SOCCER:OF ALL the damning statistics displayed before Liverpool'sowners and fans in May – and there were plenty – perhaps the most alarming was that in finishing the season 16 points above third-bottom Bolton and 17 points shy of fourth-top Tottenham, the once-great Anfield club were closer to relegation than the Champions League.
Reducing matters to such starkness removes context and mitigating factors, but it does give one indication of the scale of the job 39-year-old Brendan Rodgers, from Carnlough, Co Antrim, has taken on at Anfield. It is simultaneously daunting and enticing. From the Kop, meanwhile, Rodgers will look small and inexperienced. The club and the man are in an embrace of mutual risk.
Admittedly Liverpool won the League Cup last season – on penalties against Championship Cardiff – and the FA Cup final was reached and lost to Chelsea, but it was the sheer ordinariness of the Premier League campaign that ended Kenny Dalglish’s second spell as Liverpool manager.
Of course, Liverpool were nowhere near relegation at any stage of the season. After three games, they were third, following a victory over Bolton in which both Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam scored. By January Liverpool were sixth and after the final-day defeat, tellingly at Swansea City, they were eighth. So, the starting statistic of this review could be debatable.
But that loss at Swansea was one of 14 in the league. And while there was much bleating about Liverpool’s home form last season, 10 of those 14 defeats were on the road.
Today at West Bromwich Albion, Rodgers has his first major day as the first Irish manager of Liverpool since ‘Honest’ John McKenna from Monaghan helped pick the very first Liverpool Football League side back in 1893. There is freshness in the air, but also the anxiety of the unknown. Rodgers has the backing of the American owners, his own self-confidence and the goodwill of the vast majority of Liverpool fans. He has been able to buy two of ‘his’ players in Joe Allen and Fabio Borini, with whom he worked at Swansea.
He has his Plan A which he says he will stick to and try to improve before resorting to Plan B. There is anticipation: can Rodgers impose the pleasing passing style of Swansea onto Liverpool and, if so, how quickly?
But there is a sense of risk in the air. There is also the fixture list, and a squad that can be described as unbalanced. Rodgers has already overseen Liverpool’s opening games in the Europa League against FC Gomel of Belarus, and the next game in that competition comes at Hearts in Edinburgh on Thursday night.
Rodgers must have that in the back of his mind as he prepares for West Brom, and he may also be considering tomorrow week and the visit of Manchester City to Anfield for Rodgers’ league bow in front of the Kop.
The fixture list has not been kind. Rodgers’ first three Liverpool home games are City, Arsenal and Manchester United, with a trip to Sunderland, where the club lost last season, in between. There is also an international break, the closure of the transfer window and possible further departures and arrivals. Settled it is not, yet Rodgers will be expected to be calm. When you walk through a storm, and all that.
Nor has Liverpool’s immediate past been kind. Rodgers has gone out of his way to salute the club’s history – he has relocated the original ‘This Is Anfield’ sign and had it restored to the tunnel, the nets at Anfield are once again red after 15 years of being white. On his unveiling there was even a Shanklyesque tone to some of his comments. Rodgers’ father Malachy was a Liverpool fan.
But it is the last two or three years that matter more to Rodgers. In 2009 Liverpool finished second to United in the Premier League. They scored 77 goals.
By last season that total was 47. The loss of 30 goals is a measurable mark of decline. Another statistic that surfaced in May was that Liverpool had hit the woodwork 33 times last season. Some claimed bad luck. Some said Luis Suarez – top scorer on 11 league goals – is not all he is made out to be. Many looked at Andy Carroll and wondered about the money spent.
Rodgers knows the problem. The manner in which he has publicly questioned Carroll reveals a lack of faith in the striker as a player for a ‘Swansealona’ kind of touch-and-go system, but perhaps also his goalscoring record. Borini has not been bought to come off the bench for Carroll.
This week Rodgers recalled that when he replaced Paulo Sousa at Swansea, there was a similar issue. “When I arrived at Swansea they’d only scored 40 goals in the previous season, one of the lowest in any league.
“With a slight structural change, a more offensive game and a few new players, it totally changed our fortunes. Sometimes it is just a little change, working on people’s minds, giving them confidence.”
Under Rodgers, Swansea went from 40 goals to 69. Under Rodgers they went to the Premier League and outplayed vastly richer and more established opponents once there. That achievement needs to be trusted.
A 20-year-old Joe Allen played in 40 of those Swansea games two seasons ago. Last season he played in 36 of 38. Allen is a sweet-moving midfielder who will act as Rodgers on the pitch. He is the signature signing of the new Liverpool. Allen’s presence as the pivot in front of defence will mean Steven Gerrard moving further forward. A fully-fit Gerrard – which he said this week he is – should offer Liverpool added dynamism with the Rodgers system, though the Roy of the Rovers nature of Gerrard’s past is somewhat at odds with his new manager’s tactical discipline.
That makes Rodgers sound restrictive, but he is not. He understands freedom within form can win matches and he has long been in no doubt that at top level winning is what it is all about – even with the talk of philosophies.
The injured player who started out coaching at 20 at Reading has been hardened.
Two months before Swansea won their play-off final against his former club, Reading, in May 2010, Rodgers sat in his cupboard of an office in the leisure centre that doubles as Swansea’s training ground. His team were about to lose at Preston North End, but they had amassed appreciation until that point.
“We’ve played some great football and got praise and that’s important to us because it’s about our identity as a club,” Rodgers said. “But you want to validate that with success.”
Beginning at the Hawthorns, Rodgers is on a road to validate his appointment. Fourth place is being mentioned, as if Liverpool had finished closer to it than relegation in May. Really people should be stressing that Rodgers requires time. But then, this is Anfield. Green bias, it may be but good luck, Brendan.
