Brendan Rodgers, Liverpool manager is no longer. Rodgers was fired on Sunday after another disappointing result, a 1-1 draw with Everton in the Merseyside Derby. Liverpool’s ownership, the US-based Fenway Sports Group, decided that after last season’s failures and this season’s early struggles enough was enough, and they elected to cut their losses and let Rodgers go. That’s all well and good -- Rodgers certainly earned a healthy amount of criticism during his time at Liverpool -- but if FSG really want to return Liverpool to the pinnacle of English football, they might need to do a whole lot more than just change the man in charge of the squad.
Liverpool has big problems that a manager can’t solve
Rodgers may or may not have been a poor manager at Anfield, but the club’s issues go far beyond him.
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Make no mistake -- Rodgers certainly had his issues as the manager of Liverpool and a long string of bizarre tactical and personnel decisions cost his points during his three-plus years, but there were a number of other factors at play that cost Liverpool just as much, if not more. The way the team has handled both the acquisition and retention of key players has to raise massive red flags for the fan base, and could arguably be a much bigger problem for the club moving on down the line than anything Rodgers did or didn’t do as manager.
The first problem is Liverpool's so-called "transfer committee." While many managers in England have control of their own transfers, and many teams in Europe use a sporting director (sometimes called a director of football), Liverpool under FSG have instead used a group of people to make the club's transfer decisions. That group included Rodgers, club CEO Ian Ayre and other club chiefs, including scouting and financial types, meaning Rodgers was just one voice in a crowd when it came to deciding the makeup of his squad.
That's helped lead to some problematic situations where players brought in by the committee went under-utilized by Rodgers despite being better options than some of the players he was using, seemingly because he never wanted them in the first place. The shining example of this is Mamadou Sakho, who on talent is Liverpool's best central defender by quite some ways, but judging by how reluctant Rodgers was to utilize him, you'd think the Frenchman was their fourth best man in the middle.
It wasn't just Sakho, though. Mario Balotelli. Nuri Sahin. Fabio Borini. Luis Alberto. Lazar Markovic. Oussama Assaidi. Others, like Jonjo Shelvey, Daniel Agger and Suso, were players inherited by Rodgers who were forced out by their lack of use. While a lot of that is on Brendan Rodgers for not using them properly or often enough, it's also the responsibility of the committee for not having the following conversation:
“Hey, has anyone actually checked with Brenno to see what he thinks about this guy?”
“Oh, silly me, I clean forgot. Good to make sure we have the manager’s input on the players we sign.”
“Hah, yeah, that could have wound up being embarrassing. Good save, us!”
Instead, they seem to have had this one:
“Hey, has anyone actually checked with Brenno to see what he thinks about this guy?”
“Why on earth would we do that? This guy’s class, surely Mr. Shiny Teeth can figure out a way to use him.”
“Right, of course, how silly of me. Sign him up!”
Guess how that worked out.
This first problem also ties in closely with the second problem, and perhaps the much larger one: the way Liverpool and Fenway Sports Group value players. Not just in a “hey, we appreciate you and want to make sure you’re happy” way -- though Agger and Pepe Reina might have a few words to say about that -- but mostly in a purely financial sense.
Just look at how the Raheem Sterling situation was handled. The young English international winger came out of last season as arguably Liverpool’s best and most valuable attacker. He felt he had outperformed his current contract -- a fair assessment in all honesty -- so Sterling told his agents to get him the best deal possible and then stepped back from the situation entirely. While many fans have criticized Sterling heavily for his handling of his extension, you have to admire a 20-year-old for recognizing that he has smart representatives who are good at their jobs and just letting them do it. Most youngsters in his positions are cowed into taking a deal that’s better for the team than for them, so kudos to Raheem Sterling to doing what was best for Raheem Sterling.
The way the team has handled both the acquisition and retention of key players has to raise massive red flags for the fanbase
The problem, though, emerged when Liverpool presented an offer that, while a fairly healthy increase over what Sterling’s old contract paid, was by all reports nowhere near what Sterling’s agents had in mind for their client. They presented what they thought he should make, thinking Liverpool would negotiate. Instead, things started to break down. There was some negotiation, yes, but nothing productive by what few accounts have come out, with Liverpool apparently sticking pretty firmly to what they felt Sterling was worth.
That ultimately lead to the very public breakdown of the relationship between Liverpool and Sterling, and ultimately to Sterling wearing a Manchester City shirt -- while making the same money his agents thought he was worth. The near-£200,000 per week wages that Sterling is making in Manchester are astronomical to be sure, but based on what he’s already done in his career and appears to still have left to improve to, it’s hard to argue that he’s not worth it, or that at the very least that it’s a worthwhile financial gamble to make. Liverpool wouldn’t pull the trigger, though, because they are so set and so firm on their valuations of a player that their no-compromise stance hurts them more often than it helps them -- especially since it seems like they’re maybe valuing players differently than every other big team.
Just look at Liverpool’s frustrations on the transfer market over the last few years since that committee was put into place. Time after time after time, we hear about some big-name player or on-the-cusp star that Liverpool are negotiating to sign, a player that with the English TV money and the Liverpool name to throw around they could very easily afford and very believably acquire. But then the negotiations drag on. And on. And on. Eventually, we hear that talks fell apart because Liverpool wouldn’t meet the other team’s valuation of the player, and that the other team are frustrated and upset about how the negotiations were handled.
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Not every rumor we hear is true, and we can never fully trust anything that goes on during the transfer windows that doesn’t end with pen on paper and a player holding a new shirt at a press conference. But when you hear the same exact story enough times over enough years, a pattern starts to emerge and you realize that there’s a very serious problem on hand.
At it’s core, it looks almost as though Liverpool’s management is stuck back in 2008, the summer before their near-miss in the title race under Rafa Benitez. Back then, you could get a top-notch star for a £20 million transfer fee and maybe spend £100,000 per week in wages to sign him. Now, that same player is going for £50 million and gets nearly £200,000 per week, but Liverpool don’t seem to realize that.
“But wait,” you ask. “How could Liverpool’s management be stuck at 2008’s player valuations when their owners didn’t buy the team, their first team in the sport no less, until 2010?” Good question! That comes down to the man that they hired to run the team’s day-to-day operations, Ian Ayre, who heads the transfer committee and is someone you could definitely label as “old school” in terms of football executives.
Ayre also had a decidedly unimpressive record as a football executive -- leading a team in Huddersfield Town that hasn’t been in England’s top division since the 1970s -- before embarking on a career as a media executive. That maybe doesn’t scream out as the resume of the man you want leading a club that believes it’s still one of the biggest in the world.
No matter how you slice it, there’s a lot of improvement that needs to be made at Liverpool. Maybe Jürgen Klopp or whoever else replaces Rodgers can help Liverpool take the next step. Maybe he can’t. One thing looks certain: Liverpool’s next manager will be much more successful if the Reds manage to fix their other problems, too. It won’t be easy -- they have a lot of bad habits that need breaking -- but it can be done. For the sake of both the club and their fans, hopefully Liverpool can figure out how to cure their ills, and soon.
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