' Brendan Rodgers '

Many Liverpool fans are already calling for his head

Brendan Rodgers' three years as Liverpool manager reviewed

By Richard Morgan

Monday 1st June 2015

Brendan Rodgers took over at Anfield on June 1 2012

Brendan Rodgers was appointed Liverpool manager three years ago today, but how has the Northern Irishman’s time in charge at Anfield gone?

Rodgers replaced previous boss Kenny Dalglish on June 1 2012 and with the club’s American owners Fenway Sports Group due on Merseyside this week to review how the Reds performed last season, we assess his three years at the helm…

PLAYERS BOUGHT

2012
Fabio Borini (Roma, £10.4m), Joe Allen (Swansea City, £15m), Oussama Assaidi (Heerenveen, £3m), Nuri Sahin (Real Madrid, loan), Samed Yesil (Bayer Leverkusen, £1m)

2013
Daniel Sturridge (Chelsea, £12m), Philippe Coutinho (Inter Milan, £8.5m), Luis Alberto (Sevilla, £6.8m), Iago Aspas (Celta Vigo, £7m), Simon Mignolet (Sunderland, £9m), Kolo Toure (free), Aly Cissokho (Valencia, loan), Mamadou Sakho (Paris Saint-Germain, £15m), Tiago Ilori (Sporting Lisbon, £7m), Victor Moses (Chelsea, loan)

2014
Rickie Lambert (Southampton, £4.5m), Adam Lallana (Southampton, £25m), Emre Can (Bayer Leverkusen, £9.75m), Lazar Markovic (Benfica, £19.8m), Dejan Lovren (Southampton, £20m), Divick Origi (Lille, £9.8m), Javier Manquillo (Atletico Madrid, loan), Alberto Moreno (Sevilla, £12m), Mario Balotelli (AC Milan, £16m)

*24 players bought for £211.55m

Hits

Philippe Coutinho

Coutinho has been a revelation since signing from Inter Milan for just £8.5m in January 2013, his arrival a major coup for Rodgers just a few months into his tenure at Anfield.

Philippe Coutinho has proved a huge success since arriving from Inter in January 2013

In fact, the Brazilian is now considered to be the club’s most important player after another impressive campaign on Merseyside, culminating in the 22-year-old being voted into the PFA Team of the Year and winning the Reds’ Player of the Year award.

Daniel Sturridge

Despite Sturridge’s ongoing struggles with injury since joining Liverpool from Chelsea in January 2013, the striker has still managed to score an impressive 41 goals in just 67 matches in all competitions for the club.

And given the England international cost the Reds only £12m, his purchase still represents a brilliant piece of transfer business by Rodgers.

Misses

Mario Balotelli

Whether Balotelli’s signing was Rodgers’s idea or not, the controversial forward has nonetheless proved to be an unmitigated disaster since arriving at Anfield from AC Milan in August for £16m.

Mario Balotelli has managed just one Premier League goal since signing from Milan

And with just one Premier League goal to his name all season long, the Italian could now be on his way out of the club less than a year after joining the Reds, although his agent Mino Raiola insists Balotelli will stay.

Dejan Lovren

From the moment last August when Rodgers claimed Lovren was “what I've been looking for since Jamie Carragher left”, question marks have been raised about the wisdom of spending £20m to lure the centre-back from Southampton.

Lovren’s forgettable debut campaign at Anfield was best summed up when the Croatian skied his spot-kick over the bar to hand Besiktas victory in a penalty shootout in their Europa League round-of-32 tie in Istanbul last February.



PLAYERS SOLD

2012
Fabio Aurelio (free), David Amoo (free), Stephen Darby (free), Dirk Kuyt (Fenerbahce, £1m), Maxi Rodriguez (Newell's Old Boys, undisclosed), Alberto Aquilani (Fiorentina, £7m), Craig Bellamy (Cardiff City, undisclosed), Charlie Adam (Stoke City, 5m), Nathan Eccleston (Blackpool, unknown)

2013
Joe Cole (West Ham United, free), Nuri Sahin (Real Madrid, end of loan), Alexander Doni (Botafogo, free), Peter Gulacsi (Red Bull Salzburg, free), Andy Carroll (West Ham United, £15m), Jonjo Shelvey (Swansea City, £6m), Jay Spearing (Bolton Wanderers, £1.7m), Stewart Downing (West Ham United, £6m), Dani Pacheco (Alcorcon, free)

2014
Adam Morgan (Yeovil Town, undisclosed), Luis Suarez (Barcelona, £75m), Conor Coady (Huddersfield Town, £500,000), Pepe Reina (Bayern Munich, £2m), Martin Kelly (Crystal Palace, £1.5m), Kristoffer Peterson (Utrecht, undisclosed), Jack Robinson (Queens Park Rangers, £1m), Daniel Agger (Brondby, £3m)

2015
Oussama Assaidi (Al Ahli, £4.7m), Suso (AC Milan, undisclosed)

*28 players sold for £129.4m

Good business

Luis Suarez

With Suarez again making the wrong kind of headlines after biting Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini at last summer’s World Cup, and having also expressed his desire to leave Anfield, Rodgers and the club did well to recoup £75m for a player Liverpool had bought for £22.8m in January 2011.

