Rodgers, and FSG’s Big Mistake

Posted on December 22nd, 2013

By Paul Tomkins.

I don’t know if the 2012 documentary Being:Liverpool helped improve Liverpool’s global appeal at all – it’s hard to imagine people falling for the club in the way that Istanbul lured in new Reds – but perhaps it helped sell thousands of shirts which, in turn, helped pay for Luis Suarez’s new contract.

In many ways it was a harmless PR stunt. But some lasting damage occurred when it came to Brendan Rodgers’ image. Here was a new manager – and a young one, to boot – having just replaced a literal living legend (no erroneous use of the word where King Kenny is concerned!), and his first steps were shadowed by a camera crew.

In truth, Rodgers came off looking a bit awkward, and the now infamous ‘three envelope’ stunt was not only an old trick, but one incorrectly worded. (“Make sure your name’s not in one of these envelopes” – well, players can’t do that, because they can’t alter the space/time continuum; they could only look to prove the manager wrong if their names were in the envelopes, even though the gimmick means they were probably empty.)

How to deal with criticism.

So began the comparison’s with Ricky Gervais’ David Brent, which, in turn, gave the sense of a manager full of clichéd nonsense, talking a lot but delivering little. It’s fair to say that those comparisons were highly egregious.  It’s also true that the manager has grown in stature and confidence since then, to the point where those notions look ridiculous and even spiteful.

But the reality of the situation is that Rodgers arrived as a young manager who hadn’t done a lot. No big deal at Watford and Reading, he inherited a rebooted Swansea project and ran with it. He took it to promotion and mid-table in the Premier League, which are admirable achievements, but a decade earlier George Burley had done even better with Ipswich, whom he took straight into Europe, and he didn’t end up at Chelsea or Newcastle.

Rodgers achieved promotion and top-flight mid-table stability with fine football, but the achievement was little or no better than what Tony Pulis, Sam Allardyce, Phil Brown, Paul Lambert and various other unremarkable or largely unproven managers had achieved. Therefore it was possible to wonder if Rodgers was overhyped, by a patriotic media eager to protect British coaches.

As I noted last season, there is nothing remarkable on Rodgers’ CV for us to use as a comfort blanket. His appointment required a leap of faith; some were happy to offer blind faith, some (like me) were on the fence, and some, for various reasons, had it in for him from day one.

At the time FSG were still relatively new to football, and here they were appointing the least-decorated Liverpool manager in over 50 years (if you include trophies won by Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Roy Evans in their roles as assistants, and, first time around, Kenny Dalglish’s incredible success as a player, which afforded him a ton of goodwill and knowledge of how to win titles.)

Graeme Souness returned to the club in 1991 with his stellar Liverpool cachet and Rangers success; Gérard Houllier had once won the French title and was given some credit for being part of his nation’s World Cup success in 1998, in the summer he moved to Liverpool; and Rafa Benítez had just won La Liga twice in three years, along with the Uefa Cup, with what were only the third best team in Spain. These were comfort blankets for the cold, dark times. Even Roy Hodgson had league titles, albeit in minor leagues.

When Dalglish returned as manager in 2011, he did so with a CV that had been bulging up to the late-‘90s, when he fell out of work, and it was so easy to recall memories of 1987/88, and the most exciting Liverpool side in memory; made all the easier when his new side started putting three past Manchester United and Manchester City. By contrast, Rodgers’ big club experience was confined to a brief time at Manchester United as a kid, and running the Chelsea youth set-up. He’d never won a meaningful trophy, nor been under any real scrutiny.

To add to the image issues, once Rodgers had gone, Swansea initially played more exciting, incisive football under Michael Laudrup, and, at a time when Rodgers’ Liverpool were still a bit hit-and-miss at the start of 2013, won the club its first trophy. In that context it seemed sensible to continue to wonder if Rodgers, whose Liverpool side went on to finish an unremarkable 7th, was quite up to the task, rather than feting him as the bright new face of British football management.

Put like this, and in the face of both rational and irrational doubts, Rodgers has had to overcome a lot since his unveiling. Add Bitegate, and Suarez’s desire to leave in the summer, on top of the mammoth task of replacing the club’s most beloved living figure, and you have to say that Rodgers has looked and acted nothing at all like the slightly nervous man seen in Being:Liverpool who, perhaps understandably, was trying too hard to impress. (Perhaps it helps that he doesn’t have a camera crew capturing his every gesture.)

There are a weaknesses, of course, which can be easy to focus on, but it’s also true that every team has its Achilles heel; even the greatest of recent Barcelona sides weren’t perfect. Set-pieces are a constant source of concern for Liverpool, but time spent rehearsing those is time spent away from practising passing patterns. Perhaps that’s why Barcelona aren’t very good at defending set-pieces, either, and why long-ball teams spend a high percentage of their time working on gaining advantages from corners and free-kicks.

FSG’s Redemption?

After a lot of criticism, and comparisons with their awful compatriots who preceded them at Liverpool, it’s fair to say that FSG are having a quite incredible 2013.

Having gone almost a century (and that merits the uses of italics) without the World Series before they pitched up, the Red Sox recently won their third title during their 11-year ownership. The Sox were totally abject just a year earlier – it was a record-breaking collapse after a decent start – but with the fan-base close to revolt, they turned it completely around in such a short space of time. Unthinkable back in July, FSG could possibly say goodbye to 2o13 with the Reds top of the table.

Despite the the League Cup success, 2012 will go down as an Annus horribilis for Liverpool too, particularly at Anfield. Being:Liverpool therefore documented a club with an identity crisis, having shed its most successful servant. And yet that all seems such a long time ago now.

The fact is, the club, and FSG, are making fewer mistakes. Even Suarez (touch wood) is winning over some neutrals with his attitude and behaviour. It feels like a club, and a manager – and indeed, a group of players – who have learnt a lot in a short space of time. People are making good calls, and it’s paying dividends.

Personally speaking, given the situation as it stood, I would have sold Suarez in the summer for £50m. Of course, even those who wanted him to stay didn’t see him averaging at over 1.5 goals per game. Remember when 0.5 (or “one in two”) was considered prolific? The Uruguayan doesn’t even take penalties, either!

If Suarez had done something stupid on his first game back – maybe biting the head off the Anfield cat, or challenging the entire opposition XI to a bout of Greco-Roman wrestling – then keeping him would have looked foolish. Instead, John Henry very publicly put his reputation on the line in a bid to keep the player at all costs. A few months on and Suarez is scoring goals at an unprecedented rate, and has signed a new contract.

The £35m ‘wasted’ on Andy Carroll (although only half was technically wasted, given the amount recouped) seems easily forgotten.

