Very good
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Did he ask for John McGinn too?
A bag of cans, B-rod back and a job? —
And a life…
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Is it safe to praise Brendan Rodgers yet? The question came to mind on Sunday evening while watching Leicester City humiliate Newcastle United with the type of swaggering performance his teams should be renowned for.
Arrogant, Rodgers would call it. “Football arrogance, not personal arrogance.”
It is the way his teams play. Swansea City swaggered their way into the Premier League and then, contrary to all expectations at the time, to a mid-table finish in the top flight. Liverpool swaggered their way to a Premier League title challenge nobody saw coming, falling agonisingly short in the final week of the season. Celtic swaggered their way to success in every domestic competition they entered during his time there, including a record-breaking, “invincible” Scottish Premiership title campaign.
As for Leicester, since his arrival at the end of February, they have swaggered their way to more points in the Premier League than any team apart from the runaway pair of Liverpool and Manchester City. They are now third in the table, and playing with the verve that has been the hallmark of every Rodgers team.
As The Athletic’s Michael Cox observed, they are not creating an enormous number of chances.
That swagger, though, is as unmistakable as it is familiar. From Ricardo Pereira and Ben Chilwell in the full-back positions, through Wilfred Ndidi, Youri Tielemans, Dennis Praet and James Maddison to a rejuvenated Jamie Vardy, Leicester are oozing the confidence — and, yes, the arrogance — to play fluent football on the front foot.
When it comes to Rodgers, though, there remains that strange desire to shift the conversation away from his coaching ability and on to the various negative tropes that cling to him: the notion that he merely profited from the solid foundations built by Kenny Jackett, Roberto Martinez and Paulo Sousa at Swansea; that he struck lucky with Luis Suarez at Liverpool, as was seen by the way results nosedived after the Uruguayan’s departure; that any half-decent coach could dominate Scottish football to the extent that he did at Celtic; that he has walked into a nice, easy gig at Leicester, with so many talented young players at his disposal.
What is it about Rodgers that makes people want to demean his record? Some don’t like the cut of his jib: the homespun wisdom and folksy turn of phrase, the evangelical zeal, the fact he dared to lose three stone and have his teeth whitened after turning 40. Joey Barton has rarely been as popular as when, having signed for Rangers, he mocked the then-Celtic manager — “the tan and the teeth and all that” — as being in the midst of a mid-life crisis.
At the age of 46, though, Rodgers is more than 500 games into a management career that warrants more respect and admiration than he ever seems to get.
So many of the negative appraisals surround his “failure” to lead Liverpool to the title in 2013-14. He bottled it, he blew a 3-0 goal lead at Crystal Palace and so on.
Looking back at Liverpool’s squad from that season — an unconvincing Simon Mignolet in goal, Glen Johnson at right-back, two from Martin Skrtel, Kolo Toure and Mamadou Sakho in central defence, Jon Flanagan edging out Aly Cissokho at left-back, Steven Gerrard trying to reinvent himself as a midfield anchorman at the age of 33, Jordan Henderson only beginning to come to terms with his surroundings, Philippe Coutinho and Raheem Sterling as raw youngsters aged 21 and 18 respectively, Daniel Sturridge and Suarez in attack — it really is hard to convince yourself that they “blew it” by finishing two points behind a Manchester City team with an all-star cast that included Vincent Kompany, Pablo Zabaleta, Yaya Toure, David Silva and Sergio Aguero.
They faltered from a leading position, but so did Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal, Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea and Manuel Pellegrini’s City themselves at various stages over that season. Liverpool looked relentless, riding on the crest of a wave, until Gerrard’s unfortunate slip against Chelsea at Anfield. A predictable drop-off followed the next season, but the suggestion that Rodgers’ temperament or coaching or tactics were their undoing in the 2013-14 race is, particularly with five years’ hindsight, a bizarre one.
The recurring theme of Rodgers’ career is that, whether as a psychologist or as a coach, he helps players scale unexpected heights. That was true of just about every member of that Liverpool squad six seasons ago — and that includes Suarez, who scored 15 goals in his first 44 Premier League appearances under Kenny Dalglish, and then 54 goals in his next 66 under Rodgers. Coutinho and Sterling were exciting talents but how many other managers, at a big club, would have indulged the pair of them through those early years to the extent that Rodgers did?
