Brendan Rodgers

Deffo not, ass manager Pascoe, plus the 2 mentioned above

Ass manager


Is it true there won't be a DOF? I'm playing catch up here

Dont look like it, presser for 10am tomorrow, new kit unveiled and new manager, new beginnings.

Everthing the new manager said today fills me with great hope for the future.Now to go buy my new Red Home Shirt and say yes we maybe not at the races at mo but with hope in our hearts we shall back to where we belong.

LFC YNWA.

Shortly before facing the world's media at Anfield today, Brendan Rodgers gave his first interview as the new Liverpool manager exclusively to Liverpoolfc.tv.

How do you feel to be the new manager of this famous football club?

As you can imagine, I am very proud and feel very blessed to be appointed today. It's obviously a club with an incredible tradition and history and I'm very, very proud and honoured to be appointed manager.

How excited are you by the owners' plans and visions for the future?

I suppose I first of all want to mention Kenny Dalglish, who is an incredible man. He's obviously the best player in the history of this football club and he's someone who adored Liverpool. He has nursed the club through some horrific times and also brought a lot of joy to the supporters here both as a player and a manager. He is someone I want to pay a great respect to because he's a wonderful ambassador for this football club. But I'm a different tactician, a different man. The owners are very excited and looking forward, and obviously they wanted to bring someone in who could keep with the traditions of Liverpool Football Club, which is to play offensive and attacking football, and also someone to represent the values of the club off the field, and that's something I will defend for my life.

How difficult was it to leave Swansea?

It was very difficult. I always said I'd leave Swansea City one day but I felt it was only going to be for a top club. I had a fantastic relationship with the chairman and the supporters and also we created history - we were the first Welsh club into the Barclays Premier League. But the attraction of coming to Liverpool is phenomenal. You only need to look at the fact they're five times European Cup winners. Some of the great players who've played for this club. I genuinely think Liverpool Football Club is the heartland of football folklore. If you look back through the years, at the players and managers. You go back to Toshack and Keegan, Rush and Dalglish, Hansen and Lawrenson, Shankly and Paisley. Then you have the modern day in terms of Gerrard and Carragher. It's a club that's so full of history and tradition and passion.

How would you describe your own football philosophy?

The philosophy is very much based on the attacking side of the game. People ask me that question and I always say it's about being offensive and creative, but also with tactical discipline. If you look at the Swansea team in the last couple of years they've been lauded for their offensive approach but defensively we've kept many clean sheets and we're up there with the top defensive records. That's the principles of this club. This is a club that's based on fast, attacking, offensive football. But I'll repeat - it's very important to have tactical discipline within that. Your philosophy and your principles will always be governed by the players. There is a fantastic squad here, some terrific players, but there is no doubt I'll need to make maybe two, three or four additions to try and get that flow - and it will take time to put that in place.

Who are the influences on your managerial career?
I have been a student of the game. I've been coaching and managing for 20 years and travelled a lot as a coach. I've been very clear in my philosophy and had a clear vision in that since I was very young. My grandfather was a big supporter of Liverpool, along with my father, so I watched the late 70s and early 80s football. Obviously the Cruyff philosophy was very prominent because my dad was a big lover of Cruyff. As you move into the coaching, my philosophy has been a fusion between the British and the European. The single biggest influence would be Jose Mourinho, purely because he gave me the opportunity. I learned many things from Jose. He is a great man and the biggest thing he did for me is give me an opportunity and show belief in me, and give me that chance to work with top players.

The style you had at Swansea - would you hope to deploy a similar one here at Liverpool or does that depend on the players?

The principles of your game depend on the players but certainly that's a vision that I would hopefully over the next few years (implement). It certainly won't happen in game one because there are different types of players here. But over time, that's the ideology - to play that way. One, it's my belief, and two, it's the belief of the supporters. They enjoy watching it, and that's one of the biggest attractions coming here. Liverpool supporters are very educated in the game. We were here with Swansea earlier in the season and their style of football got a round of applause at the end of the game. That doesn't happen very often at away grounds.

Do you need time to build that philosophy here?

You do. There is no doubt about that. I'm very much a realist. It's certainly going to be a few years in relation to where the team is at now. It will need some investment and it will need time for me to work. But of course we're in the business of winning and winning games is important. But it's a philosophy and a style that's very much in the DNA of me and the club and hopefully we can roll that out over the years to come.

