Should Brendan Rodgers be under-pressure?

Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers looks to be under-pressure after the Reds suffered their fourth top-flight defeat of the season at Newcastle

There seems to be a familiar theme about Liverpool’s recent league games, that theme is disappointment.

Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at in-form Newcastle left the Reds 12 points behind Premier League leaders Chelsea in the table.

Brendan Rodgers team set out this season hoping to challenge for the title, after finishing a very creditable second last season.

They were always going to find it difficult after Chelsea’s shrewd summer recruitment drive, amongst other factors.

Opportunity

The loss of Luis Suarez was a massive one, but that particular cloud had a very tasty silver lining of £75million in the clubs coffers. That gave Reds boss Brendan Rodgers the chance to massively improve his squad.

The former-Swansea boss did attempt to strengthen his squad, but it seems he did not invest the money wisely, whilst other clubs picked-up players of better quality and more potential.

The men from Merseyside ended-up with a lot of new players, whose ability has not yet been proven. The cost of those players totalled over £100million. At the moment those players have failed to improve the Liverpool team and are not looking very good value for money.

The Reds will be looking at the likes of Southampton and West Ham, who are regarded as much smaller clubs and wonder how they have made such shrewd summer signings.

Maybe the Reds should have raided the Saints for their scouts, rather than half of last season’s squad, as the team from the south coast currently sit second in the Premier League table.

In truth Brendan Rodgers record in the transfer market since joining the Reds is a poor one. Only Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho could be considered successful signings and even the latter has failed to find form this season.

Questions

For the first time in Brendan Rodgers reign as Liverpool boss real questions are being asked about whether he is the right man to revive the clubs fortunes, despite last season’s tilt at the Premier League title.

The former-Swansea boss was heavily praised for last season’s brave challenge for the title. The Reds played some very attractive football, which is Rodgers philosophy, but they also conceded a lot of goals.

Rodgers has always talked a good game and his football ideology was on full display at Swansea and at Anfield, especially last season. Rodgers is obviously a student of the game, but his report card so far this season would read must do better in practical.

It is admirable that Rodgers has such a clear philosophy. It is good for the Premier League to have managers with such clear opinions on how they want their team to play.

Inflexible

Rodgers ideas of attacking, passing football are still admirable, despite his team performing poorly while playing his preferred style. Rodgers style of play is very attractive and can produce good results when the team is playing well and confidence is high.

However, when Rodgers has had to adapt his style of play and find a plan b his team have struggled and not pick-up the results required.

No plan b means that if his team are not playing well, which they are not at the moment, then he looks like a novice boss, instead of the top Premier League boss he is supposed to be.

Having a football philosophy is fine, but great bosses usually have a plan b and know when to put it into action. Rodgers needs to be more flexible if he is ever to become a truly top boss and Liverpool is going to be a great team under his stewardship.

Rodgers seems to have the football knowledge to be successful, but he needs to be less rigid in his thinking, or fail at the top level.

At the moment Rodgers team looks impotent in attack and the former-Swansea boss does not seem to know how to change the situation.

Defence

Last season for all the energy and verve of the Reds attack, their defence had more holes than sieve, conceding 50 top-flight goals. Rodgers attempted to remedy the problem by bringing in young full-backs Alberto Moreno and Javier Manquillo, as well as Croatian centre-back Dejan Lovren.

All three have looked suspect at times this season, with Moreno particularly making individual mistakes that have cost the Reds. Lovren has not looked as solid for Liverpool as he did do for Southampton.

Lovren and centre-back partner Martin Skrtel obviously do not buy into Rodgers philosophy of passing football, as both were guilty of aiming balls forward to nobody in particular against Newcastle.

Early

Football is a fickle game and everybody involved in the game are fickle with it. Liverpool’s season may have started off poorly, but it is still early in the campaign. The Reds face a daunting trip to European champions Real Madrid on Tuesday night, which Rodgers could do without at the moment.

However, even if the Reds are defeated at the Bernabeu they will still be in with a chance of qualifying for the last 16. The inconsistent nature of many of their top-flight rivals this season means that the men from Merseyside are just three points away from the top four.

All is not lost just yet for Liverpool, but if they are to finish in a top four position this season then boss Brendan Rodgers needs to find a way to turnaround their fortunes and quickly before their season does collapses completely.

Should Brendan Rodgers be under-pressure?