Indeed, 2011, which was widely regarded as a transfer debacle, doesn’t look quite so bad right now, considering that Liverpool’s two best performers at the moment are Luis Suarez and Jordan Henderson, signed by the much-maligned Dalglish and Comolli combo. If Liverpool “wasted” £110m in 2011 – and many of the purchases didn’t help at the time – then when you add the erratic Jose Enrique and the almost-forgotten Sebastian Coates, the club has at least £120m left in on-pitch assets from those deals, on top of the c.£30m already raised from offloading the less astute purchases. Remember, Liverpool sold Andy Carroll to West Ham for more than they paid for Daniel Sturridge.

Indeed, right now you could add the crazy £35m Andy Carroll fee to the £50m Torres money from that bonkers January evening and still not get to what Suarez, in this vein of form, is currently worth.

A £90m valuation for one player perhaps paints over the cracks of Carroll, Charlie Adam, Stewart Downing and co., but that’s what football transfers are about: you are guaranteed nothing but a varying mix of successes and failures. As I’ve said for many years now, it just needs two or three really special players to transform a team’s fortunes, meaning that plenty of signings will turn out to be duds.

Arsene Wenger, seen for so long as the transfer guru, has signed loads of seriously under-performing strikers – Diawara, Jeffers, Chamakh, Gervinho, Arshavin, Baptista, Suker, Boa Morte, Reyes, Wreh, Aliadiere and others I’ve no doubt forgotten – but you look at Anelka, Henry and Van Persie, plus the improving Giroud (and for a while, Adebayor), and you see that one gem every few years is usually enough in any given position. In ‘2013 money’ Wenger has ‘wasted’ over £100m on strikers during since 1996, but it would be wrong to focus on those errors given the success of others.

Right now, Moses and Cissokho, albeit both only on loan, look like “failures”. The good news is that Moses, after a bright start, is not getting game time because Sterling, who seemed to have totally lost his confidence (and possibly his way) is once again looking like the lad of 15 who skinned youth-team full-backs; except he’s now doing so to senior players and internationals. He’s just had his 19th birthday, and most 19-year-olds learn the game in the reserves.

Cissokho is out of the team because – weird of all weirds – Jon Flanagan has it in his head that he’s Roberto Carlos. If you asked in August which of Cissokho, Enrique or Flanagan would be the Reds’ best left-back, scoring goals and performing Cruyff turns, you wouldn’t have picked a confidence-starved youngright-back whom no Championship clubs even wanted to take on loan.

The Reds’ transfer business of the summer of 2012 was also flawed, with Rodgers furthering the niggling doubts with some unremarkable business. He seemed to be thinking rather small, like the manager of a mid-table club.

Joe Allen, who I think can still win over his doubters à la Lucas and Henderson, hasn’t yet proved value for money, and the others who arrived with him (bar youngster Yesil) are all sold, returned or loaned out. Then there was the Andy Carroll loan mess that left the Reds almost strikerless, the failure to land Clint Dempsey (which almost cost the Reds Henderson) and various other uninspiring events. It was a very inauspicious start, magnified by the American television show.

However, the transfer committee that FSG subsequently put together, whichincludes Rodgers, looks, on the overall balance, to be an inspired decision: it’s almost insane to think that Sturridge, Coutinho, Sakho and Mignolet all arrived in 2013 as very sensibly-priced players with years left ahead of them if they stay fit.

Not every signing will work out, not least because you can’t start fielding 16 or 17 players to give them all the chance to shine. My old rule of thumb, as a pure guess, was about 50% of buys working out well. Having since studied roughly 3,000 deals in the Premier League era, I’d say that around 40% are successful in one form or other (either on the pitch or in terms of making a profit to reinvest), with around only one in ten proving outstanding for the purchasing club, whether it be Thierry Henry at Arsenal or Kevin Davies at Bolton.

In terms of money spent, 2013 has delivered stunning pound-for-pound returns for Liverpool. Loanees Moses and Cissokho have underwhelmed, and freebie Kolo Toure isn’t in the side (but hasn’t let anyone down when he’s played). That’s three players who obviously rack up wages, but no transfer fee. Liverpool won’t be saddled with debt if they fail.

Ilori and Alberto were bought as young squad players, so it’s hard to comment on the wisdom of those deals at this juncture, other than to say Alberto has looked a very tidy player in his brief cameos. Which leaves just Aspas, at £7m, as “wasted” money based on performances so far. That can quickly change, as can perceptions of, for example, a senior player like Sakho, who just two games ago wasn’t even in the side. But based on things as they stand, which is all I can do here, the transfer committee has had an exceptional hit rate since its creation a year ago.

Whether or not Rodgers has the final say on transfers, he is working wonders with what he’s been given. If he only has a minimal input on deals, like ex-Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas, then he’s doing even better to work so well with playershe didn’t choose. Either way he comes out of it well. And yes, he was lucky to inherit Luis Suarez, but he has to take some of the credit for the striker’s otherworldly form. If Rodgers was a fraud, as some suggest, then Suarez wouldn’t be so happy with him.

So 2013 has been one of great improvement for Rodgers’ Reds, and FSG must be hoping every year could be like this one. In terms of their football ‘franchise’, however, it’s only roughly the halfway stage. Nothing has been achieved yet. Their team are top on merit, but quite remarkably, also only one defeat away from slipping to 5th, with their second choice from 2012, Roberto Martinez, having made Everton a watchable, winning side. The top six is incredibly tight right now.

Perhaps ‘AVB’ was in the frame too back in 2012, but this summer, having recorded Spurs’ best points tally in the Premier League era, he was in the Caribbean yachting topless with his underlings. Months later he was shivering on the touchline, having been frozen out by his bosses.

Things change quickly in this sport, so this is not a case of crowing, or suggesting that Rodgers and FSG have it cracked. Football can flip too quickly to say that. But insofar as this season – and 2013 as a whole – is concerned, it’s hard to imagine things having gone any better.

Quotes l ....To Get Better Every Single Day

爸爸妈妈，请看好你们的孩子

Cups, the Top Four and Catch-22

http://tomkinstimes.com/2013/07/cups-the-top-four-and-catch-22/

By Paul Tomkins.

A study in the implications of the “new rewards” of the Premier League era.

Whether you are a traditionalist, a modern fan, or a mix of both, the truth is this: being in the top four matters. This is now a fact.

That 2nd to 4th used to be almost irrelevant – that it used to be “nowhere”, to paraphrase the old Liverpool quote – is neither here nor there.

The value of prizes and trophies in football is not constant. Unfortunately, money – and not just heritage – drives the importance of competitions. For instance, if £1billion was to be awarded to the winners of next season’s League Cup, the competition would be taken a hundred times more seriously by all the big clubs. The problem is, the League Cup, for all the satisfaction in winning it, is fairly irrelevant, therefore no-one will bother to attach such a prize to it. In 2011, the winners got £100,000. The difference between finishing 16th and 17th in last season’s Premier League was £800,000. Indeed, simply for finishing bottom of the Premier League in 2013/14 the reward will be £60m.

