On Brendan Rodgers

Can something be completely expected and wholly unexpected at the same time? Decisive and indecisive?

Brendan Rodgers has felt like a dead man walking since Liverpool hit its first stutter in August. Brendan Rodgers probably should have been fired last May, after that abysmal season hit it lowest low at Stoke. But FSG gave him a chance to make amends, for whatever reason, and when amends didn't seem like coming, FSG pulled the rug out. Feel free to pick your narrative: whether it shows FSG acting at long last or whether it's FSG scrambling for answers. I honestly don't know.

You all suffered through the last 16 months, same as I. The dire, depressing football. Repeated mistakes regardless of opposition or tactics. Little evidence of improvement, little evidence of any grand tactical plan to fix the failings. The transfer debacles, even if it's still unclear who's to blame for each purchase.

I have a theory why Brendan Rodgers was fired.



The short version: Suarez left, Sturridge got injured, Liverpool stopped scoring. I know, it's radical.

Every now and then, Liverpool would put a decent defensive run together. The end of 2012-13 through the start of 2013-14. Midway through last season. The first three matches this season, even if they were bracketed by 1-3 Palace, 1-6 Stoke and then 0-3 West Ham, 1-3 United. But Liverpool consistently let in at least one goal, if not more, throughout the course of Rodgers' tenure.

No matter who Liverpool signed, no matter who Liverpool played, no matter what formation Rodgers tried. Liverpool have not been able to score for more than a season, let alone come anywhere near the free-scoring tumult which nearly led to the title two seasons ago.

2012-13 showed promise, a plan. 2013-14 was unbelievable. 2014-15 was an abomination. And 2015-16 was cut short because it looked far too much like the previous season rather than the first or second.

It was only 16 short or long months ago that Brendan Rodgers' Liverpool nearly won the title, the only good season in five years, scoring a record 101 goals in the process.

I suspect you remember the issues. That lack of goals. Consistent failings in big games, in the league, cups, and Europe, especially away from home. A scattershot approach to tactics and formations over the last calendar year, sometimes deploying three in the same match, which Liverpool inevitably drew or lost. Since the beginning of last season, Liverpool won just one (1) league match after going behind: 3-1 at Leicester in December. Since the beginning of last season, Liverpool lost or drew eight league matches after taking a lead, including this most recent.

This had to happen. And since it didn't happen last May, that it's happening before an international break, giving Liverpool time to make the hire before fast and furious league, Europe, and cup campaigns resume is at least small consolation. It wasn't the right time, but it's a right time.

It is hard to reconcile 2013-14 with what followed, especially now, at the end. I've been following Liverpool for nearly 15 years. I've been doing this blog for nine. There were seasons with better reward – 2001, 2005, even 2006 – but the 2013-14 version of Liverpool was the most fun I've ever had watching football. It was exhilarating, it was non-stop, it was a Tasmanian Devil wrecking machine, until it came up against Chelsea's anti-football, and the slip, and the decline, and the descent into madness. This, by The Anfield Wrap's Neil Atkinson, is absolutely required reading, probably the best Rodgers eulogy you'll see.

Sure, a lot of credit for that season goes to Luis Suarez and Daniel Sturridge, especially considering what came after, but Rodgers at least put Liverpool in the position for them to succeed, for Liverpool to succeed. You could say similar about 2008-09, that Gerrard and Torres carried Liverpool to that almost. But, like with Benitez, that success gets you approximately one season. You're only as good as your best players, and only as good as your manager gets out of those players. And you're only as good as your last season.

At the end, you remember the good times. And you expect the next man up to be better.

Good luck with whatever follows, Brendan. It's sad that won't be at Liverpool, but it had to happen.

On Andy Carroll and Charlie Adam

I've said it before. If a manager doesn't like a player, doesn't want a player, it's almost always better to cut bait immediately.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

There's little I can add to James Tyler's wonderful piece for ESPN FC on Andy Carroll.

The new Liverpool is one of Raheem Sterling and Joe Allen. Of Adam Morgan and Fabio Borini. If you loathe Rodgers for being so swift to dismiss the likes of Carroll, at least credit him with having an identifiable plan. Unlike with Dalglish, there appears to be a crystalline method to such madness, even if it does mean Carroll's depressing demise.