What does Liverpool Football Club mean to you personally?

For me it means an awful lot. There is a real emotional attachment. I've had a number of opportunities to leave Swansea and I wasn't going to leave Swansea for any club, because of my life both professional and personal. But the attraction of the history here, but also the attraction of the frustrations - to feel the club are still striving for that league title. Hopefully over the coming years that's something we can look to challenge for. Certainly not immediately, there are still a lot of improvements to be made. This is an iconic football club. It's a club that's up there with the world's great. When you talk Liverpool Football Club you're talking Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Inter Milan, AC Milan. It's an enormous club. The challenge and the motivation is for me to do the best I possibly can and I will always fight for my life for Liverpool, and that will be on and off the field.

How excited are you about some of the players you will be working with here?

I'm really looking forward to it. I spoke to Steven Gerrard last night. That was fantastic, I had a nice chat with him. I have always worked well with people. To me, it's doesn't matter whether they're big stars or not, the club's success is the most important and every player I work with will have to be a part of the team. There are some wonderful talents. If you look at the likes of Steven; Jamie Carragher has been a wonderful player for this football club; you've got Pepe Reina, who's a top, world-class goalkeeper, and many other talents within the group. I always have a close relationship with players. I speak very openly and honestly with them so they know where they stand. I like to educate players. You train dogs, I like to educate players both on and off the field.

Early days, of course, but have you identified transfer targets?

Again, it's important to assess the group, but having watched Liverpool I've certainly got an idea what could improve., that's for sure?

And have you spoken to the owners about a transfer budget?

Yes. There is money to spend. We haven't got the wheelbarrow overflowing. It's not falling out over the edges but there is money to spend. There are some terrific players here and big talents and I want to help improve them as players and as people. There will be some additions to improve and improve our way of playing as well.

Supporters here are desperate to get back in the Champions League - is that your own aim?

It's an aim for every manager at a top club. That's the holy grail, but also, in time, we want to be challenging for the title. For me, and it's not going to be straight away because that's not realistic, winning the title is something we want to achieve. It's not just aiming for fourth place. The Champions League is fantastic and that's where this club wants to be. It's going to be a process and ultimately, hopefully, that will take us up towards the top of the league and challenging. That's where this club belongs.

Finally, what would your message to Liverpool supporters be?

I'd just like to say, I'm honoured and blessed to be your manager. All I can promise is I'll fight for my life for the club. My family will move to the area and we're really excited about moving to the city of Liverpool, getting to know the football club and the people of Liverpool. I will leave no stone unturned in my quest - and that quest will be relentless - to try and get Liverpool back on the map again as a successful football club.

moejoe54 wrote:Everthing the new manager said today fills me with great hope for the future.Now to go buy my new Red Home Shirt and say yes we maybe not at the races at mo but with hope in our hearts we shall back to where we belong.

LFC YNWA.

Is it nice Joe, is it, is it.....

not got it yet get it,later this evening ya edgit.what ya think of interview today.

Didn't see it, is that it what Maj posted.

Just purchased now

yeah

http://www.liverpoolfc.tv/news/latest-news/rodgers-on-cole-and-sigurdsson

Interview

The snippets ive heard today of his take on the Sigurdsson situation have impressed me a lot.

Which were?

Dallas wrote:Which were?

"I knew what the market was & I wasn't prepared to pay anything over what I agreed to pay before." "I believed playing football will be most important to him but obviously it was important financially."

Nice one...

Press conference today

on Joe Allen life at Merseyside "I'm sure he's enjoyed his first couple of days here

on WBA match "In terms of tactics and my thoughts on the game, I've already got my team in mind

Europa

"It's good to start well - but it's more important you finish well

"Of course we ideally want to start well, but it's not the be all and end all if we don't

" The group will get stronger & stronger as the year goes on as they become more attuned to my methods & management"

....................................

"I want to make us as competitive as possible as we can be"

"I want to bring hopefully one or two new players to help the group here"

"It's important when you don't have lot of money you have to be different and play in different way

Brendan Rodgers "We are hoping in next 48 hours we will find out about new players

"Everyone wants to win trophies that's why I am here

"As a job I loved every minute of being Liverpool manager

"Football is my passion and Liverpool is way of life.

on Andy Carroll "He knows where he stands in relation to group

on Nuri Sahin and Cristian Tello "We will see in next 48 hours."

