http://www.espnfc.com/club/liverpool/364/blog/post/2590296/liverpool-under-brendan-rodgers-wont-finish-fourBy Tony Evans
Liverpool's three-match winning streak came to an abrupt halt when West Ham convincingly defeated them 3-0 at Anfield.
It's hard to imagine a fanbase more hysterical than Liverpool's. The mood swings of those who profess allegiance to Anfield are bewildering. The 3-0 home defeat by West Ham United on Saturday caused an explosion of fury and finger-pointing after the positive reaction to the 0-0 draw away to Arsenal in the previous match.
The international break comes at a bad time for Brendan Rodgers. Many of his squad will be away, giving the manager less time to repair the damage of Saturday. For the fans, it will be a long, frenzied build-up to the next league game, Manchester United at Old Trafford.
Rodgers, 42, is a man under scrutiny. A mere 15 months ago, he was being compared by some to the late Bill Shankly, the great icon of the club, for leading a Premier League challenge that faltered in the final stages. The hubristic Rodgers often gives the impression that he expects to be mentioned in exalted company. Whether Shankly would enjoy the comparison can never be answered.
In the summer of last year, Luis Suarez left Anfield for Barcelona. Rodgers' genius seemed to walk out the door with the Uruguay forward. The fluidity of that Suarez-led side of 2013-14, which almost won the Premier League, has never been recaptured.
Last season, the highs became rarer, the lows more frequent. An underwhelming 13-game unbeaten run restored some optimism and Rodgers' bluster. However, after Manchester United crushed the belief with a 2-1 victory at Anfield in March, things unravelled. Now, four games into this season, Liverpool have racked up two unconvincing wins, a draw and an embarrassing defeat. They sit in sixth place in the table. On the evidence so far, sixth is about par for this team. Anyone expecting a top-four challenge -- the title is clearly a pipe dream -- is likely to be disappointed.
With Jürgen Klopp and Carlo Ancelotti sitting at home waiting for underperforming clubs to call, the "Rodgers Out" brigade are in full cry.
How culpable is the Liverpool manager for the club's lack of direction? He clearly has to take a large proportion of responsibility for the chaos on the pitch. His defenders look like strangers, his post-Suarez midfields seem to accentuate the negatives rather than the positives. Rodgers built his reputation on coaching abilities, but where is the pressing game that characterised his spell at Swansea City? He talked of "death by football" in 2012, but the incoherence of Liverpool's passing kills the team's forward momentum.
The problem is that Rodgers is only 50 percent responsible for the mess on the pitch. The mediocre performances are a symptom of wider issues behind the scenes.
Liverpool's deficiencies will not be solved by changing managers. There are structural issues at the club that need addressing first.
Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the owners, have done much good since taking over in 2010. They have brought a new level of professionalism to the marketing and business operations at Anfield. They looked at football with a fresh eye and brought new ideas.
Three years ago, FSG sacked manager Kenny Dalglish, another of the club's icons, after winning a trophy and embarked on a Year Zero policy. Rodgers was the face of this new age. The most crucial change, though, was in the area of player recruitment.
The owners bought into two ideas: that Liverpool should become the preferred destination for the world's young, emerging stars; and that Michael Edwards (the club's head of analysis) would use analytics to isolate this talent before anyone else spotted it. In essence, they thought they'd found a shortcut. Traditional football values were out, the visionaries were in. Scouts? Who needs them when you've got a laptop?
ESPNFC's Shaka Hislop reflects on his former club West Ham's first win at Anfield since 1963, leaving Brendan Rodgers with much to ponder.
Liverpool have targeted players who they believe are adaptable, men who can play across a number of positions. Emre Can could be the poster boy for this policy. He was a midfielder, we were told, who could play in the middle and across the back four. He can. Just not well enough to be convincing anywhere. Once, he might have been called a utility man, a handy reserve to be slotted into the team during times of crisis. Traditionally, logic says find a player who can operate in one position very well and worry about the rest later.
Can illustrates the lack of nous behind the scenes at Anfield. He has talent but he is not suited to the Premier League, where the "snap" to the ball is almost as important as what you do with it in possession. In England, you need to get to the tackle, to the ball, quickly. The German shows little ability to do that. An insider called him "a stroller." In the slower pace of Spain or Italy, or in international football, he will thrive. But not in the Premier League.
Rodgers has been presented with players he does not want nor trusts. In the early stages of last season he didn't play them. This caused Mike Gordon to step in.
Gordon is the second-biggest investor in FSG. He has taken a bigger role in running the club as John W. Henry, the principal owner, has pulled away. There is a reason for this: the owners are keen to monetize their investment in Liverpool. To get maximum price, the team needs to be in the Champions League. In a hurry to get there, Gordon has become hands-on. Effectively, he had acted like a director of football.
FSG, with Gordon as the point man, put heavy pressure on Rodgers to pick players he didn't fancy. Rodgers made the changes, introduced the 3-4-3 system and embarked on the 13-game unbeaten run. It papered over a chasm of cracks.
The owners seem to believe that Rodgers lacks an eye for the transfer market. They are probably right. He prefers British players. They do believe he can coach. The problem is that the people with most sway in recruitment can't pick a good player either -- at least not with any consistency.
Daniel Sturridge's return will give Liverpool more impetus. If Philippe Coutinho can impose himself regularly there are goals in the team. Rodgers will hope Roberto Firmino is more suited to English football than Lazar Markovic (who just left the club for Fenerbahce). Yet the squad has too many weak links: Mamadou Sakho, for example. It's hard to escape the feeling that there's enough dead wood at the Melwood training ground to fill a minibus
Year Zero has not worked. That approach rarely does. So what happens next?
Expect a season of hysteria and perceived underachievement at Anfield. Don't expect a new manager to come in with a magic formula to make Liverpool realistic title contenders. That's not going to happen.