da apostaganha： For the second season in a row, an underwhelming start in the Premier League has left Brendan Rodgers’ fate as Liverpool boss hanging delicately in the balance. Last term, the Reds claimed seven points from their first six league fixtures, leaving them in eleventh place; after the same number of games this year, they’re one point better and two places worse off.
da gbg bet： In my opinion, it boils down to an issue that’s reared its ugly head countless times throughout the Ulsterman’s three years at Anfield – the club’s recruitment strategy and most particularly, the enormous turnover of playing personnel.
The numbers speak for themselves. Rodgers has signed 31 players in seven transfer windows, costing the club £292million to produce a net spend of £127million, twelve of which are no longer with the club or currently out on loan.. Overall, he’s parted with 31 players who had made at least one Premier League appearance for the Reds.
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Of course, an underlying mandate of Rodgers’ appointment was that he’d rebuild Anfield from the ground up, revitalising a squad overloaded with ageing stars, has-beens and second-raters whilst installing a philosophy closer aligned to the push-and-go football of the 1980s. That was always going to require time, money, patience and wholesale changes to the first team, allowing a new generation of Anfield stars to develop.
Yet, it’s Liverpool’s scattergun approach in the transfer market over the last two summers that I find the most concerning. Rather than any plan or starting XI in mind, Liverpool seem to target simply whoever meets their preferred criteria of young, talented and stuck on the peripheries of elite European football without much consideration of their suitability – Mario Balotelli’s woeful twelve months at Anfield providing the perfect case in point.
That leaves Rodgers with the task of somehow piecing new signings and the rest of the team together in an effective system which, at least in the case of the last two seasons, simply hasn’t worked.
Take this summer, for example. Rodgers signed his most expensive acquisition yet in £32.5million target man Christian Benteke, but the only genuine out-and-out wideman capable of truly maximising the 6 foot 3 striker’s prolific aerial threat in the Anfield squad is inexperienced teenager Jordan Ibe, who has already lost his starting berth after some underwhelming opening displays. Adam Lallana, Roberto Firmino and Philippe Coutinho, although all impressive talents, aren’t natural creators from wide positions and can’t stretch defences in the same way.
Likewise, Liverpool changed three members of their resident defence in summer 2014 – adding Javier Manquillo, Dejan Lovren and Alberto Moreno – but made a further two amendments in the window just passed through full-backs Nathaniel Clyne and Joe Gomez. Having spent six months in between employing a back three, that lack of consistency has unquestionably contributed to Liverpool’s defensive problems under Rodgers, conceding on average 1.2 goals per match and committing 112 defensive errors, 35 leading to goals, during his 120 Premier League fixtures in charge.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty I like about the Anfield boss. Rodgerisms aside, he’s clearly a shrewd tactician with a broad knowledge of diverse systems. Who else in the Premier League would have envisaged a 3-4-2-1, a formation almost unheard of English football, turning Liverpool’s 2014/15 campaign around? The selection of Emre Can on the right of defence proved equally inspired and Rodgers deserves extra credit for implementing the new formation mid-season in the thick of Liverpool’s poor form – no easy task.
But for the second consecutive campaign, Liverpool have started without a clear plan or at the very least, one that has quickly proved to be completely misguided. Although I certainly wouldn’t put it past Rodgers to soon introduce a system that ensures better results (he tried a 3-5-2 against Norwich on Sunday) providing he stays in the job, the Reds are already playing catch-up with the rest of the Champions League contenders and the players are already under huge, potentially stifling, pressure to perform.
Of course, there’s an eternal ambiguity surrounding Liverpool’s recruitment methods and whether Rodgers or the much-speculated-upon ‘transfer committee’ are at their core. But regardless of whether new signings are initially targeted by chief executive Ian Ayre, FSG president Mike Gordon, director of scouting Dave Fallows or technical director Michael Edwards, the fact of the matter is that ultimate responsibility will always fall upon the man in the dugout – something Rodgers might discover the hard way within the next few days.
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