RODGERED REDS BOSS BRENDAN HAS FIGHT ON HANDS… ALREADY
THREE Premier League games into his tenure as Liverpool manager and the gloves are off already for Brendan Rodgers. Reading between the lines after the amazing events of the last few days at Anfield, one thing is clear: It’s owners v manager all over again in the Liverpool 4 postcode.
The men with the keys to Anfield – John Henry and Tom Werner – aren’t the reincarnation of the dopey duo Tom Hicks and George Gillett. They’re not going to guide the Kop to financial ruin.
But what is clear is that two years after admitting they know nothing about football, they now seem to think they know the lot.
Rodgers wasn’t backwards in coming forwards when telling the world he expected some goalscoring additions to his squad before the transfer window closed.
“I am hoping for one or two. We need one, that’s for sure,” he said last week.
He got minus one – Andy Carroll out, no-one in. He was fuming. And why wouldn’t he be? If it all goes tits up at Anfield – as well it might – it will be the Ulsterman’s head on the chopping block.
Liverpool managed just 47 goals in 38 league games last season. Champions Man City scored 93.
This season nothing has changed for the Merseysiders. They’re yet to score a goal from open play in the Premier League. odgers’ window pain has left him relying on the erratic finishing of Luis Suarez, the unconvincing toil of 21-year-old Fabio Borini and the teenage talent of Raheem Sterling.
Clint Dempsey – who rattled in 23 goals in 45 appearances for Fulham last season – was over-
Rlooked in favour of unnecessary penny pinching from Henry. A mere million cost Liverpool his services.
Henry is obsessed with stats and has created a “transfer board” at Anfield. Anyone Rodgers wants to buy has the rule run over him by a bunch of number crunchers.
Henry wants kids, under-24s, to be the darlings of the Kop because, in his view, they are easier to sell on if it all goes wrong. At 29, Dempsey didn’t fit the profile. Instead, he’s boosted Spurs’ squad.
Getting value and spending smart on young hopefuls is the spin from the powermen at Anfield; the line that ran through Henry’s open letter to fans this week.
That letter was Henry’s counter punch to Rodgers’ initial jab, but Reds supporters aren’t swallowing the sugar pill. Rightly so.
The baseball man’s scribblings explained little. If the Yanks want success for Liverpool why leave the squad short on firepower? Why shoot yourself in the foot over a million quid? o wonder Rodgers looked like he was going to burst a blood vessel after losing to Arsenal. As plans go, Henry’s (above) has got make-it-up-as-you-go-along written all over it.
When his letter effortlessly fused veiled criticisms of the manager (“Our ambitions do not lie in cementing a mid-table place with expensive, short-term quick fixes”) with complete bollocks (“Most of all, we want to win. That ambition drives every decision”) it was maybe a move best avoided.
If it was a fight John Henry was after, he’s lost round one.
Watch this space though, this could run and run…
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