Now, I think fans of all clubs outside the top four, if they are aware that there’s a good chance a cup run will harm league form, would accept finishing one place lower if a trophy came as a reward. But when a minor trophy comes at the expense of tens of millions of pounds – which teams in the top four will benefit from as an advantage over the rest, and teams in the Premier League will benefit from over Championship sides – then it gets serious. That money offers the chance to buy far better players, and of course, clubs in the Champions League are more attractive than those who aren’t, and clubs in the Premier League are more attractive than those in the Championship.

It’s logical. Players want to join clubs in the Champions League; they’re not really drawn to the winners of a domestic cup, as enjoyable as winning a domestic cup can be. You might be able to tempt them, as City did, by paying Champions League wages before they were even in the Champions League, but then they knew they could fall back on billions of pounds if they fell short. They knew that within a few years they’d get there, one way or another. Liverpool could attract Champions League players if the club did what City did a few years back, and what Monaco are doing now: namely, paying players over £200,000 a week. But Liverpool don’t have the cash riches to fall back on.

Since the turn of the millennium a total of 28 domestic cups  (14 FA Cups and 14 League Cups) have been won. In total, 17 of those were won by teams who finished in the Champions League places that same season. Perhaps you’d expect that, as they’re the best teams, but it’s still a whopping two-thirds. Three more trophies went to teams who’d been in the Champions League within the previous two seasons (Chelsea in 2000, and Liverpool in both 2003 and 2012), taking it up to 20 out of 28 “Champions League” sides, or 71.4%.

(Six of the remaining eight trophy wins went to clubs no longer in the top flight: Leicester, Blackburn, Middlesbrough, Portsmouth, Birmingham and Wigan.)

In the 21 seasons prior to the launch of the Premier League, the chances of a team who finished in the top four also winning a domestic cup was just 35% (seven of 21 FA Cups, eight of 21 League Cups). Basically, it has risen from one-third then to two-thirds now.

Now, are these clubs winning trophies because they’re in the Champions League (and its virtuous cycle), or is it because their wealth is already so far ahead of the others that they had an advantage anyway? Perhaps it’s a bit of both. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but it’s an interesting question all the same. Money buys the better players, and the better players all but guarantee better income.

Between 1970 and 1992, the average league finishing position of the FA Cup winner was 8.6, with eight teams from 10th or below winning the trophy, two of whom were from the second tier. Between 1993 and 2013 it was down to an average league finishing position of just 4.5, and but for Wigan’s triumph in May, it would read 3.8.

It’s a similar, if less dramatic, story with the League Cup. The 1970-92 average was 9.4, the 1993-2013 average 7.0. Three times in the earlier period a team from the second tier won the cup; whereas the lowest-ranked team to lift the trophy in the Premier League-era was Birmingham, at 18th. Since it was launched, no-one outside of the Premier League has won the FA Cup or the League Cup, whereas five clubs managed it between 1973 and 1992.

Only four times out of the 42 main domestic finals during the past 21 years has a team that finished lower than 11th in the top division won one of the those cups (9.5%). And yet it happened 12 times during the previous 42 finals (28.6%). In other words, the chances of a club below mid-table winning a trophy (if we say 11th is mid-table) has withered from one-in-three to one-in-ten. The Premier League appears to have made its participants stronger, just as the Champions League makes its participants stronger still.

Perhaps this is all a case of stating the obvious – money breeds success – but sometimes it helps to go over the data.

Prizes

The two best prizes have for many years been the league title and the European Cup, although probably up to the ‘90s the FA Cup was seen as a premier cup competition, because of its age and history. Young fans might be surprised to discover just how valued the FA Cup was; some past generations say that it even trumped winning the league.

The Premier League’s money-oriented evolution has helped see to that. The FA Cup is no longer especially important. Whether you like it or not, it’s true.

If you want to know how important something is, measure it by the desire to cart it through the streets in an open-top bus.

Of course, you also don’t parade finishing 4th around the streets of your city or town. But clubs don’t really have open-top bus parades with the League or FA Cup, either. Not any more; not unless they’ve never won anything before. However, you would parade the Champions League trophy around the streets. And finishing 4th, as Liverpool did in 2004, unlocks the gates to a potential Istanbul. Winning the League Cup, in this day and age, does little.

Another way to judge a competition is the strength of the XIs selected for it. While you may get rotation in the league, seriously weakened sides are only fielded in extreme circumstances, usually towards the end of the season when nothing is in the balance. And it only happens in the Champions League if the tie or the group is already won.

However, the domestic cups, and the Europa League, are different. The League Cup has become a quasi-youth competition for the major clubs, and therefore if you beat Manchester United or Arsenal you’re not really beating their proper side; and if someone else has already beaten their weakened side then that just means that the competition wasn’t as strong as it could possibly be. Of course, sometimes a second string XI will be more motivated, and/or less fatigued. But it’s still not like facing a highly motivated, strongest XI.

It used to be just Champions League clubs who fielded shadow sides in the cups, but it has recently become any club fearing relegation (which can mean from mid-table downwards), plus teams seeking promotion to the top flight. So the strength of the competition is yet further diluted.

There’s clearly a distinction in terms of the number of domestic cups won by the following three specific bands of teams: first, those who qualify for the Europa League, perhaps having attempted to make the top four; second, those who finish mid-table; and finally, those who get relegated.

The teams who finish 5th, 6th and 7th are clearly better than those who finish between 10th and 14th. Yet since the start of 1992/93, the teams who have finished in those higher three positions (21 seasons x 3 league positions = 63 “teams”) have won a domestic cup only three times (4.8%). And yet the teams who have finished in those five “mid-table” positions (21 seasons x 5 league positions = 105 “teams”) have won the domestic cups on eight separate occasions (7.6%).

Meanwhile, no team that has narrowly escaped relegation (finishing in the four spaces above the bottom three) has won a domestic cup in the Premier League era, and yet twice (both in the last three seasons) a club possibly expected to avoid relegation won the League Cup (in Birmingham’s case) and the FA Cup (Wigan), only to find themselves demoted to the Championship.

Indeed, in the last 13 seasons, as the importance and influence of the Champions League has grown, there seems to be a kind of exclusion zone from 12th down to 17th, where clubs have focused on Premier League survival, and achieved it without adding to their trophy cabinet. Perhaps this shows that they placed little importance on the cups?

If you look at the heatmap below, you can see that the top three have won the vast majority of domestic cups in recent times: 15 between them since 2000.

Then it drops off, with 4th winning only two, 5th and 6th winning one apiece, 7th winning none, and a spike at 8th, with three. Is this spike due to those out of the running for the top four being able to concentrate on trophies, or is their focus on the trophies harming their league position? (It could of course be neither.)

Between 8th and 11th there are almost twice as many trophy winners than there are between 7th and 4th.

It’s almost as if the top three can relax and enjoy the cups, but the teamscompeting for 4th are putting all their energies into that end. Safely mid-table teams can also focus on the domestic cups, but those with a remote hint of relegation dare not take the risk. On the two occasions when they not only took the risk but won the cup, they were relegated.