Aye, there's the rub. So be it.

As painful as it is to admit, still, Carroll was a misguided purchase to begin with. Rodgers clearly doesn't believe he fits with Liverpool's future – he did everything but drive Carroll to London himself, and he probably didn't do that only because Liverpool had a match yesterday. Liverpool want him off the wage bill, and Carroll wants and needs to play regularly. And Liverpool simply can't get a better offer at the moment.

Personally, I'd still prefer Liverpool kept Carroll.

We'll see who, if anyone, Liverpool purchase with the added money, but the club will save all of approximately £3.2m (40 weeks at £80k/week), plus a rumored £1m loan fee. That's not much added to the piggy bank, as Rodgers admittedly earlier today.

Even if Rodgers has determined he has no use for Carroll, it's depressing. Carroll's 23. Liverpool paid an enormous, club record amount to sign him. And Rodgers won't even give him the chance to prove himself? That's an indescribable condemnation of Carroll as a player and Liverpool's spending under Comolli and Dalglish. And I truly hope it doesn't bite Liverpool in the ass. Carroll has more than enough time left in his career to prove Liverpool wrong, and now that much more motivation to do so.

Maybe he'll thrive at West Ham, and return to Liverpool a conquering hero and better player, with a role to play next season. Admittedly, not bloody likely. But maybe he'll thrive at West Ham and Liverpool will actually be able to sell him for a reasonable fee. That's the hope, and a distinct possibility. Or maybe he'll fail, West Ham will be relegated, and it'll be that much harder to find someone to take him off Liverpool's hands. That's a frightening prospect, but not as frightening as the concern that Liverpool will actually miss his few-and-far-between goals. But we'll get to that.

Adam departs for similar reasons, on a smaller scale, and permanently, transferred to Stoke for an undisclosed fee, most likely somewhere around £4-5m. Another of last season's scapegoats – right or wrong, right and wrong – another who didn't fit with Rodgers' future. I'm less sorry to see him depart, mostly because Liverpool should have more than enough in midfield to cope thanks to the Allen and Şahin additions. I'm still sorry he got more criticism and less credit than he deserved, but mostly I'm just relieved I won't have to tortuously defend his flaws any more. Can't help but wish Charlie luck, no matter how much I detest Stoke, because he should fit very well in that squad. And will probably punish Liverpool when Liverpool face the Potters this season because that's what happens.

Adam (and Spearing) aside, I still can't help worrying about squad depth. Maybe there will be a late purchase to ease concerns, but eight players have departed – Carroll, Adam, Spearing, Bellamy, Kuyt, Maxi, and Aurelio (even if Aquilani barely merits mentioning) – and four have come in, one only on loan for a season: Allen, Assaidi, Borini, and Şahin. It seems Sterling has a large role to play this season, so maybe we should call it five. More specifically, Liverpool have gotten rid of four forwards – Carroll, Kuyt, Bellamy, and Maxi – who played 8593 minutes and made 149 appearances combined, and scored 29 of Liverpool's 79 goals last season. If you add Adam's stats to those four, they contributed 39% of Liverpool's goals last season (31 of 79) and 39% of Liverpool's assists (22 of 56).

Scoring goals have been an issue, the issue, since the beginning of last season. And now, Suarez, Borini, and Morgan are Liverpool's only central strikers. Eccleston does not count. Eccleston will never count. Adam Morgan made his senior debut yesterday. Liverpool signed 18-year-old prospect Samed Yesil yesterday as well, who's just a month younger than Morgan, but his first interview for the official site suggests that he's a ways away from first team action, making just one late substitute appearance for Leverkusen last season. He'll almost assuredly spend the season with the u-21s. It's no surprise that Liverpool are currently scrambling around like a last-minute Christmas Eve shopper trying to buy a forward. We'll find out if it comes to fruition within nine or so hours.

