Brendan Rodgers Discussion Thread

If folk think our next manager is going to be in the same class as Ange or Rodgers, I think they're in for a big disappointment. If we say that Strachan was a transition and that our current model dates from his departure, then Ange and Rodgers are the exception not the rule.

 

He's not even angry or arsed he knows the limitations of the boards ambitions and accepts that they are happy with the ceiling we have reached and knows there is no ambition or remit to do anything of note in Europe. Just qualify, bank the money,win the league, stockpile the cash. Rinse and repeat . He's absolutely off next summer . I think they allowed him to spend big last summer and that was his lot - they see probable losses on all those "marquee" signings and aren't going to let him or the recruitment team spend 32m on 4 players again any time soon. BR doesnt really have a leg to stand on unfortunately . His talent is tactics , motivation, getting it over the line in Scotland , not the transfer market .

 

It’s also easy to forget that Neil Lennon optionally left the first time as he’d taken the club as far as he thought he could due to lack of investment in the first team squad.

He then took charge of Bolton who were in financial ruin and subsequently administration at the bottom end of the English Championship.

Roy Keane also rejected the job at this time due to lack of ambition. Ronny Deila was Keane’s planned assistant and was handed the job.

The * operation at this football club is not a recent phenomenon unfortunately.

At least the board are committed to investing every penny that comes in to the club back in to the first team though, and there isn’t an imaginary pot of cash sitting there as Lawwell so eloquently put it.

Well, expect from the one that is declared in our company accounts every year.

 

Lenny 3.0 coming up strap yourselves in .

 

He will never be my cuppa tea tbh but he is our manager and deserves to be backed. Lawwell, Nicholson, Mckay etc need targeted by fans to get them to *. Whether this is by any means necessary then so be it!

 

because hes talking sense and im frustrated and emotional lol

yeah your right the recruitment structure if there is one is terrible but its always been like this

and brendan knew this before he came back

 

Kyogo, CCV, Jota, MOR, Maeda, Hatate, Abada, AJ, Juranovic, GG, Mooy, Hart ....in 3 Windows under Big Ange.
He pushed like * for Ardon Jashari aswell apparently for DM( now a 40m player ) His flops included Bernebei , Iwata and Oh who have kicked on massively elsewhere.

The glory days of recruitment.

 

Just a pity that when we lost the ball in Europe it was 6v2 in the oppositions favour

I loved Ange’s time here and his team, and particularly his first season domestically as we were written off, but by * did he have his flaws that are completely forgotten about for reasons unbeknown to me.

 

Ange was a surprise to everyone, fine saying that in hindsight.

I’d be comfortable saying he could be our manager again next season too.

 

His record in the market won't be beaten here, insane hit rate at an absolutely critical time in our history . 5/6 trophies and those signings have been the cornerstone of our club for 4 title winning seasons ,not to mention the ones sold brought in 90m , that's before we eventually sell Maeda, CCV, Hatate, AJ . One of the best things we ever done hiring that man.

 

I won’t be arguing with you here, I loved the guy, and particularly at a time when he was dismissed and laughed at by the media and our opposition, it made it even better.

Not without his faults though. Far from it.

 

If, like me, you think we were able to get Rodgers twice because he's pals with DD and the latter had his ego bruised twice and brought Rodgers in to salve that, then we can put him to one side. If you do that, then you can look at our hit rate in our current model as 1 from 5 (Mowbray, Lenny 1.0, Ronny, Ange, Lenny 2.0). I don't mean any offence to Lenny or Ronny, who are both OK managers; but they're definitely a couple of steps down from Ange and Rodgers. History suggests a 4/5 chance that we'll get a manager of that kind next summer.

I'd love us to tag big Ange back in when Rodgers leaves as much as you would. I can't see it, though.

 

The net benefit of hiring him has been absolutely massive for the club on and off the pitch . He signed the players to win 2 leagues and the same players have been relied on by Rodgers for the next 2. The money generated from selling his signings will be astronomical once they all go (it already is). He has his faults tactically but you can't argue with how big his legacy is .