It seems that, in the modern age, the team most likely to win a domestic cup will finish 2nd, perhaps because they are one of the best teams over a 10-month period, but find themselves in a position where can neither win the league (therefore turn to the cups) nor fall out of the Champions League places (therefore the cups present no risk).

The distribution of domestic cups between 1970 and 1983 seems far more natural. The number of wins descends steadily down from the best teams to the worst teams. There are no strange gaps, in the way that the new rewards seem to create in the modern table. The only blank area correlates to teams right towards the foot of the table, and that’s fairly natural, as they are the worst sides, who are having a bad 10 month period.

Serious

If every club takes a competition seriously, then it has value. If only half the clubs take it seriously, it is heavily devalued. These changes do not necessarily happen over night, but there’s an evolution, as priorities shift. The greater the rewards for being in the Premier League, the less the clubs from mid-table, down to the clubs mid-table in the Championship, care about the cups. It’s not just about money; it’s about prestige. They want to be playing Liverpool, United, City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs, instead of Huddersfield, Doncaster, Yeovil, Barnsley and Burnley.

Take the FA Cup’s own evolution. First, Manchester United dropped out in 2000. Then weaker XIs started to be fielded by major sides. “Cup Final day”, which used to be live from nine a.m. on terrestrial TV at a time when there were just three channels, has over time shortened to just a few hours before the match. Then lesser teams started fielding shadow XIs. Next, the final itself started being played at five p.m., with Premier League games at lunchtime. Cup Final Day was no more, and the match itself almost seemed an afterthought.

It may seem sad, but it’s a fact of life. That’s how it has evolved. By all means campaign to celebrate the way things were, but clubs can only focus on what matters now.

Still, the FA Cup remains the domestic knockout trophy of preference for the top three; of the fifteen domestic cups won by the top three since 2000, ten (66.6%) have been the older, more revered competition. The League Cup remains won more often by a team outside of the top four than within it. The League Cup is won most frequently by a safely mid-to-upper-mid-table side (finishing 8th-11th).

Titles

It seems fair to say that traditionalists value league titles above all else. However, if you want to win the league, then you need to have been in the top four the season before. Barring a freakish outlier that has yet to appear, it remains essential.

It’s a stepping stone that cannot be skipped over. Winning the League Cup means nothing the season after. However, being in the top four can lead to a virtuous circle.

Getting into the top four doesn’t mean you will soon win the league, but you have to set up camp there first to stand a chance. In the Premier League’s entire 21-year history, no-one has ever won the title when finishing lower than 3rd the year before.

And 17 of the 21 titles have been won by the team who finished either winners or runners-up the season before.

In other words, 81% of the title winners since the old First Division was changed to the Premier League had a foothold in the top two, and of the four (19%) to have finished 3rd and then go on to win the title, two – Arsenal in 1998 and Man City in 2012 – had only missed out on 2nd by goal difference. So how can being in the top three be anything but essential?

The last team to finish outside of the top three the year before they won the title? Perhaps fittingly, Leeds United, the very last winners under the old system. No-one has done it since the changeover 21 years ago. And since the mid-’90s, when Newcastle finished 2nd, no-one who wasn’t in the top four the previous season has even managed to finish as runners-up.

Of course, people in the ‘70s and ‘80s moaned about Liverpool’s success, and the way they “always won the league”. Indeed, 13 times between 1970/71 and 1991/92 – the 21 seasons before the Premier League was created – a team from within the top three went on to win the title, with the Reds themselves retaining their crown on four separate occasions.

However, nine times – 43% of the time – the winners burst to the title from outside of the top three; compare that to the 0% of the past 21 years. Including Leeds and Arsenal, who both moved up from 4th to 1st in the final two years of the old system (1991 and 1992), the average prior finishing position for those nine teams was 9th. Aston Villa and Everton won the title in the ‘80s having finished 7th the season before. No-one has jumped from below 7th since 1978; no-one has jumped from below 3rd since 1992.

Derby County, in 1972, moved up from 9th to first, and Arsenal, in 1971, jumped from a lowly 12th to take the title. Most remarkably, Nottingham Forest finished “25th” – i.e. 3rd in the old second tier, behind 22 top-tier teams – before winning the title upon their first season back in the big time.

The graph below shows the finishing positions of teams the season before the they won the title. 

On average, a team with a finishing position of 6.1 would win the title in the 1970s – Liverpool dragging that number down, Forest dragging it back up – whereas between 2001-2010 it was a mere 1.8.

The following two graphs break down the average finishing positions, first comparing the 22 years before the Premier League was formed with the past 21 seasons; then, in the graph below, the decade-by-decade averages.

You can never say never, but it’s fairly certain that the next champions will come from United, Chelsea and City, because of the 21-year precedent. Therefore, if you want to win the league, you must surely prioritise getting into the top three, then strengthen for the next push.

They also happen to be in possession of the three über-squads in the Premier League; with TPI inflation taken into account, their 2012/13 squads were all worth over £320m each, whereas the two next-highest (Liverpool and Arsenal), were £185m and £174m respectively.

Liverpool may not have won the title since 1990, but the Reds’ two second-place finishes in the Premier League era (2002 and 2009) came when already in the Champions League. So, traditionalists who want the league trophy back at Anfield (and let’s face it, all Liverpool fans want that) need to accept that making it into the top three is the only way this is going to happen.

Also, cup competitions are easier if you are in the Champions League, because you can attract better players and afford stronger reserves. If you look at the non-Champions League teams that do well in the cups, it often seems to prove costly to their league form.

Swansea and Liverpool both went on poor runs after winning the League Cup, perhaps because of its position in the calendar, where players, having won something, relax in February. Birmingham were safe when they won the League Cup a few years ago, but went into free-fall and were relegated. Wigan had the best day of its history in the FA Cup, but were relegated days later. It may be coincidence, but they managed to survive seven seasons without a trophy, and as soon as they won one it came at the expense of their top flight status. Maybe their fans see that as a price worth paying? In many ways it is, although will it keep them warm on a Wednesday night in Huddersfield?

In the early years of the Premier League, Sheffield Wednesday, Arsenal and Middlesbrough all reached both domestic cup finals in a single season. Wednesday, who had previously finished 3rd in the final old First Division, dropped to 7th when reaching those finals. Arsenal, whom they played both times, dropped from 4th to 10th. And Boro, who had some wonderful players, ended up getting relegated, dropping from mid-table to 19th. It’s perhaps no coincidence that Liverpool, in reaching two finals in 2011/12, endured the worst second half of a season in living memory. The first half of the season was going well – the Reds were on course for 68 points – but the cup runs perhaps led to that total dropping to a poor 52.

Eschewing the smaller cups isn’t about disrespecting the club’s history, it’s about playing the ‘winners’ game in the current climate. While I can fully appreciate why some fans don’t like the way it is, you can’t pretend that the FA Cup is still as important as it was in 1965.

