By 'Foxes of Leicester' on Rodgers
This season has been an unmitigated disaster for the Northern Irishman who complained and whinged about a lack of player recruitment right through the summer. This was all surrounded by losing pre-season games to teams like National League Notts County. He then blatantly used transfer window games to make his point to the board and the media. He used the Brentford game on the opening day of the season to make only one substitution whilst watching his team collapse in the heat when he should have been able to get three points over the line.
Self-preservation was the name of the game for Brendan Rodgers from as far back as February 2022 when he blamed a thrashing at Championship Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup (the same trophy he was supposed to be defending) on the players and a lack of investment. This was only a week or so after a truly spectacular collapse at home to Spurs that will live long in the memory. Rarely did Rodgers admit to any of his own faults. His team lacked aggression, desire, fitness, organization, form, belief and bravery!
But what they didn’t lack, is a squad full of quality. James Maddison, Harvey Barnes, James Justin, Youri Tielemans, Jamie Vardy and many more. So how can he get a group of players to underperform so spectacularly? He didn’t talk the players up enough, he didn’t appreciate what he had and in many ways, lots of these players got worse and barely any of them played to their potential this season. His man-management was atrocious and it was on his very expensive watch that this was allowed to happen, City have made this man very rich (reportedly £10million a year) to deliver one of the biggest failures in their proud history.
Rodgers left the club on April Fools’ Day 2023 after only two league wins in three and a half months and sat in the relegation zone, he took a large payout, kept a reputation in the media largely unscathed and kept a relegation off his C.V. Who were the real fools in the end?
He should have been sacked long ago and he looked like he was doing all he could to get relieved of his duties. But ultimately he should have just done his job properly and got a talented squad to mid-table mediocrity. He failed miserably and he will fail again at another club, just like he did at Liverpool, but maybe not before he shows signs of promise like he did in the early days with the Foxes.
Great Article
posted on 1/6/23
Can’t argue with any of that. I did suggest on a previous post months ago that if you wanted an example of somebody trying to get themselves sacked, Rodgers’ behaviour is a perfect example.
Had the board any resolution and backbone, they would have put him on gardening leave initially, sacked him and contested any demand for his contract to be fully paid up, on the grounds that he had deliberately engineered the situation. How far Rodgers would have pursued that we can only speculate, but I would have thought he wouldn’t have wanted his dirty washing laundered in the public domain and may have settled for much less.
posted on 1/6/23
You had some real quality on the bench against Brentford opening day of the season, not sure what point BR was trying to make then?
posted on 1/6/23
comment by old warwick fox (U11640)
posted 7 minutes ago
Can’t argue with any of that. I did suggest on a previous post months ago that if you wanted an example of somebody trying to get themselves sacked, Rodgers’ behaviour is a perfect example.
Had the board any resolution and backbone, they would have put him on gardening leave initially, sacked him and contested any demand for his contract to be fully paid up, on the grounds that he had deliberately engineered the situation. How far Rodgers would have pursued that we can only speculate, but I would have thought he wouldn’t have wanted his dirty washing laundered in the public domain and may have settled for much less.
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The club hierarchy wouldn't either - there are no winners in a messy divorce. Thing is, just as at Celtic, he would have been given verbal assurances on stuff without caveats in order for him to sign up in the first instance. Football is a dreadful business with the majority folk saying anything for any purpose with no regard as to the truth or consequences. It can go sour very quickly. And as with messy divorces there will be fault on both sides. The owners would not that side of it spelt out in public.
posted on 1/6/23
He wouldn't have lasted far into the season if Vichai had still been around.
posted on 1/6/23
I don't know, Top seemed to stop him sacking Pearson and we looked for most of the Season to be in a worse position than for most of this Season, Position wise of course, the Club workings were different ends of the scale.
posted on 1/6/23
I'm not arguing about the article, that background had been obvious for more than a year. What I'm saying is that given that situation, he may not have lasted through the summer; if he had, I expect he'd have gone early in the season. 7 games in, one point and a drubbing by Spurs - he'd have been out the door.
posted on 1/6/23
I don't think that was a given, maybe wishful thinking but by no means certain.
posted on 2/6/23
Still had the chance and players to avoid relegation after his sacking. Just seemed like players resigned to their fate for most of the season.
posted on 2/6/23
And the coach resigned or working himself into a sacking.
posted on 2/6/23
comment by True Blue ( Wake up Boo ) (U9486)
posted 11 hours, 52 minutes ago
I don't think that was a given, maybe wishful thinking but by no means certain.
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Nothing's a given, all speculation, but what I expect would have done for him in particular is the disrespect shown at times to the owners. So early in the season for me.