For me Rodgers has to take the blame for the defeat.
No, I think the blame lies squarely and firmly on the shoulders of two central defenders and one or two midfielers who went missing. And I'm talking basics here, nothing clever or complicated, just players switching off.
Been saying all season long, how we've not got the players to pla the way that he wants and that we've been vulnerable to the counter attack because of it.
These are professional footballers, and I don't buy for a second that they don't know how to cope with the standard 'counter attack'. A tactic that's been employed by teams all over the world for decades. Against Villa, we could not defend - period.
Its either his stubborness or his naievety that is costing us in terms of points on the board.
Or too many players playing in key positions not pulling their weight, and failing to do the most basic of things, like tracking back and having a go at tackling.
When you only have one recognised striker and you are not scoring a lot of goals, you have to set up to make sure that you are strong at the back as that gives you the platform to build on.
But we are strong enough at the back, and we are more than equipped to deal with the way Villa came at us yesterday - what cost us was seasoned professionals letting themselves and everyone else down.
Yes its nice playing pretty football but if there's no end product with it, its a pointless exercise I'm afraid.
But it's a fantastic philosophy and foundation to build your club's dynasty on. The more we keep at it, the more second nature it will become, and the benefits will start to bear fruit. Like the gaffer said, we must believe in what we are trying to do here.
Give me 38 backs to the wall, defending like dogs of war 1-0 wins over a mid table finish playing as we are.
If we'd have cut out the nonsense at the back, we win that game 1-0 and everyone's happy. Thing is, we've never needed a 'backs to the wall' style of play, because our way of playing doesn't invite that sort of pressure on our defence anymore. We dominate other teams. When's the last time you saw us defending for our lives under the gaffer, with our backs against the wall, the way we did against AC Milan in Istanbul? Say what you like about how we play, but I've never seen us once being put to the sword. Maybe against Arsenal at home, but even that wasn't a torrent of goal mouth attacks, they just played us off the park. So as I said, yesterday was down to school boy errors and nothing to do with how we play as a team.
Ultimately I wouldn't like to see us become that kind of team long term but for a short term fix up to the transfer I'd have took it as its a needs must situation.
I say no need to change/panic and stick to our guns.
Been saying it for a while and I'll say it again, back to the drawing board Brendan.
Disagree for the reasons given above.