However, the problems arose when the Northern Irishman then came to spending that money trying to replace the brilliant forward.

Bad business

Daniel Agger

Rodgers and Agger fell out during the 2013/14 season, despite the Liverpool manager making the Dane the club’s vice-captain at the start of that campaign.

Liverpool have missed influential defender Daniel Agger since the Dane was sold back to Bronby last summer
Liverpool have missed influential defender Daniel Agger since the Dane was sold back to Bronby last summer
As a result, Agger was sold back to Bronby last August for just £3m, despite the Reds having rejected big-money offers for the centre-back in the past, with the defence badly missing his presence at the back last season as they conceded 48 Premier League goals.

A TROPHYLESS THREE YEARS

Rodgers has failed to win a trophy in his three years in charge at Anfield

Rodgers’s time in charge at Liverpool has been marked by his failure to win a trophy, making him the first Liverpool manager not to claim any silverware in his first three years at Anfield since the 1950s.

The closest Rodgers came to ending that particular drought was in the 2013/14 Premier League campaign, when the Reds needed seven points from their final three games to win the title before falling at the final hurdle.

Meanwhile, last season Liverpool made it to the semi-finals of both domestic cup competitions, only to once again fail to take that final step to glory.

PREMIER AMBITIONS

Liverpool's league record since 2012 shows their struggle to maintain a title race
Liverpool's league record since 2012 shows their struggle to maintain a title race
Rodgers has managed Liverpool in 114 Premier League matches since replacing Dalglish at Anfield on June 1 2012, winning 60 (52.65 per cent) and losing just 27 (23.7 per cent), the sixth and fifth best records respectively in the top flight in that time.

Under Rodgers’ stewardship the Reds have also scored 224 goals (1.96 goals per game) and conceded 141 (1.2 goals per game), ranking them second and seventh respectively in the league during that three-year period.


OVERALL NUMBERS


Liverpool have won twice as many games as they've lost under Rodgers

In total, Rodgers has led Liverpool in 155 games in all competitions during the last three years, being victorious in 80 of those fixtures to give the Northern Irishman an overall win percentage of 52 during his time at the helm.

Rodgers has also managed to oversee the scoring of 282 goals at a rate of 1.8 goals per match, making the last three years a goal-laden time at Anfield, especially given the Reds have also let in an alarming 188 goals during that time.

So far one word: Failure.

Joker and a former Jack too. No love for the big nosed c**t to be honest.

Cringed like f**k when those Ancelotti photos came out too, what a prick!

He's done a good job there and Liverpool fans are deluded. Losing Suarez was like losing a lung for Liverpool. He was a player of a calibre they were never going to replace. Their fans need to get real because Suarez was helping an average club play at an above average level. He could influence and change games that much. Having said that, I don't think they should not take klopp on if he is Willing to manage for the right money.

He's done a good job there and Liverpool fans are deluded. Losing Suarez was like losing a lung for Liverpool. He was a player of a calibre they were never going to replace. Their fans need to get real because Suarez was helping an average club play at an above average level. He could influence and change games that much. Having said that, I don't think they should not take klopp on if he is Willing to manage for the right money.

Tend to agree with the whole of that post!

Never liked him and hope he fails.

He's done a good job there and Liverpool fans are deluded. Losing Suarez was like losing a lung for Liverpool. He was a player of a calibre they were never going to replace. Their fans need to get real because Suarez was helping an average club play at an above average level. He could influence and change games that much. Having said that, I don't think they should not take klopp on if he is Willing to manage for the right money.

Completely agree. I also thought the Gerrard contract situation was odd and his departure is the loss of a real talisman player. I have a feeling that tomorrows meeting with Rogers and Werner maybe part of a stage managed golden handshake that was planned months ago. We'll see I guess. A main componenent of elite management is unfortunately managing the billionaires and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

To many poor signings. If Klopp want's the job get him in and hand Brendan his P45.

Brendan Rodgers will survive as Liverpool manager only if he accepts the transfer policy implemented by the club's owners. (Daily Mirror)

Brendan Rodgers will survive as Liverpool manager only if he accepts the transfer policy implemented by the club's owners. (Daily Mirror)

What transfer policy is that? Don't spend money wrecklessly like a tw*t?

He's already splashing out £12m on a player whose contract runs out in June in Danny Ings allegedly. I know that gives them priority over other clubs but this isn't a world class striker we're talking about.

I don't have a lot of time for Liverpool fans so I don't mind seeing Rodgers waste over £200m. Most managers would have spent that money more wisely. He messed up last summer and, in my opinion, to a degree that he should lose his job. He blamed injuries on poor form but if he had spent the £100m that summer correctly then he wouldn't have had such a lack of depth to his squad.