked to play at Old Trafford.

Allen’s last game at Old Trafford was a disaster as he was picked in an advanced midfield position, almost a Number 10 role, and struggled all game. This time he was picked in his favoured position – the middling midfielder in front of the deep lying Gerrard but behind the advanced Sterling and supported by the outstanding Henderson – and Allen excelled. When recent signings like Moses, Cissokho or Aspas have failed to impress he’s dropped them, when injuries haven’t forced his hand. Last year’s Rodgers would most likely have persisted with them for longer. Lesson learned.

In his first season Liverpool’s results against the teams around them and above them were horrendous. We struggled to win any games against teams in the top 10 of the league. This was not because we didn’t have the players to do so, the present side is essentially exactly the same as last season’s team, all be it with a year’s more experience.

Many losses were due to Brendan getting his tactics wrong. He was often accused in the media of being out thought by opposition managers. Now the shoe is on the other foot. We have changed systems multiple times this season and while there has been the odd blip (4 centrebacks against Southampton leading to a 1-0 loss at Anfield), whether we’ve played 3-5-2, 4-3-3, 4-4-2 diamond or a myriad of finely tuned modifications, we have continued to be fluid and gelled.

Often the small changes in formation have helped nullify and attack the opposition. For example, against United when we played a 4-4-2 diamond. United’s fullbacks didn’t know whether to go tight to Allen and Henderson who kept playing in the inside left and inside right positions, which created space for our strikers or full backs to run into the space on the flanks. Or knowing that Vidic and Jones would drop deep because of their lack of pace, and that would allow Raheem Sterling plenty of space at the point of the diamond. We’ve now had phenomenal results against many of the teams around us and have put many to the sword. Even the loss against Manchester City was unfortunate as we played very well. Well done Rodgers. Lesson learned.

Brendan still has areas of improvement. He is far from perfect and is still a relatively young manager. His transfer record, Coutinho and Sturridge apart, is hardly a success. Allen has shown some improvement this season but can’t be termed a success yet, and the likes of Aspas, Alberto, Cissokho, Moses, Assaidi or Borini have not impressed sufficiently, although some are young, and others like Sahin have already left having failed. Next year with more money from the Champions League and our presence in it likely to attract a higher calibre of player, we cannot afford to make more errors in the transfer market as those errors will cost us significantly more financially.

Brendan also has little experience of European competition which perhaps showed in our last campaign in the Europa league. Our history was built on the back of European success and it’s important that we impress in the Champions League.

Finally, while we’re all very positive about Brendan at the moment, and he’s done incredibly well to take a team that had been out of the Champions League for a few years back into it in his second season, Liverpool’s history is built on trophies. With the exception of the disastrous Hodgson, all our managers from Shankly onwards won trophies. Even Roy Evans won a League Cup. Souness an FA Cup (not including all his trophies as a player). Houllier had that wonderful treble and another League Cup. Rafa had Istanbul. Kenny won the lot in his first spell and in his short second spell managed to win the League Cup and nearly won an FA Cup Final.

Brendan will have to win trophies. But if the team continue in the manner he has fashioned them, we’ll have a great chance to challenge for trophies in the future. Even in this season, he may just win the biggest trophy that has eluded the Liverpool fans for 24 years! Good coaching certainly has it’s benefits. Especially when you’re also focussed on continuous self-improvement.

You can catch more from me on my own blog: http://taintlessred.blogspot.co.uk/