Brendan Rodgers: To worship or to curse?

The ‘I will try Steven Gerrard in every position possible’ experiment seems a never ending affair. I mean he is no Andrea Pirlo or Andres Iniesta, he is a box to box midfielder who runs up and down the field, tackles when it’s needed and scores when it’s absolutely needed!

He has played that way and will and can only play that way. Somehow Brendan’s desire to conserve Gerrard like a ‘perfume’ by offering him more variety in the midfield roles seems to have affected both the team and Gerrard’s own form on more than one occasion this season.

His eye for a player is also questionable, barring Sturridge and Coutinho( who like any other average Samba was bound to do well) his transfers have yet to reap benefits. Also his more often than not proclaimed ‘full support’ of the owners seems far off the mark, players we were heavily linked with have left us conspicuously at the last moment – Gylfi Sigurdsson, Clint Dempsey and more recently Mohammed Salah.

What’s more is that the likes of Allen, Aspas, Borini, Moses and Cissokho are ones who’ll leave and nobody would miss their evening tea in remorse. Maybe we do need a football director who handles our discussions with prospective players better because the owners have made the cash available and are not to be blamed any which way possible.

Whatever happens to these notes?

Finally, the tactics, I mean I simply don’t understand the deal here, when a three man defence is working fine, we revert to the ‘We’ll be England’s Barcelona’ dream and go back to 4-3-3. We then try a 3-5-2 formation so that Sturridge is not neglected down the wing but then the next week the manager feels the play is not as ‘connected’ with this as it should be and we start conceding goals with a new formation, what’s worse is that it is deemed acceptable because you need time to ‘adjust’. All in all we manage to always play Coutinho out of position and Gerrard, well not like Gerrard should be made to.

The partnership of ‘SAS’ and more importantly the form of the mercurial Uruguayan(or as BR prefers to call him ‘Louie’) have been the saving grace and the one single force that has kept us near-about the champions league qualification places.

The re-emergence of once Fulham bound Henderson(yes, Rodgers badly wanted that to happen) has also been commendable along with the continued development of Raheem Sterling( who luckily did not produce another kid this year).

My German shepherd has just entered the room with his ‘Liverpool FC’ tag dangling from his collar and while me and him still have faith in our manager and in this team who however inconsistent has left us speechless and bedazzled with some of their performances(Tottenham win had us both jumping on the couch).

Rodgers needs to still work on his basics if he wants the team to get better at theirs. Time, these days, is not a luxury the managers can count on in the highly competitive premier league but ever since his arrival BR has been afforded that in ample and as the season draws to an end in the coming months, another season devoid of those magical Anfield European nights would only provide strength to the murmurs about his inability to manage a top(or rather once top) English club.