BRENDAN’S BID
Rodgers’ Leicester mission
WHEN Claude Puel did manage to talk above a whisper, it appears very few of his players could understand him. The only problem Leicester City’s players will have when Brendan Rodgers talks is to avoid being dazzled by those ultra-white teeth.
Rodgers is not slow in coming forward. You can call it ego or you can call it charisma, but whichever you opt for, Leicester badly need it.
Puerile, sorry Puel, was a dead hand at the club. He walked and talked like a little waxwork, no inspiration, no effective leadership. Puel was a quiet
man, studious. His best moment was in the middle of the immense sadness when Leicester’s much admired owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha died with four others in that helicopter crash at the stadium so shocking it could have ripped the heart out of the club. Puel was dignified in all he did. He comforted. He found the right words. Quietly, he started the healing process.
But it needs more.
Leicester City are a club trying to find themselves again.
Champions of England three years ago, they are now Mr Average Club once more.
There’s a new state-of-the-art training ground being built, but it would never be the home of champions under Puel.
The late chairman’s son, Aiyawatt, is only 33 years old. He has always had the shadow of his billionaire father to protect him, but now he is out on his own as the boss of millions running Thailand’s massive King Power Duty Free business and as the head of 7,000 employees at Leicester City FC.
He needs a shoulder and Rodgers offers it.
Rodgers flew out with Aiyawatt during the Premier League’s international break for Khun Vichai’s cremation in Thailand, offering what he could in
solace and experience, his own father and mother dying relatively young within 18 months of each other.
When the helicopter came down, Rodgers was manager of Celtic, winning all before him time after time in Scotland. He looked from the outside and wondered how the football club would recover from that.
Now’s he’s seen it from the inside, he’s part of it. He is the answer.
Puel was cool, distant. The players didn’t understand him, literally. Christian Fuchs said it seemed like Puel was working against them at times, so often did his tactics change, so different were the things he asked Premier League-winning players to do, so obtuse was it from their natural game.
Ask Puel what his relationship with his best player, Jamie Vardy, was like and he would say it was very good. It wasn’t.
Vardy would go along with it, saying it was a new way of playing the manager wanted and he was learning it, when in fact Vardy was unsure about what he was supposed to be doing, why he wasn’t getting the decisive passes he likes to use his speed and cause danger.
Papy Mendy, a Frenchman, went further. He says Puel, even with his decent command of English, couldn’t explain what he wanted.
Now, even with a bit of Northern Irish dialect thrown in big man, the demands are clear and precise.
Rodgers has got his players listening, understanding and believing.
He’s also got a big budget to spend. When John McGinn went from Hibs to Aston Villa for the £2.75m Celtic said they couldn’t afford, time was up for Rodgers there.
Scottish football is like a succession of Christmases when you get what you want year after year.
Then what? Where’s the excitement? Where’s the next anticipation of getting something big?
Two Scottish Premierships, two Scottish Cups, three Scottish League Cups and more to come this season as well.
But there’s not so much joy in unwrapping the same package. That could only come with doing well in European football, but if you can’t afford John McGinn with change out of £3m you are never going to become a Champions League opponent to be feared.
So Rodgers, who looked like winning the English Premier League five years ago at Liverpool with a five-point lead and three games to go and lost out to Manchester City by two points, is back for another go. Those teeth, whiter than a Test cricketer’s flannels, have been on overtime since Rodgers succeeded Puel in February.
You would have more chance understanding Brexit than Leicester winning another Premier League title, but breaking into the top six and being Champions League contenders, that’s possible in time.
King Power’s latest trading revenue figures are given as 2.14 billion US dollars. Khun Srivaddhanaprabha’s wealth was given as 4.96 billion US dollars. You’d get a few John McGinns for that. What Puel was doing at Leicester, even if he didn’t sell it very well, was breaking up the remains of Leicester’s title team and both promoting the club’s youth players and bringing some in. Ben Chilwell is an England international, James Maddison, Harvey Barnes and the Belgian on loan from Monaco, Youri Tielemans, are all talents to build on - plus all those family dollars. Rodgers has taken on captain Wes Morgan for another 12 months, giving him a one-year contract extension and retaining that dressing room link between the old and what’s to come.
“We’ve got a lot of young players who have so much potential and we’ve got so much experience,” says Morgan, who has won both the Championship and Premier League with Leicester.
“Now we can help the younger players to achieve their full potential.” Rodgers’ win ratio is good. Almost 45 per cent at Swansea in improving that club. He won 50 per cent of his Liverpool games and touched 70 per cent at Celtic.
Rodgers told Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha when he pitched himself for the job that it was very simple - he wanted to win as much as he could.
He wants to play attacking, aggressive football using the young players he has inherited. That’s a lot clearer than the Puel days.
“There are two things a player needs – purpose and clarity,” says Rodgers.
Puel failed on all fronts. He failed to inspire players or fans. He failed to pick teams capable of having a run in either the League Cup or FA Cup.
Neither Vardy nor goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel, influential men in the dressing room, could get on with him.
His slow possession football irked players and fans. It was boring and unsuccessful.
And if you wanted a fun night out, you wouldn’t drive round to Claude’s house and pick him up.
Now Brendan, he’d get the shades on, get the teeth sparkling and you’d be good to go.