Crewe, Chesterfield and Carlisle have all won a trophy since Arsenal’s last success. But it was the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, open only to the bottom 48 teams in the Football League tier. It’s all very well existing to win trophies, but they have to be the ones that are meaningful in your day and age. And as I’ve mentioned, Birmingham and Wigan, two more teams to win a trophy since Arsenal, suffered as a consequence.

In 1955, the FA didn’t even think the European Cup worthy of the time and energy, and Chelsea weren’t entered. In thirty years from now, perhaps the World Club Championship will be seen as more important than the Champions League, instead of an annoying distraction in December. (Although in South America, they already prize it very highly indeed, as their one chance to go head to head with Europe, where they know all their best players tend to end up. Look how crazy they go when they win, whereas European teams don’t need it.)

In the old days, Liverpool used to live to win trophies, and those main trophies would put the club into the European Cup (winning the league or winning the European Cup itself).  For the last twenty years, non-champions have been able to get in by the back door, and whether it’s a good idea or not, those who can do so would be foolish not to walk through.

Once there, as shown in 2005 and 2007, it can define an era at your club. Istanbul was a miracle, we know, but the road to Athens, for example, was far more exciting and rewarding than any League Cup campaign. Being at the Nou Camp to see the Reds win 2-1 against Messi, Ronaldinho, Iniesta, Xavi, Deco and co., will live longer in my memory than beating Cardiff at Wembley or Birmingham in Cardiff.

The Liverpool team of 2008/09, which won nothing, was miles superior to the one that won the League Cup in 2003. In terms of the last 20 years, the 2008/09 was more like our Holland from 1978, and the 2003 team was closer to Greece in 2004.

The Premier League is the place to be, and the top four is the place to be within it. It’s almost like another division entirely, one up from the likes of Fulham, Norwich and West Ham, who, without the sudden arrival of billionaire owners, will almost certainly never gain access to the exclusive club.

Maybe that’s the way to look at it: the top four is the VIP area of the Premier League. You are all in the same venue, but you look on enviously at those behind the velvet ropes, to where the talent gravitates.

Relegation from the VIP area is very costly. Everyone talks about £40m games, £80m games, £120m games, but they do so for a reason. Football is no longer a relative meritocracy, as we outlined in Pay As You Play, but a sport where the imbalance of money leads to success for certain clubs. If Liverpool’s rivals have sugar daddy owners and Champions League income (and cachet), how do the Reds compete?

The top four is the place to be. But with the exception of investing a billion pounds, don’t ask me how to guarantee breaking into it. And while it’s not easy for a team to stay there after breaking in, it can lead to a virtuous circle.

Reina, Reina Go Away, Come Again Another Day

http://tomkinstimes.com/2013/07/reina-reina-go-away-come-again-another-day/

By Paul Tomkins

At first glance, loaning out Pepe Reina for a year seems odd. And although it doesn’t make full sense, particularly if only half of his wages are being met by Napoli, there are, all the same, some understandable reasons why it ended up this way.

Rumours have been circling since January about a list of players Liverpool would listen to offers for; indeed, talk was of the club actually actively touting those players around. They were all slightly older and on higher wages; players whose performances weren’t seen to be matching what they were being paid. Reina was one name that was mentioned.

His form picked up markedly in the second half of the season, but he hasn’t been at his very best for several years now; the five years between 2005 and 2010 were up there with the finest of any Reds’ custodian. At 30 he’s still only halfway through his keeping career – on paper he has ten good years ahead of him, as most finish at around 40; contrary to a younger outfield player, at say 28, and who may only have five years left at a peak level.

Simon Mignolet has been in better form than Reina, in terms of stopping stops, for a couple of seasons now. He’s good with his feet, as an outfield player in youth football, and has a solid mentality. A £9m investment, Mignolet is five years younger than Reina, and if the stats are to be believed, a better keeper at this juncture. He’ll also be on half Reina’s wages.

Reina was seen as a someone  on a ‘bad contract’ (see Dan Kennett’s piece from 2011, which is also in the new Best of TTT book, for an explantation of bad contracts, and how almost all of the players Dan saw as vulnerable have now left the club in just two years). Reina also seemed set for a move to Barcelona, so even if Pepe’s improvement in the second half of last season caused a rethink amongst the Reds’ hierarchy, there was a very real chance he’d be off anyway, to replace Victor Valdes.

Then Valdes, having said that he was off, stated that he was going to see out the final year of his contract. Liverpool had moved for Mignolet, and now had two top keepers. Brendan Rodgers spoke about competition for places, but I feel he was just trying to make the best of an unplanned situation; a bit like how Gérard Houllier tried to buy either Jerzy Dudek or Chris Kirkland, and as push came to shove, accidentally ended up with both.

You don’t need two top keepers, and certainly not when the one on the bench is one of the club’s top three highest earners. Liverpool don’t have the ability to maintain a wage bill like Chelsea, United or City. Is it therefore a good use of a wage of £100k+ a week, given that substitute keepers might barely catch a ball all season?

I’m not sure keepers need competition to improve. They need motivation, but competition is awkward with keepers. When Souness juggled three “first choice” keepers they all became nervous wrecks. When Kirkland and Dudek were competing, neither felt relaxed enough to actually do his job. Chopping and changing them often leads to unease. Ideally the second keeper is the one with the lower profile, on lower wages, and who is happy to sit on the bench every week. He obviously must be competent, but the odds of him playing more than five league games in a season must be less than 10%. But Mignolet wasn’t bought to do that.

Reina wouldn’t be happy on the bench, and this way he gets to play every week under his favourite manager and goalkeeping coach, compete in the Champions League and, as a result, almost certainly go to the World Cup in Brazil. His value may even increase, if he has a sensational season, whereas being on the Liverpool bench would only harm it.

This is similar to the Andy Carroll situation last season: while I felt it was wrong to loan him, particularly as no replacement had been bought – therefore the opposite of this case – his value would have waned had he just sat on the bench every week. He went to West Ham, got injured, and that very depreciation looked like happening. And then he got fit, grabbed some goals and suddenly Liverpool got their full asking price; had he spent the season on the Reds’ fringes they’d have struggled to get £10m, as opposed to the eventual £17.5m. Last summer, Liverpool let their asset go before the new man arrived; a mistake. This time that mistake was avoided, but of course, the existing asset’s situation changed, and both ended up on the books; a mistake! That’s how things can transpire.

There are concerns with Mignolet, in that this is a higher level of pressure and scrutiny than he’s previously experienced, and he might wilt in the glare of the spotlight. That’s the worst case scenario. Of course, if he ultimately flops, Reina will still be on the books in 2014, contracted to 2016; maybe next year he’ll return a revived keeper? But a case could be made for it being easier for Mignolet to settle and relax without a popular figure waiting in the wings.

For me, tense keepers are the biggest liabilities. It’s a confidence position, in that keepers have to be able to play their natural game and ignore their mistakes; if they focus on them, for fear of being dropped, they can stop coming for crosses, and the whole defence becomes anxious.