As much as I regret Carroll's loan, it's the manager's decision, and an identifiably new era. And the manager's clearly decided Carroll has no role to play in it. Carroll and Adam were two of Comolli and Dalglish's marquee signings. I doubt Liverpool are consciously ridding themselves of the last regime, but you can't help but wonder, especially with yesterday's mooted Henderson for Dempsey swap deal – a deal with makes less than zero sense and is hopefully massively incorrect. The new regime's regime's strategy is simply far, far different than the last one. Which is probably the point.

Do you trust Brendan Rodgers? FSG sure seems to.

2012-13 Liverpool Season Preview

Year Zero? Year Zero.

Is this the third year zero or the first? It's the third year in a row where Liverpool have started the season with a new manager, something that's never happened in the club's 120-year history. Brendan Rodgers replaces Dalglish who replaced Hodgson who replaced Benitez. But if Hodgson wasn't year zero and Dalglish wasn't year zero, why is Rodgers?

Hodgson was the last dismal dying breath of the previous owners' malignant regime. Dalglish was never FSG's choice for Liverpool's renaissance, with their hand forced by the surprisingly improved results during the 2010-11 run-in. Brendan Rodgers is FSG's first manager, and their ownership will be defined by his results – not necessarily this season's results, but over the long term. Because this is a long-term hire. Which is why this is much more a year zero than any Liverpool season since 2004-05.

Summer Business:
In: Joe Allen (£15m), Fabio Borini (£10.4m) = £25.4m
Out: Alberto Aquilani (£7m), Fabio Aurelio (free), Craig Bellamy (free), Dirk Kuyt (£1m), Maxi Rodriguez (free) = £8m

Rodgers impressed FSG so much that they did away with their notion of a director of football, although Damien Comolli's almost-wholly inauspicious tenure may have made that an easier decision.

Comolli's one true success – aside from signing Luis Suarez, of course – was last summer's deadwood clear-out. Joe Cole somehow found his way back, but Konchesky, Poulsen, Jovanovic, Kyrgiakos, El Zhar, and Degen got gone and stayed gone, saving Liverpool millions after Hicks, Gillett, Purslow, and Hodgson wasted more millions on their purchases and salaries.

And as with last summer, Liverpool prioritized clearing out older players on relatively high wages, slash-and-burn agriculture so new fields can start from scratch. Or as close to scratch as possible.

If reports are to be believed, Rodgers didn't want to lose either Bellamy and Maxi – both would have fit fairly flawlessly into the new system – but relented to let them join boyhood favorites in their home countries. How touching. Kuyt was one of Liverpool's highest earners and a fan favorite, but his increasingly decreasing output made him more than expendable. We've finally passed the point of no return with Alberto Aquilani: no more band-aid loans, no more false hope that this might be the year where he returns to save the world. All, along with the sadly perpetually-broken Fabio Aurelio, cost Liverpool more than they were worth to the club or Rodgers' squad.

Rodgers first two signings followed this new template. Both are under 22, Premiership-experienced, teeming-with-potential starlets who've already made international debuts. Both are prototypical Rodgers-style players who Rodgers has managed before, and both fill problem areas from last season's Liverpool squad. And, incidentally, neither happen to be English.

The summer's business isn't over by any stretch of the imagination, and probably won't be until the last minute and last second of the transfer window. Liverpool will continue to try to sell Carroll, hoping that someone will pay somewhere near £20m and Carroll might actually agree to the move. We can scream, shout, and threaten all we want, but if City stump up £27m, Daniel Agger will probably depart as well. I am not liable for my words or actions if that happens, but we'll burn that bridge if we come to it.

Despite a still somewhat-too-shallow squad, there's only one huge hole apparent. And it's the drum I've been banging all summer: Liverpool needs needs needs at least one more wide forward to compete with Borini, Downing, Sterling, and Cole (and sometimes, possibly, Suarez). We've seen Clint Dempsey, Cristian Tello, Theo Walcott, Adam Johnson, and Gaston Ramirez mooted, but we've no idea who, if any, the club prefers. Or could get. Which, I guess, it how it should be. That Shelvey was used there for 45 minutes in Sunday's friendly – a position he played while on loan at Blackpool but assuredly isn't his best – demonstrates that the manager's cognizant of the issue as well. But whether he's able to rectify it before August 31 remains to be seen.

