Dalglish's spending spree is really killing us. It feels like Rodgers is being made to pay a heavier price for it than he should.
FSG seem to refuse to see their part in it. For example, they allowed a caretaker manager to decide how the Torres money was spent AND in the last few hours of the January window.
THEY chose Dalglish and allowed the different sums of money to be spent on the various players. In a normal setup the board will stay decide the value they place on a player and the manager has to work within and accept that valuation.
Their lack of knowledge is no excuse. They didn't suddenly realise in January 2011 they didn't know enough, they knew from before they bought the club, but didn't equip themselves with the relevant team around them to make up for that lack of knowledge.
They obviously didn't know the criteria required for the CEO/MD position otherwise they wouldn't have 'settled for' Ayre.
So back to Rodgers. Carroll didn't suit, that's Rodgers call. Just because the previous manager paid £35M for him is meaningless within the structure of a football team.
They had to ensure that funds were available for him to make some fundamental changes. He can do some wage bill trimming naturally through getting rid of players deemed surplus anyway.
They also chose to get rid of Dalglish after one season, instead of giving him a another season to get his players firing as a team. This Summer could have been Dalglish's penance, clearing out the surplus, getting down the wage bill he helped swell.
Instead, all this has been put on Rodgers' shoulders with little room for him to manoeuvre in terms of shaping the team the way he needed to.
So now we're stuck someway in between Dalglish's team and the basic structure of a team the way Rodgers wants it.
I think what he needs to do is understand that he can't change both the system and the players all in one season over two (possibly) windows.
Aim to get the team back to playing the way they were in Dalglish's half season. They showed they could and whilst some players have changed the bulk are still there. That is an achievable target to start with. Then as other players are sold to be replaced with the type Rodgers wants the transition moves on further.
He should have aimed for a process of evolution in the way we played, the rate of which is determined by the purchases and sales he can make in any given window.
Hopefully he'll re-evaluate and make the neccessary changes to get the season going and not be too proud to see it is the thing that is necessary. It's not about being right or wrong in principal or theory, but about what's right for the team and club.
Now that's a joy to read and also comforting. I do realise I so want us to realise our potential as a club I seem to constantly forget how much work there is still to be done. I do think it would help Brendan's case if he could spell out his goal for this season in qualitative rather than quantitative terms.
Also Tes, you're dead right they made the calls but we also need to remember the context in which they were made. They took over a club in free fall with fans demonstrating every game. Appointing Kenny never really was a choice they made freely from an informed position but were more or less forced to in order to appease the fanbase. Next, Torres wants to leave. I always thought paying 35 million was crazy but I have also always respected the decisiveness with which he was brought in - LFC will not be a selling club!
Where I do think they got it wrong tho, was appointing Kenny on a permanent basis. The signs were there already during that half season he'd been out of the game too long and we seem not to remember our defeats to Blackpool, WBA and others where we came up emptyhanded and no answers when questions were being asked.
What bothers and makes me sick of worry now is that the transition of the squad and the club will be put on hold until the end of season. True, we may get a striker in, in January but I fear this season will be over and what remains will be a transporting distance till the start of the next season.
The good thing about the debacle last week, if there's any at all, is that the consequences of the ineffectiveness that seem to guide this club will become clear in the coming months and that radical changes for how this club operates both off and on the pitch will have to be made. I'm not talking about sacking this or that person but rather taking a hard look in the mirror, grow a pair and come out more determined. It seems by each month that goes by that this search for the "Liverpool Way" has more to do with off-pitch issues than purely footy matters.
Given the extremly unlucky fixture list, the dysfunction and lack of internal communication and an extremly thin squad I can see us in the bottom 7 come Christmas. I know it may sound a tad negative, but I honestly believe it'll get worse before it gets better and my goal now would be set to a top half finish. That would, given the circumstances, be an achievement of sorts.
