BY JAKE LEWIS – FAN FUEL BLOGGER
It’s not usually a good idea to get too anxious about your team’s fortunes right after a big loss (or for that matter after a big win) as the lens of the last significant event can distort. I’m going to make an exception, because the event is an important “tell” to Liverpool FC’s progress.
Oldham, who sit 52 places lower than them in the league standings, knocked Liverpool out of the FA Cup on Sunday, a competition they only lost out on last year in the final, to a then resurgent Chelsea. After that defeat Liverpool owners the FSG group, owners also of the Boston Red Sox, fired the Liverpool manager, Kenny Dalglish, a local hero, and installed Brendan Rodgers, an up and coming young Irish manager, who made his name steering unfashionable Swansea into the Premier League, playing a fine brand of football.
The goal for Rodgers is to improve Liverpool and get to the level where they can compete with the best English teams for the Premier League title, and thereafter compete at the very top in European football. The timescale is undefined, which is a good idea since Liverpool’s last league title came in 1990. We are now six months in and I, like many Liverpool fans are looking for a sign that we are at least on the right track.
Comparing the team directly with the team’s performances last year (a level deemed unacceptable, remember) after 23 games we have 34 points and lie seventh. At the same point last year they had 38 points and were fifth. This may be deceiving since the team performed poorly after that and finished with only 14 more points and in eighth place. The schedule coming up is tough though (City, Arsenal, Everton and Spurs), so we could be even worse off in a few weeks.
How about playing personnel? Well here it gets interesting. Rodgers has ditched a lot of players to reduce the bloated wage bill. Previous managers had been blamed for wasteful spending on players who had not improved the team. Rodgers would need to prove he could do a better job on the market.
Here is what he has bought so far. Joe Allen cost $15 million, has played 30 games, scored once, and is now viewed by observers as “too lightweight for Liverpool”. Fabio Borini cost $10 million, scored once in 15 games and was injured for a few months. Borini is largely anonymous and already viewed as a loss by fans and pundits alike. Oussami Assaidi cost $3 million, played three times, does not even make the squad regularly. Liverpool also loaned Nuri Sahin from Real Madrid, who appeared seven times, scored three, but then was left out in favour of Allen, and has now returned to Real. He also bought an 18-year-old German prospect, Samed Yesil. He has played once.
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This month Rodgers bought Daniel Sturridge from Chelsea, who after just four games has three goals, and looks like a good buy. – This week he spent $8.5 million for an unknown Brazilian from Inter Milan, Phillipe Coutinho. There is no suggestion that Coutinho will go directly into the team, as he was only a peripheral member of Inter’s squad. So seven players and only one a first team player?
Rodgers business in the transfer market looks no better than that of his predecessors – but they are young players so maybe one or two others will improve. Also he hasn’t added a single defender, preferring to try and bring up the existing youth, resulting in the disastrous 3-2 loss on Sunday, with three youngsters overrun by the third tier attack of Oldham.
Time is on Rodgers side, but this time last year Liverpool were better placed, about to win one trophy, heading for an FA Cup Final, and ensured of a place in the Europa League. I don’t believe the squad was any worse than it is now. In my opinion, Rodgers is struggling so far. He needs to sign players who can make an impact in the first team, the way Sturridge has.
In this year’s TV show Being Liverpool, Rodgers famously told his squad he had three names in envelopes of players who he thought would not make it this year. There’s a rumour Rodgers was at Staples this morning buying a pack of fifteen envelopes!
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