The fact that Liverpool would still be paying Reina half his wages puts a bit of a dent in my argument, but it’s still circa £60k a week being saved, and there can be benefits, as outlined, as to his transfer value in a year’s time.

All the same, I’m still very sad to see such a good, likeable character depart, and his personality will be missed around the squad. With Carragher retired and some other big personalities leaving last summer, Liverpool cannot afford to become a team of tomorrow’s men, who are unready for today (because tomorrow never seems to come; the best players keep leaving because the team isn’t quite there yet).

However, the arrival of Kolo Toure shows that the club are not ignoring older players with tons of experience if the price is right. Equally, Steven Gerrard has just signed a new contract, and most of the first-choice defenders, aside from Toure, are in their late 20s. And Mignolet is no novice. He’s three years older than Reina when he arrived in 2005, and if being used to English football can be overplayed, it can be important for keepers, given the style of football over here, particularly from teams like Stoke and Bolton over the years.

I don’t see this event as asset-stripping, as so many fans seemed to suggest to me last night on Twitter. It’s about managing the resources better; freeing up wages to give to players who merit them, rather than those who merited them in the past. Obviously if Liverpool don’t reinvest on two or three more top players this summer I’ll be angry, but the big wages need to be for the first XI, not to sit on the bench (and keepers don’t even get to play 20 minutes to make an impact.)

The Red Sox were similarly overhauled this year, and they’re having a great season. Football may not work in quite the same way, but if you can get better performers on lower wages (by being smart), then what’s not to like? People moaned when FSG blew millions on Carroll, Downing and Henderson, and yet now they’re accusing them of asset-stripping, even though the actual situation leaves them with two keepers, not one.

Personally speaking, I wouldn’t have replaced Reina with Mignolet, not least because I rarely watched Sunderland play more than the twice against Liverpool; maybe the odd game I caught here and there. I’m not a scout, and don’t watch the rest of the division, and the rest of Europe, in the way that a scout would.

I’d have stuck with Reina, due to my emotional connection to him. But as much as emotions are a key part of the experience of the sport – it’s about feelingthings, as fans and spectators – then decision-making needs to be bereft of sentiment. And too much of the reaction by fans away from the games themselves remains in the emotional zone.

Bill Shankly is seen as the toughest ever Liverpool manager, perhaps because he did things like ignore injured players and had a stare that could turn people to stone, but he admitted to struggling to replace his stars once they stopped performing as well. He admits to sticking with them too long. But Bob Paisley, by contrast, was the absolute master of the cold, calculating decision. Players were sold before people thought it was time to sell them, and yet the team always got better, and never got old.

Without oligarch owners, and without the Champions League, and without a massive stadium full of corporate boxes, Liverpool need to be smarter with their money. If Reina, who was worth £20m+ in his prime but whose value has slipped quite dramatically, goes for £9m next summer (hopefully to Barca, maybe to Napoli), the Reds will have a neutral net spend on goalkeepers, but will be paying a lot less each week to their first choice.

That first choice will still be in his mid-20s, and the thinking of the scouts, manager and transfer committee is obviously that he is capable of performing at a higher level than Reina has since 2010. Statistically, Mignolet, who is two inches taller than Reina, has been miles ahead of the Spaniard in recent seasons, in terms of percentage of shots saved; and although it’s a different challenge if you only have one save to make each match as opposed to 20, obviously people at the club rate the Belgian’s ability to do the job properly. While the stats may be flawed, few Liverpool fans will seen enough of Mignolet (unless they watched Sunderland as much as Liverpool) to make a fair comparison, and even then they’d have probably been biased towards the Reds’ man. So the stats offer some objective measure.

It could all go horribly wrong, of course, but that’s football. Everything is a risk of sorts. People went berserk when Torres was sold, but in retrospect gaining £50m looks like a masterstroke (even if the reinvestment wasn’t). As I noted some weeks ago, players are just passing through. Love them while they’re here, but we never fully “own” them. There’s very little true loyalty from clubs or players: they all move on, or are moved on, when it suits.

I Hate Rodgers (Clearly)

By Paul Tomkins - http://tomkinstimes.com/2013/05/i-hate-rodgers-clearly/

Of late a few people have accused me of being anti-Rodgers; even going so far as to say that I hate him. Even remarking on Twitter a few weeks ago about Jupp Heynckes being a free agent this summer despite possibly leading Bayern to a remarkable treble was translated as “advocating that he replaces Rodgers”.

No, it was pointing out that a brilliant manager, who, if he decides against retiring, will be free after a quite remarkable season.

The Heynckes debate got me thinking. In truth, how can I tell the difference between Rodgers and Heynckes? They are different managers at different stages of their careers in different countries who have faced different situations, and most of their weekly work is done behind closed doors. Even if they had identical talents and approaches, they are using different sets of players (and in Bayern’s case, a far better set).

Like all other managers they have their own philosophies, and tactics, but it’s what each does with them that counts. Managers are judged on results because everything else seems rather abstract. “He’s a good man-manager”. Well, does it show in the results? “He’s a good tactician.” Well, does it show in the results? “He’s had 35 years experience.” Well, does it show in the results?

You have to put those results into context, but that’s the hard bit; that when it starts getting subjective.

People seem to mistake my ambivalence over Rodgers for negativity. I still haven’t formed a solid opinion on the current Liverpool manager. Some things he does I am genuinely impressed with. Others leave me nonplussed. Of course, I don’t think we should have to understand a manager’s ideas. I don’t understand medical science, after all; I just expect my doctor to know his stuff, and to get results.

So far, Rodgers’ overall results are worse than last season’s. He’s won 23 from 52 games (44%), when last season Liverpool won 24 from 51 (47%). Liverpool’s cup games, bar this season’s tie against Udinese, were clearly more difficult on the whole last year: City (twice), United, Chelsea (twice) and Everton. Equally, Liverpool have marginally improved in the league, and are scoring more goals overall. If you label this a transitional season, then it it’s hard to call it a failure. But then it depends what the targets are during a transition.

Hand on heart, if you told me that Rodgers would definitely be Liverpool boss next season, I’d be fine with that. And if you told me that he was to be replaced by someone of Heynckes’ calibre (if not necessarily Heynckes, who is 67 and speaks no English), I’d be fine with that. I am neither convinced that Rodgers is the right man nor that he’s the wrong man.

It probably took me six months to fully click with Rafa Benítez (at which point I became convinced he had something special) and about three games with Roy Hodgson (at which point I would rather poke my own eyes out than watch his football again). With Rodgers I vacillate, and in many ways that’s my problem, not his.

I get plenty of tweets telling me Rodgers is “shit”, or worse. But I don’t understand the antipathy. People have decided that because he brought a certain level of success to Swansea, that means that mid-table is his level. To me, his achievements in Wales proves he did a fine job, and indicate that he’s a goodmanager.

I don’t think Rodgers is mediocre,  or worse, as so many like to tell me. But he is still, in many ways, unproven.

