Adam Idah

The shelf life for a manager nowadays is fairly short so ideally the recruitment process should work fairly independently of the manager. Rodgers is in his last year of contract and could be gone in 11 months time. Ideally we shouldnt tie our recruitment too heavily to the manager. Rodgers should be going to the club saying we need to strengthen x,y,z and the recruitment division should be saying - heres a list of options that fit withing the clubs price range and model - who do you like?

 

Idah, Engels and Tierney are all Rodgers signing.

The first 2 are fine but we overpaid. Tierney could be the bargain of the decade but also we may be stretching our salary budget for a player who isn't available at key points. Time will tell.

So I'm not too confident Rodgers should be making these calls and agree better scouting would make much more of a difference to us.

 

I think idah will end up being a success. What isn’t a success is the cost of his transfer but that’s the price we have to pay for Rodgers targets.

Tierney I feel might have come back regardless with him not being offered a new contract at Arsenal.

engels will be a strange one, I feel he has been a success this season but there’s still something missing. If reports are true Atalanta want him and he goes, we won’t see the project in full. Again though very expensive.

My worry is Rodgers obviously saying no to players that are brought to him. Nawrocki apparently was a club sourced player….has looked very promising when strangely picked for random games by Rodgers out of nowhere. Then suddenly bombed out again undeservedly.

Don’t know what you think, but feels a lot like him not wanting to pick players he hasn’t chosen. As nawrocki based on performance has 100% deserved his place compared to recent form of trusty/scales.

Just have this fear we’re gonna sell 3/4 huge players and Rodgers is gonna * about saying no to very good players all because they’re not the “proven quality” we need. With that “proven quality” being EPL or someone Rodgers has played against/coached.


Haha a long post! But I also think Rodgers is gonna try go all in to get Dewsbury-hall from Chelsea. Whenever he talks about young players making the grade he’s constantly who he brings up and with him not being fully in the picture at Chelsea. Us selling Hatate and possibly Engels….he’ll be wanting a huge purchase

 

Think it boils down to Rodgers has his favourites. They do change, slowly, Sinclair being an example but really he goes for consistency above pretty much anything and he compromises on long term player fitness and development of other members of the squad.

It's almost lazy management but it has worked for us.

I'm not so sure Nawrocki isn't a Rodgers signing, he was just displaced early as Rodgers made up his mind.

Rodgers will want to keep our better players so he can play them. If they go it's because it's not up to him. He'll not like it but he'll accept it as long as he gets to spend. Which unfortunately he's not the best at.

 

Idah he signed for £9.5m, he had him as a must sign, didn’t care for any other target and made us overpay for him. That alone, showed Rodgers we were backing him.


But he never nailed him down as first choice despite that. That’s far away from playing favourites.

Nawrocki we all explain away as not Rodgers signing despite him doing an interview about him playing against Leicester and BR rating him.

BR doesn’t trust players that aren’t available when he needs them. And Rocki last season wasn’t that, and he had a couple shockers when he came back as well.


I’m not sure if he was or wasn’t, because he has been dismissed a lot quicker than he did Trusty. Look at him with Iwata. He liked him, said he wasn’t available when needed and had no interest in him being here this season. And he’s a decent player.

 

So you are agreeing with me? In a very long winded way it should be said.

 

Not really in the way I’m reading what you’re saying. Every manager in history has players they trust and is a ‘favourite’, but BR for me if I’m reading you right isn’t an emotionally attached to players type that’ll stick to players to his detriment if they aren’t performing.


Sinclair you made as an example and he done my nut in at the end, but he’d deliver for us. Just not produce like I thought he was capable of doing and frustrated me.

 

I meant "favourite" until your not. Brendan goes where the wind blows in his favour. He's a stick not twist sort of guy and not really too invested in much else. Not really a criticism, more an observation.

 

If Idah only cost £4M everyone would be saying he just needs time to develop the rest of his game. Similar to Engles with the price tag there’s a level of expectation every single game which is unfair really for players that are still young.

They’ve both put in some great performances and had big goals but they are inconsistent given their lack of experience. Reckon they’ll both kick on again next season, just a case of being able to deal with the pressure.

 

They both better kick on or else they can do one.

 

* all to do with Idah's price tag , it's to do with watching him play all season. If he was 3 or 4m we would be writing him off completely as another average cheapish punt that we need to move on , like dozens before him.

 

Not sure that's true, myself and plenty others weren't convinced about signing him even when 5-6m was the price being thrown around in the press last year at the end of his loan.

Engels doesn't worry me yet I think all the pieces are there, like O'Riley over his first year to eighteen months, he just needs to put it together and he'll go up a level massively. I really hope he proves me wrong but Isah still hasn't convinced me of the same.

 

Happy for him to be our back up striker but not number one.

 

I get he wants to be no1 etc but he just suits coming on the last 30 to tired defenders who just defended a different style so heads are all over. No shame in that. Can always bag a goal near the end but rarely early on.

 

The price tag is kind of relevant though in terms of what the clubs expectation for the player was. I dont think we paid 9M for a back up / squad player. I think we spent that thinking we were getting someone who could improve the first team. He hasnt really established himself as a first choice, even when Kyogo was sold. So thats a concern and an indication Rodgers isnt fully convinced. I think hes absolutely fine as a squad player to add depth but I dont think thats why we signed him.

 

He's done well, even though we overpaid. It's a weird one, really. Right now, he is the first choice striker, I'd say. Maeda can be fitted anywhere.

 

I think £5M would of been fair since his loan spell was fairly good, think there is mentality side to it for him and for fans.

Fully agree about Engles but see him constantly getting flak and people moaning about his price, we look into price tags far too much I think.

 

Idah is 24, hes not a youth player and I honestly havent seen any sign of development this season. If he was a 19 year old from our academy we would all be saying he has real potential but we need to spend properly to replace kyogo with real quality. He is nowhere near a level that he should be leading our line in my opinion.

 

If he wasn’t £9.5m on the other hand, 3 CL goals and 20 goal season largely as back up we’d rave about him.


The way I think of it, BR said he wanted him only him not interested in any other target, pushed to sign him regardless of fee and the board overpaid. And that felt to me like Rodgers testing the board if they’d back up the talk about backing him. And they majorly did. I take it as £4.5m for Idah and the rest to have Rodgers.

if we told him no, I genuinely believe he’d have walked considering the two previous windows and the big promises to get BR back not followed through that summer and January, Idah was a point for him.

But really, we’ll probably have newer players this summer, with big fees on them, Idahs fee won’t be as much a sticking point with new ones to moan about. And when the fee fades from fresh in mind, he’ll be given a lot more credit.


*, mind Broony at the start, and cos his fee our fans? Then that faded from memory and we watched him as a player not as a record Scottish fee paid

 

I dont think Rodgers pushed that hard for him at all. He cost what he did because we left it late in the window and bought from an over-priced market.