Expected Formation and Suspected Depth Chart:



Otherwise, Liverpool has a fairly strong first XI, and a fair bit of depth in certain positions. With the signing of Joe Allen, Liverpool has an impressive, versatile, and relatively youthful central midfield. Nearly every three-man midfield is built on the creator-passer-destroyer archetype: Gerrard, Henderson, Shelvey, and potentially Adam can play as the attacking midfielder creator; Allen, Henderson, Shelvey, and Adam can fill the passer role; and Lucas, Allen, and Spearing can play as the deeper destroyer. All but Gerrard are 26 or younger; Adam is 26, Lucas 25, Spearing 23, Allen and Henderson 22, and Shelvey is 20. If Liverpool sign Nuri Sahin on loan, as has been heavily rumored, the midfield will be even stronger, but that would seemingly demand someone make way, whether it's Shelvey loaned out or Adam sold.

If Agger stays (pleasepleaseplease don't make me beg), Liverpool's first-choice defense should remain one of the strongest in the league. He and Skrtel are arguably the best center-back pairing in the Premiership, while Glen Johnson is one of the best right-backs and Jose Enrique – for all his faults, especially in the opposition half – is at least "above average." Only City and United conceded fewer goals last season, with 29 and 33 to Liverpool's 40 (Everton also conceded 40). As with everywhere else in the squad, depth is a concern (except at right back), but Carragher remains serviceable – and, on the whole, impressed in preseason – while Coates has clear potential. Danny Wilson, Stephen Sama, and Andre Wisdom all made preseason appearances as well, and could all benefit from loan moves. Jack Robinson is another for the future, while both Johnson and Kelly can also deputize at left-back if need be.

Suarez, Borini, and Carroll (with the now-usual "if he stays" caveat) can all play as the central striker, with Morgan as fourth-choice back-up if the other three are somehow absent. None can replicate Suarez's all-around brilliance, but Borini has played as the focal point in Rodgers' system before, while Carroll demonstrated that there's at least a chance that he can fit in this style of play against Bayer Leverkusen.

However, the flanks remain an rather large issue. If Downing can continue in the form he's shown on the right in these very early matches, the Borini-Suarez-Downing troika could be very impressive; how they linked up against Gomel is the template, and in theory, should get even better as they familiarize with the system and each other. But if Borini or Suarez are missing, Liverpool could well be in trouble. Deep trouble.

Liverpool are going to play 4-3-3. Whether it's a 4-2-3-1 or 4-1-2-3 variant remains to be seen, but the last three matches suggest the former will be the dominant version. Even if Suarez or Gerrard or Lucas or Borini or Allen or whomever is missing, that will almost certainly remain the preferred formation. Liverpool will have to find a way to plug those holes if key players are missing, because the pattern of play will likely remain the same. On the whole, Liverpool should be able to compensate if one or even two of those players are absent, as long as it's not for an extended spell. Any more than that, however…

Miscellaneous Thoughts, Comments, Concerns…
• Whither Fortress Anfield? If we're starting from square one, the first task is improving Liverpool's home form. Liverpool's Anfield winning percentage last season was an abhorrent 32%. Six wins, nine draws, and four losses. A possible 57 points and Liverpool earned just 27, an average of 1.42 points-per-game. The last time Liverpool failed to win less than half of its league matches at Anfield? 2002-03. Prior to that? 1969-1970. Despite the multiple, egregious failings in 2009-10 and 2010-11, Liverpool still won 68% and 63% of its home matches. Hopefully the new red nets portend a better future. It can't get much worse.

• We always complain about the difficulty of the first few fixtures and the necessity of a strong start to begin the campaign on the right foot. But it's exceptionally true this season. Liverpool will face last season's top three within the first five games, albeit at home, with trips to West Brom – against Liverpool's previous assistant manager – and Sunderland – where Liverpool have lost in two of the last three seasons – rounding out the bunch. Incidentally, Sunderland away was the last opening day fixture which Liverpool won, way back in August 2008. Since then, Liverpool have lost, drawn, and drawn its first league match.