Everywhere he has been (with the exception of an unhappy, brief spell at Reading), Rodgers has empowered players to perform to a higher technical level than might have been imagined. At Swansea, he had Garry Monk, Alan Tate and Ashley Williams playing out from the back with a poise and a confidence that took them to mid-table in the Premier League.
Some will shrug at the mention of his unbeaten campaign at Celtic, or his back-to-back clean sweeps of Scottish domestic trophies — and perhaps some of the club’s supporters will do likewise, given the abrupt, acrimonious nature of his departure to Leicester — but watching them under Rodgers was a joy, particularly given the way that Kieran Tierney, Olivier Ntcham and Moussa Dembele developed under his tutelage.
It is the same story at Leicester. Yes, he has inherited some talented players, but which of Pereira, Chilwell, Ndidi, Tielemans and Maddison was consistently performing to this level under Rodgers’ predecessor Claude Puel? What about Caglar Soyuncu, who looked a little too impetuous on his rare appearances last season but now, aged 22, looks like the perfect replacement for Harry Maguire in central defence?
So often we lament the lack of top-class British coaches, but then, when someone like Rodgers emerges from relative obscurity — starting out as a youth-team coach at Reading after seeing his playing career ended prematurely by injury, travelling far and wide to further his education as a coach, then climbing the management ladder with a skill and a persistence that is rare in an era when time and patience are so scarce, and all the while sticking to football principles that are usually admired — there is a stark reluctance to show him the respect his record merits.
Is it just a classic case of tall poppy syndrome, that all-too-familiar British desperation to cut people down to size? Or are people so accustomed to top-class coaches fitting a certain image — the gruff authoritarian or the ice-cool designer coach from somewhere much warmer than Britain — that someone like Rodgers, an outsider from County Antrim with no playing pedigree to fall back on, is treated as a bluffer?
It is a shame because British football can hardly be said to produce so many high-class coaches that it can afford to look down its nose at Rodgers. In a short space of time, he has transformed the way Leicester play, just as he did at Liverpool — and even at Celtic, where, for all that the numbers and statistics might reflect his impact, the greatest improvement was in their playing style.
So many managers, on moving to the Premier League, find it hard to impose their own style and playing philosophy. Even now, Everton fans might struggle to tell you what Marco Silva’s grand vision is. Likewise Unai Emery at Arsenal or, for all the references to the club’s historic values, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Manchester United.
Rodgers took longer to impose his style on Liverpool than anywhere else, but, at Leicester, the uplift has been dramatic.
Some will even argue that he has better players than Emery or Solskjaer. Looking at the evidence of the past six months, you might suggest so. But it is striking how often perceptions of different players, particularly younger ones, have been revised upwards when they are playing under Rodgers. If he can coax such improvement out of Chilwell, Ndidi, Tielemans and Maddison, it is tempting to wonder just what he might have done had he got his hands on some of Arsenal’s or United’s underperformers.
Right now, Leicester are playing with an arrogance. This time last year, under Puel, they were playing with a cautious whisper. Sometimes, teams play in the mould of their manager. Leicester’s fans — like Swansea’s and Celtic’s before them and like Liverpool’s for a good portion of Rodgers’ time at Anfield — will be happy that their team is doing just that.
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Brendan is doing a great job at Filbert Street
Lester will get top 4 this season
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That article Just reminded me of one my favorite premier league moments of all time.
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Is “All Time” a TV show?
“They wanted the clowns” 
You are a deeply, deeply predictable person
You should try and develop an unexpected side to your personality instead of being so easy to read
The interview is nearly as good as Liverpool’s meltdown. The way he brings the circus into it as well 
I assume Brendan’s next stop will be at one of Arsenal, Tottenham or Man United.
Just like he did with Liverpool he will take one of these teams out of the doldrums after they had struggled to replace a relatively successful long term manager
Carragher pretty much said Suarez lifted Liverpool and not Rodgers. Also Liverpool hadn’t won a league for 25 years odd and left Liverpool in 8th.
He’d be perfect for any of those and would get them competitive again for a couple of years.
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I don’t understand why Manchester United supporters always have to pick on Liverpool supporters and try and goad them
Manchester United are flying at the moment, I think we all realise they’re going to win the league this season, while Liverpool are a mess
You’d think United fans would focus on their own team rather than constantly trying to goad supporters of a relegation struggler
I don’t understand it