So Is Brendan Rodgers Doing Well At Liverpool? What Is Your Opinion?

 With the international break coming up and not a whole lot of LFC action happening in the next couple of weeks I thought I'd have a look at how our newest manager is doing, what he's brought to the club and where he's falling short.

 The title of this post could be taken as a criticism of Brendan Rodgers, but it isn't, I'm simply asking what is he doing, what's working (plenty) and what isn't (there's a bit there as well)? 

 Our last 'long term' manager with any level of success was Rafa Benitez, but there have been two appointments in between him and Rodgers so it's not really right to ask if the Northern Irishman is building on the successes that Benitez had. The side Rodgers inherited had already gone through the beginnings of a couple of transitional periods and bore no real resemblance to the teams that had brought Rafa success and good football from 2005 until around 2009. Last summer wasn't an easy time to take charge of Liverpool so having the character to back himself at that point was a good start in my opinion.

 Roy Hodgson wasn't at Liverpool long enough to be properly judged. It clearly wasn't working out and relieving him of his duties was the right call, but he hadn't had the time to make the team his own so I'm not going to criticise him as heavily as some other Liverpool fans. He was six months in our one hundred and twenty year history, a nice fellow, a proper football man but not somebody who looked like he was going to change things for the better. 

 Kenny Dalglish was different. He is a Liverpool hero, he has the club running through his veins, he eats, drinks, sleeps and breathes Liverpool Football Club, he's the kind of man you'd want in charge at your club. His second spell at the helm was difficult, he had to deal with the Luis Suarez / Patrice Evra situation as well as being the first managerial appointment made by FSG, there was a lot of pressure, he had to sell Fernando Torres and he inherited a side with no confidence who hadn't really played well for eighteen months. I'm of the opinion that Kenny did quite well, not spectacularly, but well. Two cup finals in one season was a great achievement but all too often the league results were poor and his expensive signings didn't settle as quickly as expected. Given another season I think he would have improved us, but there was one thing that I could never quite get over. With Kenny in charge it never felt to me like a long term project, it always felt like he was a bit of a stop-gap, somebody who was brought in as a caretaker manager and did too well to be let go of, but was never really intended to be the long term figurehead. I liked having Kenny Dalglish as the manager of the club I love, but I never quite felt like I could see where the club would be in two or three years time, which isn't necessarily a criticism, but after the last season under Rafa, the Hicks and Gillet saga and the short-lived reign of Roy Hodgson I think the club needed long term stability.

 This is where Brendan Rodgers came in. A young, relatively inexperienced, modern, forward thinking British manager with a reputation for playing attacking football. Really, aside from the lack of experience, he had exactly the qualities a Liverpool manager should have. So how has it gone so far?

 His reign up to this point has been one of extremes and contradictions, case in point being there's only Man City in the Premier League with more clean sheets than us, yet our defence feels dodgy, vulnerable and not at all settled. We don't seem to concede single goals, it's either a clean sheet or we ship two or three. Fixtures where in the past we might have limped to a 1-0 defeat haven't seen us do this, we lost 3-0 at West Brom, 3-1 at Southampton and yet won 5-2 at Norwich and 4-0 at Wigan. It's not just Brendan Rodgers who's been in charge of an unpredictable Liverpool over the last twenty five years, but it seems the swing between his good and bad results is bigger than any of his predecessors. Many Liverpool fans expected us to brush aside Southampton yesterday while many others more than half expected us to flop simply because we've been riding so high lately.

 There's no doubt our attacking play has improved this season, at times we've been unplayable and had we been a little more clinical we could have almost reached double figures on more than one occasion. The problem seems to be that when the attack fails the defence fails too, and vice versa. Our forwards don't seem to bail our defenders out when they've had a poor game, and our defence doesn't seem to stand up and be counted when it's obvious we're really struggling to score, the home game against West Brom being a good example. We either fail spectacularly as a team or turn it on all over the pitch and look like Barcelona.

 Rodgers needs to make the defence his priority one the summer transfer window reopens. Pepe Reina has missed more games injured this season than ever before, Sebastian Coates needs game time that his performances so far just won't allow to happen, Jamie Carragher will retire, Martin Skrtel has dropped well below his standards and Daniel Agger, despite having a decent record this season, can't be relied on to be available for a full season. Glen Johnson, Martin Kelly and Andre Wisdom should have more than enough too cover the right back slot but Jose Enrique, purely as a defender, on the left is an accident waiting to happen. On paper it seems a complete overhaul is required but in reality we probably need three signings in that department, and if they don't come we could well be caught short next term. Brendan Rodgers hasn't yet signed a defender in his time at Liverpool and his work with what he inherited hasn't cut it so far, it will be interesting to see how he copes with the challenge of making us harder to beat.

 Rodgers seems to cope well with the media, generally being honest and forthright before and after games. There are so many managers who speak after a match and you feel they've been watching a different game to you but our gaffer isn't one of them, which always leaves you with hope any problems will be worked on before the next fixture. Keeping the media onside in this day and age is vital, especially with the high number of 'casual' fans who tend to believe whatever the press tells them and don't have a realistic amount of patience.

 Some of our team selections this season have been inspired, and some substitutions (especially at half time at Goodison) have been well thought out and really paid off, others (Gerrard and Allen together yesterday) have been obvious risks right from kick off and have backfired, leaving the boss wide open for criticism. It must be remembered that, like the majority of the squad, the manager is young and still learning at this level. Mistakes will happen, we just don't want to see the same ones happen again and again. If at first it doesn't work try again, if it doesn't work the second time it might not be the right option.

 I think the fans haven't yet taken the new manager to their hearts, but the number of calls of 'Rodgers out' after poor results is much lower than you'd probably expect. While some of our results have hit both ends of the extreme, the reaction to our manager seems pretty consistently to be 'give him time'. When they get right behind you there's no support like that of the Liverpool fans and if Brendan Rodgers can deliver more regularly what he has shown he is capable of in patches this season he will be backed to the hilt. We won't reach the top four this season but if the team can show enough in our remaining games to give us hope for next term the manager will start 2013/14 in front of a crowd full of belief and that can be a powerful ally.