As things stand, proof of Rodgers’ qualities only stretches so far. He has no trophies, and he’s never tasted the top six of the Premier League. My problem is that, almost a season into his Liverpool tenure, I’m no clearer as to his true level. I’m pretty sure that he’s better than his critics suggest, but equally, I don’t know how brilliant he is.

Liverpool have been breathtaking at times this season, but also have a dreadful record in the ‘bigger’ games. The XI is far better now than a year ago, especially with injuries meaning that Spearing and Adam were the two most frequent central midfield starters in 2011/12, and Suarez scored one goal in five months from the day of the Evra incident, only returning to form once his ban was out of the way. With worse players, and greater distractions, the team of Dalglish and Clarke got better results.

Since January Coutinho and Sturridge have added new dimensions, and a true cutting edge – both have a good amount of goals and assists – although Liverpool have also started drawing blanks (and drawing games) in recent weeks.

While I’m all for focusing on getting back into the top four at the expense of cups (in that my belief is that the Champions League is a virtuous cycle, attracting and paying for better players so that you can compete in all competitions), so far Liverpool have swapped cup success for one place in the league table.

Liverpool are now much better at home – a major problem last season – but only marginally better off in the league table. And yet you could quite legitimately, argue that Rodgers is starting a project; in which case you say that instant success is not to be expected.

Success

Most successful managers at the top end of the ‘modern era’ Premier League have certain traits, certain achievements under their belts.

Two things that stick out are, a) previous notable success, and b) doing something remarkable in terms of impact in their first year. Most can boast one or the other, and some can boast both. There’s also a third factor, which I will come to later.

First, prior success. Before arriving in England:

• Ferguson had Aberdeen, where he broke up the Rangers/Celtic duopoly with two league titles and four domestic cups, and won a European trophy.

• Wenger had Monaco, where he won the league, the cup and took the French team to the latter stages of the Champions League.
• Ancelotti had two Champions Leagues, a Serie A title and an Italian cup.

• Benítez broke up the Barcelona/Real Madrid duopoly with two league titles in three seasons, and won the Uefa Cup.

• Roberto Mancini had three Italian league titles with Inter and had won the Italian cup with three different clubs.

• Jose Mourinho had two league titles, the Portuguese Cup, the Uefa Cup and the Champions League.

• And while he’s not quite up to the same standard, Gérard Houllier won the title with PSG.
• The same applies to Claudio Ranieri, who is below the standard of the other managers in terms of trophies (he’s never won a league title), but he had won cups with Fiorentina and Valencia.

I believe that these are all of the managers to finish in the top two (having managed the whole season) since Wenger’s first full season in 1997/98. That’s fifteen years of top two spots limited to eight managers.

All of these successes were achieved with different circumstances and different resources. Therefore they are not easily compared with one another. Perhaps weaker managers could have matched some of their achievements, given the budgets some had to work with. Still, they in the record books all the same.

Some subsequent “failures” arrived with good CVs, too. Andre Villas-Boas at Chelsea, and at the same club, Phil Scolari. Previous success is clearly no guarantee, although neither of those were given full seasons. But does it helpwith future success? With all of the best jobs going to men with impressive records, it’s hard to know how the likes of Rodgers would do across a larger sample size. It’s a bit chicken and egg: do they not get the jobs because they are not good enough, or do we never get to know if they are good enough because they never get the jobs?

What’s also true is that some of those managers achieved their first home-country success “out of nowhere”. Benítez, Mourinho and Villas-Boas were given jobs at Valencia and Porto based on potential. Their previous records, and their ages, when racking up those home-league successes were not so different to Rodgers’ in the summer of 2012. They were appointed because someone saw something in them. All three won the title in their first season, although in the case of Porto, they often win the league.

Di Matteo, who joins the list of eight by virtue of his Champions League success, had no great credentials (he was similar to Rodgers in getting a smaller club promoted) but did something incredible in his first season, even if he took over when some of the hard work had already been done (it was March, after all).

Mourinho also did something incredible in his first season at Chelsea: winning the title with a record 95 points (plus the League Cup). Ancelotti did something incredible: winning the double, with his team scoring a phenomenal 103 Premier League goals. Benítez did something incredible: winning the Champions League against all odds with a side containing players like Djimi Traore and Milan Baros (and he also took a young team to a second final). In Wenger’s first full season (1997/98), he led them to the double, playing some of the best football England had ever seen. Admittedly Alex Ferguson didn’t do something incredible in his first full season (1987/88), although he did take them to their best finish for almost a decade (2nd, with their last appearance in the top two in 1979/80) before falling away for a couple of seasons. And it may be a stretch to include Mancini’s FA Cup in his first full season (2010/11), but it was their first trophy in decades, and that can be a mental hurdle to overcome. Clearly the investment in players was behind much of their improvement, as it had been with Chelsea, but Mancini instantly put a trophy on the table on top of Champions League qualification.

So seven of the nine made significant first season impacts in England, either in the league, the Champions League (or both), and with one landing the FA Cup. Of the two exceptions, Gérard Houllier, did partially improve Liverpool in his first season in sole charge, but not to any remarkable level, and Ranieri, who didn’t make much of an impact until his final season. Houllier second full season, 2000/01, was his most memorable, with a fairly remarkable treble.

(Note: Ferguson, Wenger, Houllier, Mancini, Ranieri and Di Matteo all took charge midway through a season. Only Di Matteo made a significant impact in this initial part-season, and perhaps starting your first full season after a few months getting to the know the club and the players is helpful. Of course, Rodgers’ replacement at Swansea – Michael Laudrup – also did something remarkable, based on their resources and history, in landing the club its first-ever trophy. For context, he was building on the good work of Rodgers, who got them promoted, but then Rodgers was also building on the good work of others.)

The third factor is ‘player cachet’. This is perhaps the least important, but having played at a massive club, and having represented a major international nation on many occasions, can surely help a young manager acclimatise to the pressures and expectations of clubs where success is expected (with theexpected success often out of keeping with reality). Of the eight managers discussed, only three had that level of cachet: Ancelotti, Mancini and Di Matteo (all Italian internationals, incidentally, but none world-class, averaging about 30 appearances apiece).

In recent times we’ve become accustomed to “non players” like Mourinho, Villas-Boas and Benítez landing top jobs. Like Rodgers, these are men who spent their 20s studying the sport in great detail, at a stage when a lot of players were just thinking of their own game. With Wenger and Ferguson also far from great players, but having played in their country’s top division, clearly we now accept that having been a big name player is not essential in the modern age.

However, a lot of big-name ex-players are amongst the most successful young coaches this season: Antonio Conte has just led Juve to another title, having played 419 league games for the Old Lady. (In his first year in charge he won theSerie A title, having been appointed on the back of Siena finishing runners-up inSerie B). In each of his three seasons as Ajax boss to date (his first managerial job), Frank de Boer won the league title. No-one needs reminding of Pep Guardiola’s credentials, and of course, at the other end of the spectrum, Jupp Heynckes, now 67, played many times for West Germany. On top of these, Ancelotti is cleaning up in France, albeit with riches. In Italy, Vincenzo Montella is making waves with Fiorentina.