Costly reality intrudes on Rodgers' vision




Premier League Home

Sunday September 02 2012

Not signing Clint Dempsey sums up Liverpool's malaise, says Dion Fanning

There are some who would argue that replacing Andy Carroll with nobody, as Liverpool did on Friday night, is a fair swap.

At Upton Park yesterday, Carroll demonstrated what he can do in a team that sees simple terror as the most effective way of winning football matches. At Liverpool, however, he was a problem, albeit one created by others, particularly those who authorised his signing.

Since Sabermetrics became the desired business model for football clubs, any action in the transfer market leads to people grabbing Moneyball from the shelves with the zeal of an evangelist opening the Old Testament to exclaim why we're all doomed.

Liverpool had a pretty good summer in the transfer market and a pretty bad transfer deadline day. In January 2011, they had a triumphant transfer deadline day and they have been suffering for it and other mistakes since.

On one of the pages in Michael Lewis's book which explains Billy Beane's philosophy, there is an insight into how FSG are running Liverpool now and what they should have done before. "You can always recover from the player you didn't sign. You may never recover from the player you signed at the wrong price."

Liverpool are still trying to recover from the signing of Carroll for £35m, perhaps the wrongest price there has ever been in the spectacular history of wrong prices. It was so bad that FSG should sack themselves for signing off on it. Then they were new to English football and eager to make an impression.

The signing of Carroll calmed supporters after the sale of Torres. Yet if FSG had questioned Carroll's price, as they questioned Clint Dempsey's on Friday night, they might have angered supporters who, understandably, are angry again after the failure to sign Dempsey.

There is an argument to be made that Dempsey was over-priced, yet stalling on a fee of £5m which leaves Rodgers with only two strikers seems like an extreme implementation of their new philosophy.

Carroll seems to have been signed at a time when nobody was accountable but Liverpool are having to account for it now. Kenny Dalglish's defenders will point out that he was just a caretaker when Carroll was signed and couldn't have authorised the deal.

Ian Ayre was commercial director then and appointed managing director by the time Liverpool splurged again last summer. If only Damien Comolli can be directly implicated in the Carroll signing, nobody can dispute that Dalglish was involved in the catastrophic spending last summer when he paid too much for Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson.

Liverpool are burdened with those players and for a club facing into a third season without Champions League football, there was always going to be some brutal realism, if anything can be more brutally realistic than watching Downing trying to play.

There are other painful realities. From the end of this transfer window to the opening of the next, Liverpool will pay close to £2m in wages to Joe Cole. Cole's arrival was greeted with hysterical celebration from many Liverpool fans who presumably would have been as angry if something had happened to prevent that deal as they were when Dempsey's fell through on Friday night.

They could thank Christian Purslow for the Cole deal as they operated a sort of an anti-Moneyball, with a determination to make as many spectacularly wrong decisions at the wrong price as they could.

FSG should have trusted their instincts long before this summer. There may have been too much of their instinct present last week. Ayre led the negotiations for Dempsey and was unconvincing again.

Liverpool knew there was no way back to Fulham for Dempsey who had burned his bridges quite spectacularly. Yet when Tottenham entered the fight, Fulham and Dempsey had an alternative and Liverpool were burnt.

If Liverpool want to see the danger of too much austerity they can look at Aston Villa, a club they helped tremendously last summer with their philanthropic gesture, the signing of Downing for £20m.

Villa have cut costs and suffered but there will be a money man somewhere arguing that they had no option but to drain all hope from the supporters.

Brendan Rodgers fought hard for what he wanted when he joined Liverpool. As a young manager, he might have been expected to be grateful for the opportunity and agreed to FSG's plan for sporting directors and football consultants.

Instead he showed the arrogance essential for the job when he said he would manage in his way. FSG abandoned their plans.

So far Rodgers has, moving on players like Carroll and Charlie Adam who were never capable of playing his way.

Yet FSG wanted to do things their way too. Rodgers won the argument on how the football club would be managed but they are more reluctant to abandon their ideas on how it should be financed.

This may seem like a very modern idea but the struggle between a manager and his board is one of the eternal battles in football. Maybe Rodgers learnt something on Friday night. He certainly became more aware of the dysfunction that still thrives at Liverpool.

#LFC - Sunday Times - Full Report by Jonathan Northcroft | Re: NURI SAHIN for £11m, Theo Walcott, and expectations for Rodgers.

