Carl Clemente. @clemente_carl
As the pressure on Brendan Rodgers continues to pile on, I’ve asked myself; is his high amount of player purchases the result of him failing with previous ones? Or can patterns and trends in history prove that modern managers operating in today’s climate simply just make more changes?
Although, I still strongly believe that the current Liverpool manager holds the inability to be able to mould together a successful team. Trends in history seem to suggest that the modern game does require clubs to have much larger squads at their disposal.
Brendan Rodgers has recently been known for breaking all the wrong records. However, this one is very interesting and proves he has difficulties in gelling teams together as a unit. Brendan Rodgers has signed the most amount of players per year than any other Liverpool manager since the great Shankly took over in 1959.
(This graphic only includes managers who have spent a minimum of two years at the club. Therefore, doesn't include Roy Hodgson or Kenny's 2nd term)
As you can see, he is averaging more than 10 players a season, which is almost a new starting XI every year. The argument that Brendan Rodgers is in 'constant transition’ is true. How can you instil stability into a team if your personnel are constantly changing? Not just in Football but in every walk of life this can be viewed the same. A successful Business will have their core workforce, making minor changes each year; however the majority of it would continue to stay the same.
Rafa's turnover of players and even Houiller’s wasn't great either and many of their signings also turned out to be flops. Nevertheless, Houiller & Benítez won us trophies and maintained us as a more or less top European team. Whereas, Brendan just makes us look mediocre and average.
In his defence, more players are now leaving Liverpool for bigger clubs, whereas in the 70s and 80s that just didn't happen as nobody was greater than Liverpool. Therefore, the more players that leave the more you need to replace, which obviously will increase the amount of players you buy.
Moreover, the development of youth isn't as effective as it was before, resulting in players been bought rather than produced. Although young Jordan Rossiter looks to be getting this head down and working hard at his progression as a footballer. Liverpool are failing to produce players like they did. How long will it be until we see the next Ian Callaghan, Tommy Smith, Robbie Fowler, Jamie Carragher or Steven Gerrard? Players who ultimately, didn't cost the club a penny. Therefore, having a lack of ready made world class players at our disposal means managers are left with little choice than to enter the transfer market in search of players.
A prime example of Brendan failing at this is the 'Dejan Lovren' signing. Dejan's transfer fee was the most amount of money Liverpool have ever paid for a centre back, when the club were looking to replace the ever present Jamie Carragher. £20m is what he cost the club and from what we have seen of him so far, he isn't even worth £2m.
Referring again to the above graphic. Remarkably, if you start from the bottom and work your way up, you'll find apart from swapping Fagan will Dalglish, the managers are in the exact same order that they managed Liverpool Football Club. Therefore, proving the theory that the further back you go in history, the fewer transfers there were.
Although, business was conducted slightly differently back then; Shankly and Paisley, didn't average more than three new players per year. Even all the way up to Roy Evans Liverpool weren't constantly signing player after player to make things right. In them days it seemed you signed players for the long term.
Between Rodgers, Benítez and Houllier; 132 players were signed. When you get the chance, look through the names on these lists and you will find that many of them, let's just say, didn't fulfil their full potential. In comparison, Shankly, Paisley, Fagan signed 71 players during their reigns, 61 less than our last three long term managers.
It would be just senseless to compare the honours won between these two sets of managers. Nonetheless, this just proves that spending massive amounts of money and buying for the sake of buying does not bring success to your football club.
As always thanks for reading and I'm looking forward to hearing your opinions on Twitter.
@clemente_carl for @anfieldeurope