Of course, most of these are big clubs, used to success, or laden with new money. Perhaps Jurgen Klopp is the standout, as someone who wasn’t an international footballer. He did play hundreds of league games, but at lower levels. He is the obvious model for Rodgers, with Dortmund the obvious model for Liverpool.

Even Klopp did something remarkable in his first year at Dortmund: virtually doubling their points tally in lifting them from 13th to 6th. So that seems clear.

But then they only moved up to 5th the next season, and perhaps what we’re seeing with Rodgers is that stage of Klopp’s team development. But as with all of these examples, the situations are different, so nothing can ever be certain.

A worry with Rodgers would be that the first season is a good chance to excite and inspire your players, and your fan-base. I don’t think Rodgers has succeeded in that sense, although unlike Hodgson, for example, he hasn’t terrified those who watch the Reds.

Clearly being an ex-player isn’t essential (Mourinho, Villas-Boas, Benítez). Clearly you don’t have to make a significant impact in your first season, although of the nine singled out as top-two finishers and/or Champions League winners, only two (Houllier and Ranieri) failed to pull up any trees in his inaugural fullcampaign, and both of those managers are good rather than great. You don’t have to have had previous top-level success, as Di Matteo showed.

But out of the three categories (which you might find random, but I think have some validity), seven of the nine have ticks in two of the three columns, and Mancini and Ancelotti tick all three.

Rodgers, alas, has none. He has no notable prior success at the sharp end of a top league as a manager; he has not made a significant impact in his first season (fractionally better in the league, worse in the cups); and he was never a player.

This is not to say that he has no skill, no talent, no potential. What he achieved at Swansea was very commendable, although if we laud managers who gain promotion as greats, we need to talk about Steve Bruce, Neil Warnock, Phil Brown, John Gorman, George Burley and assorted other mediocre managers.

Of the managers to finish in the top four this millennium, but not get any higher than third, there’s been David Moyes, Bobby Robson, David O’Leary and a cluster of Chelsea managers. A fairly mixed bunch, although none of those, bar the Chelsea ones, have come since 2005. Clearly it’s getting tighter at the top, with Spurs now a better side (based on selling well and reinvesting smartly), and Manchester City’s wealth making them shoo-ins for the top four. Perhaps it is this group of managers against whom Rodgers should be judged. However, without oligarchs and sheiks as owners, Liverpool need to rely on their manager’s wits.

Some of the Reds’ attacking play this season has been excellent, with the goals scored and the number of clean sheets kept both impressive. The problem has been that a lot of the goals have proved fairly meaningless (some big wins that served only to boost goal difference), and when the Reds haven’t kept a clean sheet they’ve tended to concede two or more.

Of course, there almost certainly wasn’t scope to storm the top four anyway this season; it was an outside chance at best. And not being an ex-great hasn’t hampered other managers.

I guess my uncertainty – and uncertain is what I am about Rodgers, rather than decided either way – stems from the fact that the cachet he lacked from not being an ex-player and not being a title-winning coach in a major league has not been redressed by anything remarkable this season.

No remarkable improvement in the points tally.

No remarkable cup exploits.

No remarkable victories against the odds or biggest sides, with a home win against Spurs the most celebrated result. (One win in fourteen games against the other seven teams in the top eight.)

Some excellent performances, particularly in a spell of home games against poorer sides, but nothing out of the ordinary when the heat was on. Nothing to scream that Rodgers is the future, just as there’s nothing to scream Rodgers is the past.

Rodgers has had to deal with far fewer injuries (for which he and his medical team deserve credit); he’s spent c£40m net but lost Maxi, Bellamy and Kuyt; and he did not (until bitegate when the season was all but done) have a massive Suarez sideshow; nor did he have two runs to cup finals to detract from league form. However, unlike Dalglish, who had 14 years, plus 18 league games at the end of 2010/11, he has had to get used to Liverpool FC. I also don’t think Being: Liverpool helped his bedding-in period or his credibility.

So comparing with last season is fraught with pitfalls due to radically different scenarios, albeit many of which arguably favour Rodgers.

We all think that building a great side takes time, and it does.  And perhaps what Rodgers is doing is building a great side (although until the future, who knows?). But there’s also that crucial initial impact, when fresh ideas fire the players with enthusiasm. That hasn’t quite happened, at least in terms of results.

On the plus side, Rodgers seems to have a certain level of respect from his players. He’s a good man-manager, so they like him. He has bright ideas, such as enlisting the help of Dr Steve Peters. But do the players believe he can lead them to glory? Hopefully they do, but they are having to take a leap of faith, just like a lot of the fans.

Future

I don’t believe in chopping and changing managers. Equally, I don’t think you stick with a manager for the sake of it. If there’s someone better out there, you have to consider it. It doesn’t mean you have to make that move. It’s the same with players: if someone better is available, wants to come and you can afford him, you make the move. Changing manager is obviously more disruptive than replacing a full-back, but if you have a consistent vision at the club, and don’t chop and change between incompatible football philosophies, then it needn’t be disastrous. And it’s not like Rodgers is the only manager in Europe whose team can pass a football.

Can Liverpool attract the best players? Obviously the very top tier are hard to procure, but it’s still a special club in the eyes of the world. Both Suarez and Coutinho agreed to join, as did Sahin, although he left distinctly unimpressed with Rodgers (although he didn’t appear too eager to do all he could to impress).

You could argue, however, that a big-name manager would help matters. It’s not necessarily Rodgers’ fault that he’s not yet a star manager, but are players eager to come and play for him? Or is the club’s fame on its own still enough of a draw? I don’t think Liverpool should stick with Rodgers simply because no-one better would say yes. (There are good arguments that can be made for keeping Rodgers, but I’m not sure this is one of them.)

The way I look at it, if you’re a top manager, would you be put off joining Real Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus, AC Milan, Ajax or Bayern Munich if they were 7th in the table?  Do you still think it would be great to manage Brazil, even though these days they’re ranked 19th in the world right now?

Liverpool still has the magic of a great name and still has those five European Cups, dozens of other trophies, 18 league titles and the most famous stand in the world. Clubs that have been in European finals over many different decades have an aura about them. Liverpool remains such a club. It’s had a difficult few years, and miracles should not be expected. But mediocrity (if that’s what this season has been) should not be easily accepted, either.

Part of me feels that if Rodgers goes out and replaces Carragher, Downing and Enrique with three better players for the XI, this team could really click into gear. And another part of me remains unsure about his killer instinct. Is he awinner? I think he has a pleasing edge to him, in that he can seem a bit steely. But I need more proof.

Whatever happens, next season needs to be better. If you want to write this off as a transitional season, then who am I to argue? But next season needs a proper challenge for the top four, even if the Reds fall narrowly short. The good news is that summer always brings fresh optimism, and unless FSG bring back Roy Hodgson, I'm already looking forward to next season, whoever is in charge.