The Importance of Time

It’s arguably the most precious commodity for a manager. Time. Usually there’s not enough of it. The way the business has evolved the last twenty years has turned top level football management into an occupation where being able to build the plane while flying it has become a prerequisite. Everyone plans on winning. Everyone plans on getting promoted. Not reaching your targets isn’t an option – which doesn’t make sense, given the nature of the game.

There are many factors contributing to the rise of Liverpool FC this season. This phenomenal, thrilling journey which sees them in the midst of a title challenge – a proper one – sitting at the top of the table with six games to go. Six wins, that’s all it takes now. Not eight. Not fourteen. Six is the number, for now. When Monday comes it will most definitely be down to five, although the magnitude of the five is yet to be known. The significance is yet to be revealed.

Many will point to two specific individuals when explaining Liverpool’s sudden rise from relative mediocrity: Daniel Sturridge and Luis Suarez. The SAS. The perfect storm. The most lethal partnership that isn’t really a partnership the Barclays Premier League has ever seen. And they have been crucial. They are crucial, because they do what brilliant forwards do: turning a good team into a very good team, elevating them from a status as a top four contender to a genuine title contender. But they are not the main reason for the improvement of the team over the last two seasons.

Nobody thought it would happen this quickly, this rise back towards the top. Nobody saw it coming. Manchester City and Chelsea, the two biggest favourites before the season started, were busy not wanting the favourite tag; taking turns shoving it across the table, loaning it to Arsenal who dropped it like a hot and sharp piece of nuclear waste. Meanwhile on Merseyside, Liverpool walked up to the table, had a look at it, tossed it up in the air, played with for a while and put it back down. ‘Nah, not for us this. Just wanted to let you know we’re here; now excuse us while we keep doing our thing. As you were.’

This LFC is the house that Brendan Rodgers started to rebuild. He’s building it with time, using his skills as a man, as a manager and as a coach. That’s what was needed for this particular rebuilding job. Time.

Time to lay down new foundations; to introduce a new set of principles and ideas to a squad suffering from an identity crisis after being assembled by three different managers with different ideas.

Time to create and drill the tactical framework, develop players and make them believe. Time to assess the strengths and weaknesses of his team, and get the players who could fit the framework as well as adding new dimensions to it.

Some are saying the manager has changed his philosophy. I don’t think he has. Far from it, actually. Managers don’t tend to change their core principles overnight. They are saying he has become more pragmatic. Maybe he has, but I don’t think he was particularly dogmatic to begin with. They point to a shift in approach, from possession based football to a more counter attack based football. Again, to me that isn’t necessarily the case.

Listen to what he has talked about ever since he arrived at the club. Go quick and direct when you can; if you can’t, then keep the ball. That has been the message from day one. It is simplistic and borderline vulgar, referring to these broad lines. But I think it’s worth remembering, because within lies both the simplicity and the complexity of the manager’s beliefs and methods. The possession game is only one part of his vision, it was never the be all and end all the labels wanted us to believe it was. It’s about two sides of the same coin; about acquiring the tools to do both, depending on the situation. Learning, individually and as a team.

Manager, coach and man. That’s what this job required, and still does. And time. Fortunately, Brendan Rodgers has earned himself more of this rare commodity. Because he’s just getting started.