 

The Japanese lads and Mooy, definitely, by all accounts he almost convinced Mitoma to join as well until Brighton came in.

I don’t know how much of Rubin Kazan, Bournemouth, Valladolid, Venlo, or Legia Warsaw he’d have seen whilst in Yokohama right enough.

You’re right though, I certainly can’t argue with his legacy regardless of his occasional naivety in Europe. I loved the guy and he was great for us, as we were for him.

 

Rumours at the time were that Rodgers came back for personal reasons and he wanted to mend the relationship with fans up here because his wife liked the life up here and they had a lot of friends and planned on spending more time here but they thought it would be difficult with level of animosity towards him.
I don't know if that's true or not but kind of makes a bit of sense bcoz logically why the * else would he come back given the main reason he left is still here.

Ange doesn't have those kind of reasons. He's an incredibly intelligent guy, who took a couple of months to see how club was going once Lawwell returned and was straight on the phone to his agent to get him out.

There is not a chance in * he's coming back to work under a board with so little ambition.

 

I'm genuinely glad he did that. I think he has more than made up for what happened at this point.

 

Ange doesn’t like retreading ground either, he’s more push forward and the next challenge type rather than try and recreate what he’s done already.

But on your last point? Last season we had our highest spend ever, broke our transfer fee twice brought in a 3rd player for a fee in the top 4 we’ve ever done with Jota.

In our top 5 ever most expensive signings, 3 of them were from last season.

Ange would have been * delighted about having that budget when he was here.

There’s a long time left in this window. We’ve brought in a world class player in this window with Tierney. Another who I’m very excited about in Nygren. A young promising striker. And two guys from the J League, one who’s impressed so far pre-season in Inamura, one we’ll see what he brings but the majority consensus is we like the look of what he can do with Yamada signing.

I’ve * liked what we’ve done so far there anyway. We have more to do, we have money so I get some of the criticism definitely but I’m genuinely pleased at the business so far. Said it loads but if it was £25m we spent on Tierney and Nygren, we wouldn’t feel that’s overpaid and the fans would be buzzing at pushing the boat out for quality. Great business them for £1.5m combined, KT’s wages won’t be cheap either that’s for sure. I’m content but cautious, there’s another month to go and it’s when a lot of the domino effect is felt for transfers.

 

Very true mate but I think that was as much a reaction to the previous year's issues as much as wanting to push on

The window Ange left we signed Lagerbielke, Nawrocki, Kwon, Tillio, Yang, Bernardo and Palma.

None of them improved the starting 11 that Ange was working with.

I agree with you on the signings we've made and I'm not want screaming for us to spend £30m I just want us to sign 1st team ready players before the season starts and to stop putting in ridiculous low ball offers for players.

 

How many times have we waited and waited to sign players and then go 'wait till they get a full pre season in them next season'. It's a bit of 50/50 for me. Happy with the business so far but disgusted with the fact we haven't got a winger in yet when we knew full well Kuhn was likely to go and potentially Maeda. We have famously never been prepared for any sort of qualifiers we have had to play and that mentality now needs to change considering now we are going to be playing in qualifiers every year for the foreseeable.

 

Yeah I think this is sensible.. for now, at least.

Assuming we buy 2-3 first team starting players over the next month it’s a terrific window.

At the same time if it’s 2 more u23 projects/punts and a guy that was option number 5 for the wing coming in last minute, then it’s a bit of a disaster that will very likely once again set us back.

It feels to me right now it’s on a knife edge.

I think the fundamental concern people have is it’s clear when Rodgers loses interest the overall football suffers. When he’s motivated his team is terrific and domestically quite literally unbeatable.

When he’s a bit less motivated we lose 15% across the board and it shows.

Right now it feels like a holding-pattern window and I know that won’t motivate him and I think this is what is concerning a lot of people.

One final point - I strongly suspect whoever we sign towards the end of the window could probably have come in earlier (Balikwisha) for the cost of maybe £1m-£2m more. Given our situation, if that proves to be the case, we really should be executing on that early in the window given the qualifier we have.