The Europa League will also impact those league fixtures. Matches against Manchester City and Arsenal will take place three days after the two legs against Hearts; neither City nor Arsenal will have Champions League matches that week. If Liverpool qualify for the group stage, they'll play United (H), Stoke (H), Everton (A), Chelsea (A), Swansea (A), and West Ham (A) after each of the six group matches. Liverpool's schedule will be far more compressed this season – matches will come fast and furious, on the dreaded Thursday/Sunday schedule more often than not – and it's still more than debatable whether Liverpool has the squad to cope.

• And whether or not Liverpool has the squad to cope with the amount of matches, the club will also remain fairly reliant on Suarez and Gerrard. That's not to downplay the importance of, say, Lucas – especially Lucas, which last season painfully proved – or Agger or Reina, but only those two lightning rods can grab the game by its cliched 'scruff of the neck,' evidenced by the dramatic difference in the home and away legs against Gomel. The two started together in just nine league matches last season, and Gerrard played as a deeper 4-4-2 midfielder in most of them; it should be a much different story if he remains in a more attacking role. Liverpool should be a more cohesive team this season, one of the hallmarks of Rodgers' system, but its fortunes will most likely stay dependent on Gerrard and Suarez's successes. The two combined for 34% of Liverpool Premiership goals last season, 33% of the goals in all competitions. Even if Liverpool gets better production from the supporting cast – and honestly, there's seemingly nowhere to go but up in that category – as those two go, so goes Liverpool. Plus, Lucas. Always Lucas.

• Sometimes, it's better to be lucky than good. And Liverpool had less than zero luck last season. The woodwork, the missed penalties, Suarez's suspension, Lucas injured for two-thirds of the season. If Liverpool can convert more clear-cut chances, if Liverpool can keep key players fit and available, then Liverpool will be better. If Liverpool are "luckier" than average, whatever your definition of luck, then Liverpool could be really good. Those are obviously fairly big ifs. Honestly, all I'm asking for is regression – or, more aptly, progression – to the mean.


The usual mantra of "just be better," that all that's required is evolution from the previous season, won't suffice this year. Liverpool should better last season's return, at least in the league, just by showing up. There seems little way that Liverpool could hit the woodwork 33 times or miss five penalties. Liverpool cannot possibly draw 150% more home games than they win.

However, I'm sick of hearing about the importance of fourth, the importance of the Champions League. I imagine you're sick of hearing it too. Of course that's a goal, but it's not an expectation. It can't be an expectation when Liverpool haven't come close to achieving it in the last two seasons.

Still, the core of Suarez, Gerrard, Lucas, Reina, Skrtel, and Johnson (and Agger!) rivals almost any other club at those positions. Borini and Allen are valuable additions, Henderson, Shelvey, and Sterling could well be stars of the future. Once Liverpool's best players became involved, Liverpool looked incredibly promising against both Gomel and Leverkusen. While that's not saying much at this very, very early stage, it's cause for optimism.

And after the last few years, we could certainly do with some optimism.

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Tradition dictates that I restart the OYB fantasy league, after a couple of people asked about it and I got a handful of replies on Twitter. There are almost assuredly no prizes unless advertisers send me free stuff (ps: send me free stuff), and I will probably stop remembering to update my team around November, but dammit, tradition is tradition.

I use the official Premier League game. Create a team, then click "join a league." The entry code for the OYB League is 853013-274016. I'm pretty sure if you were in the league last year and create a team, you'll automatically be re-entered.

On Brendan Rodgers

Rodgers' appointment is imminent according to the BBC and Liverpool Echo, although we're still waiting for confirmation from the club.

Biography Snapshot
Born: 26 January 1973, Carnlough, Northern Ireland
Teams Managed: Swansea (July 2010 - May 2012), Reading (June 2009 - December 2009), Watford (November 2008 - June 2009)
Career Record: 151 matches (62W-33D-56L)

We might as well get the feared, loaded question out of the way up front. Is Brendan Rodgers the new flavor of the month?

There's no comparison – whether in tactics, personality, résumé, or otherwise – to the last time Liverpool hired a flavor of the month. But could Rodgers end up as this season's Owen Coyle?