LIVERPOOL have moved to mollify Brendan Rodgers after the manager was angered by his club’s failure to sign Clint Dempsey on transfer deadline day.

Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the club's owners, are willing to address Rodgers’ strong desire to sign a forward in the January transfer window with Theo Walcott a possible target. FSG have also reassured Rodgers that the imbalance in his squad left by Liverpool’s summer dealings – he now has just two senior strikers – will be taken into account when this season’s performance is reviewed. They see the problem as a short-term one and maintain that the goal set for Rodgers is a longer term one: delivering Champions League football by 2015.

The owners are fixing transfer policy accordingly. A move for Dempsey on Friday was abandoned after Fulham accepted an offer of £4m plus add-ons from Aston Villa for the American striker but refused to deal with Liverpool on similar terms. They then quoted Spurs a price of £8m before allowing Dempsey to move to Tottenham for £6m. FSG’s reluctance to bid higher for Dempsey was down to his age – 29. They are prepared to make much higher sums available for younger players and a £15m permanent deal for Daniel Sturridge was lined up on Friday but Rodgers’ preference was to take the Chelsea striker on loan.

Though the failure to sign Dempsey agitated Rodgers, the manager will be placated by the promise of being backed generously in future transfer windows including a bid for Walcott, a player he has long admired. Arsenal blocked Walcott leaving for Manchester City last week but cannot count on extending the attacker’s contract. Walcott has been offered £80,000 per week but, given that Arsenal use him heavily in commercial campaigns, he wants added image rights payments. Come January, Walcott will have just a few months left to run on his present deal and his enthusiasm for staying at Arsenal may be further tested this afternoon with Arsene Wenger planning to drop him for the match at Liverpool.

At 23, Walcott fits the profile of players FSG want to acquire. Despite talk of budget restraints, Liverpool spent £25m (when add-ons are included) on Joe Allen, 22, and Fabio Borini, 21 in summer and more would have been available had buyers been found for Carroll, Jordan Henderson and Stuart Downing.

The trio, and Charlie Adam, who was sold to Stoke for £4m, were bought during a £110m spree by Kenny Dalglish and former director of football, Damien Comolli. Not repeating the mistakes of Comolli and Dalglish - who rushed into paying £35m for Carroll on deadline day in January 2012 - influenced FSG’s decision not to enter an auction for Dempsey simply to address an immediate need.

There is sympathy that this has left Rodgers with only Luis Suarez and Fabio Borini as forwards but confidence that this can be corrected in January – not least because the terms of Carroll’s loan to West Ham would allow Liverpool to recall the striker then. FSG also believe it important to keep funds back to offer the option of making Nuri Sahin’s signing permanent. Acquiring Sahin on loan from Real Madrid – ahead of Arsenal – was a major coup and Liverpool can buy the former Bundesliga player of the year for around £11m should his loan spell go well.

Ian Ayre, Liverpool’s chief executive, has borne the brunt of supporters’ fury about deadline day but his position is not threatened, despite renewed speculation about his future following reports in Australia that Gillon McLachlan, chief operating officer of the Australian Football League, had turned down the chance to replace Ayre earlier this year.

http://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2012/09/interview-brendan-rodgers-talks-to-taw/

Spoke to The Anfield Wrap today

Haven't listened myself yet, will listen on bus home tomorrow

and drown out the flamin kids

Exclusive Brendan Rodgers interview with @LFCEspanol - translated tweets coming right up.


BR: "Sterling is very young but has a great attitude. His hunger to learn and to improve impressed me from the moment I arrived."


"I like my teams to control the ball and play at a fast pace. I don't intend to imitate Swansea's style. At LFC we play the Liverpool Way."

"There's nothing worse than being on Twitter. I don't think people are interested in knowing if I'm shaving right now... not really."

"Hopefully in the future, we will have a good mix of players from the Academy and great players that we will purchase."


"The fans are what make Liverpool a different club. By singing "You'll Never Walk Alone," they make my hairs stand on end."

"My main objective is to win the league. Liverpool fans have seen many wins but it's been more than 20 years since the last one."

On what tactics BR will use in the future: "Forget long or short balls. The only tactic is to play correctly."

"Fans, players, staff, and managers have been an incredible help. I'd like to reward their support with titles."


Anyone else think he goes a bit OTT?