Contentious question this, especially to Liverpool fans; has their club really improved since Brendan Rodgers left?
Because ours clearly has!
One school of thought says they have, that they’ve been transformed under Jürgen Klopp.
Another side of the argument is that in some ways they’ve gone forward but that the old frailties still remain.
Is Klopp a better manager?
He has a better pedigree, but that never tells the whole story.
Brendan almost achieved a miracle on Anfield. Until Klopp gets that close, or unless he achieves what Brendan couldn’t, the question is open.
Today Liverpool suffered a home defeat against Swansea in the EPL. They fought back from two goals down, but the issues that put them in that position came back to haunt them when they lost a third goal. That was too high a mountain to climb. They couldn’t rescue as much as a point.
When a similar thing happened to Brendan’s Celtic team earlier in the season, at Fir Park – going two down, coming back, losing the third – we went on to win.
Am I comparing Celtic and Liverpool and Swansea and Motherwell? Is it really that hard to do?
The two big clubs have resources that dwarf their smaller counterparts. It’s obvious which team of Liverpool and Swansea has the better players. The rest is about desire, about will and it’s also about the approach of the managers. Tactics change games. Top bosses win them.
I mention all this because this “Rodgers ruined Liverpool” nonsense if a favourite of some people in this country, who expect Klopp to easily eclipse what he did there. Brendan’s Liverpool team would almost certainly have won the EPL that season but for Gerrard’s howler against Palace and the shocking, cynical tactics we saw from Mourinho when his Chelsea side went to Anfield to put the final nails in the coffin. That’s what managers are paid to do, and on that night Brendan’s idealism crashed into the Portuguese’ pragmatism.
Did Brendan make a mistake?
No, he wanted to win the right way.
That’s never a mistake. But he will have learned from it nonetheless.
I like Klopp, and I enjoy watching his team. I also have a soft spot for Liverpool.
I wanted Brendan to do it that year, and the loss of Suarez in that summer meant the best chance he would get at it was gone. Klopp is the top drawer appointment the club needed to mount another offence on the EPL title but I don’t think it will succeed.
Certainly, Celtic are very fortunate that Rodgers didn’t win the title at Anfield. They would have tied him to a deal that would have kept him there for a decade or more, and they may well have gone from strength to strength on the back of it.
Those who say Brendan “failed” there, many of them have a different definition of the word to me and others are clearly at it and trying to blot his CV in some way. He’s proven at Celtic already what a good eye he has for players, what a fine tactician he is and how brilliantly he deals with players, and with the fans. Their loss is our gain.
I do wish them well, and I do wish Klopp all the best there. But I think the criticism Brendan gets from some of their fans is harsh and that the commentary he had to put up with in some sections of our media was seen through a very blue hue.
They ain’t sneering anymore, that’s for damned sure.