No matter who FSG chose to replace Dalglish, it would have been a gamble. Martinez? Almost as inexperienced, although Rodgers has a "big club" background due to his time with Mourinho's Chelsea. Villas-Boas spectacularly failed in his last job, and was seemingly ruled out earlier in the process. The fans' choice, Rafa Benitez, was a non-starter; FSG had already been burned by reaching backwards, although Hodgson's inability to do anything right forced their hand in regards to Dalglish. They weren't going to make that mistake again, especially considering the baggage Benitez carries with a distinct segment of Liverpool fans and the British press, as well as his renowned demand for total control. Guardiola, Klopp? Not interested. Capello? Another who'd probably demand more control than FSG were willing to give and with little room for growth given his long CV.

It appears that the choice came down to Martinez or Rodgers. Two of the youngest managers in the league, one who's been in the league for just one season, the other who's never finished above 15th in his three top-tier seasons. FSG are obviously building with the long-term in mind.

Rodgers, unlike Martinez, has a preferred system. His sides play 4-3-3. Martinez's Wigan played every variation of 4-5-1 under the sun in addition to the much-written-about 3-4-3, with varying levels of success. Rodgers' Swansea side used the same formula in nearly every fixture this season: a moderately high defensive line focused on short passes and building from the back, three central midfielders, two fleet-footed wingers-cum-forwards, and a central striker.

Sure, call it 4-2-3-1 if you want – that often what Swansea looked like without the ball, Allen got forward from midfield more than Gower or Britton, and Dyer and Sinclair were as much wingers as wide forwards. Unlike other 4-2-3-1s, even when Allen got forward, he looked more a part of the central midfield than one of the attackers. This probably wouldn't be Rafa Benitez's 4-2-3-1, the style still used to define that formation in most Liverpool fans' minds.

More important than the formation are the ideas behind it. Rodgers, whose managerial lineage traces directly back to Jose Mourinho, is clearly a devotee of Barcelona and Spain's tiki-taka football – mentioned in almost anything written about Rodgers' Swansea and excellently summarized by the first half of this blog post. Two recent interviews are required reading: from the Telegraph in January and the Guardian prior to the May meeting with Liverpool, which are the sources of his subsequent quotes.

“I like to control games. I like to be responsible for our own destiny. If you are better than your opponent with the ball you have a 79 per cent chance of winning the game. For me it is quite logical. It doesn’t matter how big or small you are, if you don’t have the ball you can’t score.”

For fans reared by Benitez's Liverpool, this is a comforting quote. His Liverpool sides also dictated possession, albeit using different means. Swansea were often more ponderous in possession, but Swansea's players were almost totally Premiership novices. As Who Scored wrote soon after the news broke, only Barca (88.5%), Bayern (86.3%), and Manchester City (85.9%) had a better pass success rate in the top 5 leagues this season than Swansea's 85.7%.

It's self-serving to link my own earlier work, but the frustration over how Rodgers' Swansea stifled Liverpool in both meetings still oozes from the screen. And Liverpool weren't the only side to succumb to Swansea in such disheartening manner.

“My template for everything is organisation. With the ball you have to know the movement patterns, the rotation, the fluidity and positioning of the team. Then there’s our defensive organisation. So if it is not going well we have a default mechanism which makes us hard to beat and we can pass our way into the game again. Rest with the ball. Then we’ll build again."

And there's the Mourinho heritage. Organization, movement patterns, positioning. Not quite a rigid chessboard, but definable routines. I doubt it's coincidence that FSG refused Steve Clarke's resignation after Dalglish's sacking. Clarke worked with Rodgers under Mourinho, with Rodgers crediting Clarke for bringing him to Chelsea.

"I believe if you give a bad player time, he can play. If you give a good player time, he can kill you. So our emphasis is based around our positioning both with and without the ball. And for us, when we press well, we pass well."

Liverpool gave plenty of bad players time to kill them this season, whether by standing off in the final third or in refusing to press when the opposition reclaimed possession. Brendan Rodgers' sides rarely fail to do either.

"You work on zonal pressure, so that when it is in your zone, you have the capacity to press. That ability to press immediately, within five or six seconds to get the ball, is important. But you also have to understand when you can't and what the triggers are then to go for it again because you can't run about like a madman.

