Gary wowed by revolutionary Rodgers
IT may only have lasted for three months, but it was enough to open the eyes of a man who had seen it, done it and bought the T-shirt over more than 30 years at the top end of the professional game.
Gary McAllister returned to Liverpool, a club he had graced during a remarkable period late in his playing career, in July of last year as firstteam coach to Brendan Rodgers with some degree of awareness that he was signing up to a very modern way of doing things.
He’d been aware of the friction between Rodgers and the former England manager Roy Hodgson over incidents involving Raheem Sterling and Daniel Sturridge on international duty because of the culture of ‘second-day recovery’ employed at Anfield.
It was all part of the Rodgers way, though. As McAllister discovered, there were plenty of other unconventional techniques, but the former Scotland captain reflects fondly on their time together and is not surprised to see the Parkhead club thriving under the Northern Irishman.
‘It was just all too short,’ recalled McAllister when looking back on his time as part of Rodgers’ backroom staff. ‘A lot of it was new and refreshing. I had never seen some of the stuff before.
‘There is a bit of methodology in the way things are worked from Monday to Friday. It is very modern, but it nearly worked. Liverpool were a slip away from winning the league.
‘There is periodization, there are loads of little things such as first-day recovery and second-day recovery. You build up to a game and then bring it back down afterwards and it is about moving the body, knowing when to let it rest and asking it to go again at full-tilt on a matchday, not leaving it on a training ground.
‘The facts are there this season. As much as it is business as usual and they are top of the league, I think Celtic fans are going along there and being entertained. That’s what you associate with that club, playing with flair.
‘Celtic have a swagger and a style that goes back many years and Brendan has brought that back.’