Time For Change

Our performance yesterday was the final straw for me. Going out of the FA Cup in that fashion to a mediocre Aston Villa team was embarrassing. Ultimately, Brendan Rodgers needs to take responsibility. I'm sick to my back teeth of listening to him going on about making progress, What progress? I ask. 

With the financial injection he has received, three years is more than enough to stamp your authority on the club and transform Liverpool into a consistent 4 Top team which was his sole objective when he took control three years ago. 

As it stands, we currently need to make up 8 points from our final 6 games, a task which looks and feels highly unachievable. As fans, Champions Leauge qualification is what we demand. I'm not saying that we have to win the leauge every year or win trophies every season. However, converting Liverpool Football Club into an established top 4 club is the least we can expect. Brendan Rodgers has been unable to achieve this and lacks the capabilities and skills in order to do so. Therefore, for me, Mr Henry has no other option, than to move him on. He's failed.

With only six league games to go until the closure of the current campaign, Liverpool Football Club and Brendan Rodgers are about to finish the current campaign unsuccessfully. Our inability to secure a Champions League spot and not deliver silverware in the form of the FA Cup means our improved form on the field has meant nothing. The 2014/2015 season is now deemed an unsuccessful and disappointing one, not only for just finishing outside the top four but also for falling at the first hurdle in both European competitions we took part in.

Therefore, the next 6 weeks or so will make or break The Rodgers' Reign. Or has it always been broken for a long time now? Everything we have competed in this season has seemed to drift slowly away from us, The Leauge, The Champions League, The Europa Leauge, The Leauge Cup Top 4 & now the FA Cup.

Delivering silverware and securing Champions League qualification would have been enough to keep FSGs faith in Rodgers. Whereas, finishing outside of the lucrative European spots and finishing another season without picking up any honors is now going to really test our owners’ patience. Not only our progression as a football club would be halted but also the financial side of the club would suffer greatly.

 

Entering the Champions League next season must have been an absolute minimal requirement for Rodgers due to the extensive investments FSG have put into the club in order for Liverpool to be able to compete with the best teams, not only in the Premier League, but also across the continent. 

 

Since Brendan took control of Liverpool we have signed 25 players for £212,380,00m with no trophies won. Therefore, no fan can complain that the owners aren't supporting us and are doing their bit towards the cause.

 

Before the Man United game on the football field Rodgers seemed to be getting it right again by taking 20 points from a possible 24. Beating Manchester City at Anfield last month showed how far we have come since that dreadful result and performance at Crystal Palace before Christmas. 

Furthermore, it was encouraging hearing Liverpool legend Jamie Carragher's incredible statistic in that the three seasons Rodgers has been at the helm, we only have lost four League games since Christmas.

 

Despite this encouraging statistic, I was refrained from getting over excited. Without wanting to sound too negative, back then only a couple of bad results would have dampened our chances of a top 4 finish. Loosing at home to United and then getting beat comfortably at the Emirates really put us off track and proves what talked about in a previous  article "To be the best we have to beat the best" and Rodgers record against top four opposition in the three seasons he has been at Liverpool (As you can see from the graphics below) has been abysmal.

I have to admit now that after our horrific Champions League campaign I lost faith in Rodgers. I can be quoted in a previous article of mine saying: "why should Brendan Rogers deserve more time than Kenny Dalglish got to put things right? Has he earned it? He hasn't won anything. If he was replaced now by "the right replacement" how much harm would this inflict on our current situation?"

I would say the reason for my negativity towards Rodgers was mainly due to my pain and sadness of waiting many years' for Liverpool's return to Europe's elite competition. To perform the way we did, after all the hard work we put into getting there, was dissatisfying to say the least. To only to notch up 1 win in 6 isn't the form of a Liverpool side in Europe I'm used to.

Rodgers himself would argue that he needs more time. His team at the start of this season had just lost one of Liverpool's greatest ever players in Luis Suarez and his strike partner Daniel Sturridge was injured before the Champions League had even started. In addition, adding a string of new recruits which have needed time to be molded into his new system reinforces the fact that Rodgers' team weren't the best prepared entering into the Champions Leauge or competing at the highest level this campaign.

Liverpool Football Club need to be playing Champions Leauge football year in, year out. As a Liverpool fan, them fixtures home and away in Europe are what we thrive on and with Brendan's European win percentage at 35% (7/20) after three seasons simply isn't acceptable. 

Roy Evan's famously said once that "European Football without Liverpool is like a banquet without wine!". I don't mean the Europa Leauge either, which without disrespecting the competition too much, isn't exactly the competition Liverpool Fans want to see our team compete in. It's The European Cup we want and unfortunately, with Rodgers in charge we are not going to get anyway near it.

 

It is unthinkable finishing outside the top 4 again. In football, managers get the sack not players. At the end of the day it's his and his coaching staff's responsibility and sole objective to make Liverpool Football Club a success. If they don't come up with the goods and fail, then in my view they should be moved on. Three years in football is more than enough to show and prove your abilities as a manager.

Liverpool fans as a whole don't look forward to changes in management. Managers don't just look after the first team but also have to instill their own philosophy, system and way of thinking right from the youth ranks up until the first team. More importantly, every manager change brings a shape up in personnel, players and a redevelopment process which could take years to build. After waiting three years for Brendan to bring us success and glory, it will be like we'd be starting all over again. However, this would depend entirely on who he was replaced by. Bringing in a Top European manager with years of experience at managering and winning at the top level would obviously need less time to get going, than giving the job to another young inexperienced manager.

Brendan himself wasn't anyway near a top manager when he joined Liverpool. He did have a successful spell at Swansea but that was it. He was brought in because "potentially" he could become a top manager. Liverpool Football Club can't be waiting around to find out if a manager will be successful or not. We are in need of a Top European manager someone like Klopp or Benitez, someone who's CV fits the role to manager a club as big as Liverpool.

Finishing this season trophyless and what's going to look like a 1/3 Champions League qualification record, witnessing our club underachieving, fighting for Europa Leauge qualification is simply not good enough. If FSG don't act now, how many seasons do we have to wait until we start reeping the awards of this so called "progress" Brendan keeps banging on about? I appreciate, Brendan has always put the club first and I'm not saying he hasn't tried at this job. Instead, I feel he simply hasn't got what it takes to be the manager of Liverpool Football Club.

@anfieldeurope

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