"It's decision-making and intelligence. And this was always the thing with the British player, they were always deemed never to be intelligent, not to have good decision-making skills but could fight like hell for the ball. I believe they have all of the [attributes] and, if you can structure that, then you can have real, effective results."

Liverpool also had a problem with a lack of intelligence from some of its British players, especially those acquired in the last 18 months, but the less said about that, the better. I suspect training, something that Rodgers takes full part in, will be an interesting place for the next few months. The Guardian interview, which is where that previous quote came from, is a priceless insight into how Rodgers sees and runs training sessions, and fits totally into the predominant belief that Liverpool are looking for a head coach rather than an all-consuming manager.

“When we have the football everybody’s a player. The difference with us is that when we have the ball we play with 11 men, other teams play with 10 and a goalkeeper.”

That should be music to Pepe Reina's ears. Reina's distribution (and overall form) suffered under both Hodgson and Dalglish, for various reasons. Liverpool's increasingly deep defense – whether Carragher started or not – almost assuredly hindered his talents. Returning to the 'sweeper-keeper' role he thrived in during Benitez's reign will hopefully see Reina's reclaim his place as one of the best goalkeepers in the league.

It's not incredibly difficult to see Rodgers' Swansea grafted onto Liverpool.



Short passes from the central defenders, building the attack from the back. Rodgers' Swansea never pressed as fervently as Barcelona, nor did the back four play as high a line – few, if any, do – but those are still predominant traits. Agger, Skrtel, Johnson, and Enrique should all do well in this system.

It'd be a fairly typical "runner, creator, destroyer" troika in central midfield, although the runner is usually the furthest-forward, with the two deeper central midfielders as deep-lying playmaker and holding tackler, although both midfielders need to have the ability to do both. Gerrard and Henderson can play as the most-advanced midfielder or both can play as the more-creative of the two deeper. Adam and Gower – Swansea's chance creation machine – could be similar in a deep-lying playmaker role, while Lucas is a vastly superior version of Leon Britton. As hinted at in the above formation diagram, after writing him off for the past two seasons, Aquilani could well find himself back in Liverpool's plans; a player who could star in Rodgers' system.

For Swansea, Sinclair cut inside from the left while Dyer or Routledge stretched play on the right. We could see a reversal of that with the disappointing Downing as an orthodox winger on the left and Suarez wreaking roaming havoc from the other side. The Uruguayan has played as a wide forward for both country and his previous club, and is capable of filling any forward role. Carroll is an archetypal English center-forward, better with the ball at his feet than he's given credit for, although he'd assuredly have to improve his movement and finishing to fit naturally into the system. But that's what training's for, right?

Yes, there are clear holes in Liverpool's version of this set-up, most notably in central midfield and up front. Which are obviously priority areas no matter the formation. There are clear holes in Liverpool's squad regardless of the set-up, as painfully proven during the duration of the previous campaign. I thought a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 formation was the way forward last summer, and I still think similar now. But this is predominantly a conversation for another day. We've got all summer to fret about summer spending.

We still don't know the overall set-up of the club going forward. The Van Gaal (who was one of Mourinho's mentors) as Director of Football rumors seem to have slowly faded away, but whether that means Pep Segura and Rodolfo Borrell will split Technical Director duties with Ayre in charge of the purse-strings, whether Van Gaal's still in the frame, or whether Rodgers will have a closer-to-usual Premier League manager power over his domain remains to be seen. I suspect it'll be the former, but I won't pretend to have any inside insight either.

Regardless of the set-up, this appointment needs to be given time and backing. You can't overhaul the structure and appoint a young manager while expecting immediate results. Expectations were too high in each of the last three seasons, and Benitez, Hodgson, and Dalglish paid for it. Next season may well be painful. Maybe even as painful as the previous season was, although I both doubt it and certainly hope not. But unless we're forced to suffered through Hodgson-esque perpetual doom and gloom with absolutely no hope of improvement (or even an attempt at improvement), Rodgers will need license to fail before he can succeed.

Two weeks after Dalglish's exit, FSG seems to have gotten their man for their project. A young manager, more a head coach than club Godfather, who will develop alongside his increasingly younger squad. Even if we're unconvinced by or unhappy with the choice – which I'm not – this project needs to be given full patience for every chance at success.