B-Rod has Leicester tipping along nicely again this season. A couple of big scalps this season already
What they win by?
1-0 away to the Arsenal
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Fraudeta
This will cut a lot of the ISFCCSC to the core
“Because I’m a British manager, we probably got lucky,” Rodgers told reporters. “That is the way it works for British managers in these games.
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You would want your head examined to support the likes of celtic
Footix Alert
That’s a lovely sentiment.
Dying in your sleep is the best way to go.
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agreed
Rodgers won’t ever be Manchester United manager – but should he be considered?
Simon Hughes Nov 3, 2020
154 
Ever since his first season as Liverpool’s manager, I have wondered whether football would feel differently about Brendan Rodgers if he didn’t speak after matches. Particularly ones where the result has been positive for him.
Would a world without cameras and opportunities to detail his own role in an impressive victory lead to an increased level of esteem and therefore earn him another chance at one of England’s biggest clubs?
It cannot be overstated how much popularity matters to most owners, chairmen and directors, particularly those who run their clubs from a distance and are rarely popular figures themselves.
It is often said that Rodgers divides opinion, but who will sing enthusiastically on his behalf? Many, I think, would agree that his teams are capable of playing exciting football, and, at Celtic, trophy-winning football, but that doesn’t mean he is liked or respected in the way that he might be.
Rodgers, it is fair to say, does not fall into the popular category of manager. Not like, for example, Mauricio Pochettino, who despite being out of the game for nearly a year, would more than likely be in contention for the Manchester United job if Ed Woodward decided to call Ole Gunnar Solskjaer this morning and deliver the bad news.
Should Rodgers be involved the subsequent conversation when/if that happens?
His Leicester City team won brilliantly at Elland Road on Monday night, of course, sending Marcelo Bielsa the same way as Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta; each of those victories over Leeds United, Manchester City and Arsenal were without significant fortune and utterly deserved, delivered in style.
Pochettino, meanwhile, was in the warmth of a Sky studio still sporting his lockdown haircut, a Bielsa disciple no-less; someone who is less than a year older than Rodgers and widely thought about in an altogether more positive way, despite parallels in their managerial paths not only due to the art of their midfields but the themes of wider promise being met by disappointment when it really matters.
Then came the post-match interview, the exchange of pleasantries — Rodgers telling Pochettino, like a long-lost friend, that he needed to get himself a job (a bit cringey); Pochettino grinning (a bit awkwardly); Rodgers proceeding to talk (very confidently) about “static goal kicks” and “midfield half-blocks” having outsmarted the Great Bielsa, which made him sound like a tamer of lions and his Argentinian opposite number a circus illusionist with a smashed mirror.
Naturally, journalists want managers to do interviews that deliver insight as well as opinion — and this certainly isn’t me saying Rodgers should do them less, before you start in the comments below.
I’m sure The Athletic will explain what a half-block in midfield means at some point too, so, thank you, Brendan.
I just think the way messages are delivered matters and people generally would feel better about him if he didn’t try so hard to impress. A 4-1 win away at Leeds speaks louder than any manager’s words can.
Rodgers has responded encouragingly to what could have been a tricky start to his second full season in charge at Leicester. To not qualify for the Champions League from such a promising position as the game emerged from lockdown was the sort of blow which tends to lead owners to look carefully at any cracks when the following campaign starts.
It sounds obvious, but the ability to intercept problems before they emerge or to put things right quickly when they are going wrong is arguably the most important any manager can possess. Having since lost one of his best players for a huge fee for the second summer running (Ben Chilwell moving to Chelsea a year after Harry Maguire went to Manchester United), Rodgers has since been able to recalibrate the team and from afar at least — despite some imperfections — the potential for it to develop looks greater than it did a year ago.
His time at Liverpool should not be remembered as an absolute failure but rather, one season of transition, another of vast overachievement — with his contribution greater than he gets credit for — and then one top-and-tailed by crapulous performances, the latter of which would continue into the next season, where he got the sack in the October.
There was, it gets forgotten though understandably, the bit in the middle of year three where he transformed the mood through results having switched formations and found new positions for struggling signings who suddenly began to impress a bit more. Lazar Markovic — remember him at left wing-back?
Liverpool were closing in on a place in the Champions League and victory over Manchester United would have sent them into the top four at their opponents’ expense with eight games to go but there was another mood shift after that defeat, not helped by a newspaper article two days earlier where Rodgers detailed exactly how he had helped invigorate what had once been a flagging campaign.
Rodgers’ spell at Celtic was laden with trophies (Photo: Ian MacNicol/Getty Images)
It was another one of those moments where he probably revealed a bit too much about himself and it reminded you why not every Liverpool supporter was willing to back him from the start, the Anfield club being a curious one in the sense that the cult of the manager means everything, though followers nevertheless believe it is his responsibility to spread credit evenly when the opportunity is there even if the credit is mostly his.
Ultimately, Rodgers’ past with Liverpool rules out any future alliance with United, the English side some claim he supported as a boy in Northern Ireland.
Such a move would be unprecedented and it simply isn’t the same as Sir Matt Busby representing one as a player and then the other as a manager, as he did when he took the Old Trafford job 75 years ago. The scale of the reaction would probably be somewhere between that moment and what would have happened had former Liverpool captain Graeme Souness (before he became Liverpool’s manager, I must stress) chosen to leave Rangers and take over at Old Trafford in place of a knighthood-less Alex Ferguson.
“The deal was virtually signed and sealed after an all-night meeting in Edinburgh,” Souness wrote in his first autobiography before explaining how, in 1989, he was a part the package that Michael Knighton was offering when the businessman tried to buy United from Martin Edwards.
Liverpool fans would probably be less bothered about Rodgers making such a move than they would have been about Souness at that particular time, but I can’t imagine many United supporters backing the idea. Not least because of the presence of Woodward, whose every decision is under the spotlight and is one of those directors who already falls firmly into the aforementioned description of “unpopular”.
Besides, Pochettino was central to Tottenham Hotspur becoming a much more impressive club now than they were when he took over six and a half years ago and though he lost a Champions League final, there were enough convincing performances and results in Europe to suggest he is capable to pushing a team with greater resources further.
Rodgers’ record on the same stage with Liverpool and Celtic has been poor and means Leicester’s showing in the Europa League this season should take on an extra personal significance.
After all, the Manchester City job is more than likely to be available next summer.
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Has Leicester purring and in second. Top class manager.
All a fucking board lads.
If B-Rod can avoid his traditional post March slump he might be onto something
Would he save the Glasgow Celtic 10 in a row if they moved quickly for him?
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Celtic should do everything in their power to bring Rodgers and Tierney back to the club.
That can all be brushed over I’m sure. There’s a 10 in a row at stake here.
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Was just thinking that Leicester City have played a big role in preventing the 10 in a row. Although maybe Rodgers would have been lured to Chelsea instead.