His first six months can almost be forgiven - any manager needs time to settle at a new club. The second half of his first season we saw some signs of good football and it was promising.
His second season was truly remarkable. We almost won the league playing champagne football. I refuse to believe that we were a one man team in Suarez. He obviously helped, but football is a team game. In particular, Gerrard, Sturridge, Sterling, Coutinho, Flanno all had superb seasons as well.
His third season was a disaster. Embarrassed in Europe. Finishing 6th. Getting dicked by sh*te like Stoke 6-1. Simply not good enough. As frustrated as I was, I gave BR the benefit of the doubt though. He lost his star man Suarez. Sturridge was injured all season. Gerrard noticeably lost his legs. It was rumoured some of our transfers weren't 'Brendan signings' - Balotelli. A lot of new players needed time to bed into the team & gel with our other players.
I've always said this season will be the one where I will judge him properly. I've always stated I think BR is a top manager based on what I saw in his second season. I was glad FSG backed him this season. So should we succeed then great, obviously. Should we fail then its time up Brendan I'm afraid.
What has annoyed me this summer though is bearing in mind how much we struggled to attack teams last season playing with the one striker, what does Brendan go and do? Spend big money on Benteke and start the season playing him alone upfront.
Agree with pretty much all of this.
Bringing out the busted record, but imo goals were the biggest problem last season. We've now moved on the 3 amigos, but if I'd the guts of 60mill would I have bought Benteke and Firmino? - probably not.
Firmino is an expensive punt - risky for a manager for which this season is so important - I hope he works out, I really do, but not seeing enough from him at the moment. But let's see.
And Benteke - at the time wondered how he'd slot into the teams play... but looking at how we've started playing this season, BR's changed things up a bit in order to suit him. I'm a bit disappointed, one of the things I liked most about BR was the style of football we played. I didn't blame the style of play for the poor show last season, moreso the stuffed animals we had trying to score. Defense needed improving too, but the goal drought took the biscuit.
Ings and Origi, have said all along, not sure they are top4 material, but again will see. At least we have new options.
We've improved the personnel in defense, FBs are deffo better. But up front - how could they be worse than last year?!?! I'm not as pessimistic as most, we have different options, BR needs to find a balance, and Studge could be back soon. In loosing SG and Sterling, we've lost goals. So we need the new guys not just to make up for that gap, but well exceed it if we are to improve on last year. I'd have done more to try keep Sterling, but he was intent on burning his bridges. Unfortunately Ibe is not nearly as effective. SG was a big personality to loose, as well as his goals/assists.
I'm not sure we have enough of the x-factor in midfield anymore - a lot of solid enough players, but too often now looking to Cou to make something happen.
But it's early days in the season, we've same pts as Utd and Arse, am not throwing the toys out just yet. BR deffo needs to change things a bit as we're not creating enough chances, and though patience/time isn't really on his side, still think if we can get the guys up front scoring, we can kick on. If they continue the current scoring rate, could be a tough Xmas/new year. The game against Utd will be very interesting ...