Tag: brendan rodgers

What did Brendan in? Priors? The schedule? Or the cups?

So Brendan Rodgers has been sacked as Liverpool manager, after what seems like an indifferent start to the season. The club is in tenth position with 12 points after 8 games, with commentators noting that “at the same stage last season” the club had 13 points from 8 games.

Yet, the notion of “same stage last season” is wrong, as I’d explained in this post I’d written two years back (during Liverpool’s last title chase), since the fixture list changes year on year. As I’ve explained in that post, a better way to compare a club’s performance is to compare its performance this season to corresponding fixtures from last season.

Looking at this season from such a lens (and ignoring games against promoted teams Bournemouth and Norwich), this is what Liverpool’s season so far looks like:

Fixture This season Last season Difference
Stoke away Win Loss +3
Arsenal away Draw Loss +1
West Ham home Loss Win -3
Manchester United Away Loss Loss 0
Aston Villa home Win Loss +3
Everton away Draw Draw 0

In other words, compared to similar fixtures last season, Liverpool is on a +4 (winning two games and drawing one among last season’s losses, and losing one of last season’s wins). In fact, if we look at the fixture schedule, apart from the games against promoted sides (which Liverpool didn’t do wonderfully in, scraping through with an offside goal against Bournemouth and drawing with Norwich), Liverpool have had a pretty tough start to the season in terms of fixtures.

So the question is what led to Brendan Rodgers’ dismissal last night? Surely it can’t be the draw at Everton, for that has become a “standard result” of late? Maybe the fact that Liverpool didn’t win allowed the management to make the announcement last evening, but surely the decision had been made earlier?

The first possibility is that the priors had been stacked against Rodgers. Considering the indifferent performance last season in both the league (except for one brilliant spell) and the cups, and the sacking of Rodgers’ assistants, it’s likely that the benefit of the doubt before the season began was against Rodgers, and only a spectacular performance could have turned it around.

The other possibility is indifferent performances in the cups, with 1-1 home draws against FC Sion and Carlisle United being the absolute low points, in fixtures that one would have expected Liverpool to win easily (albeit with weakened sides). While Liverpool is yet to exit any cup, indifferent performances so far meant that there hasn’t been much improvement in the squad since last season.

Leaving aside a “bad prior” at the beginning of the season and cup performances (no pun intended), there’s no other reason to sack Rodgers. As my analysis above shows, his performance in the league hasn’t been particularly bad in terms of results, with only the defeat to West Ham and possibly the draw to Norwich being bad. If Fenway Sports Group (the owners of Liverpool FC) have indeed sacked Rodgers on his league performance, it simply means that they don’t fully get the “Moneyball” philosophy that they supposedly follow, and could do with some quant consulting.

And if they’re reading this, they should know who to approach for such consulting services!

Rodgers and the Ranatunga Principle

It was a wonderful display of the “Ranatunga Principle” by Brendan Rodgers last night, when he fielded what was effectively a second string Liverpool team at Real Madrid. That they lost only 1-0 shows that it wasn’t that bad a ploy, especially given the more important features coming up ahead.

Firstly, Liverpool have not given up on the Champions League. They have simply prioritised. The group they are is a rather weird one – where one team is significantly superior to the others which are approximately at the same level. It is not inconceivable at all that Real Madrid will win all their six games and get 18 points.

Before the game at Anfield two weeks back the degree of Real Madrid’s superiority over Liverpool wasn’t yet fully established and Rodgers smelt the chances of handing out an upset at home and fielded his strongest team. It backfired spectacularly as Real Madrid hammered Liverpool. The more important result of the night, though, was the unfancied but promising Ludogorets beating Basel at home. It was that result that allowed Rodgers to do what he did yesterday.

Real Madrid’s dominance means that Liverpool, Basel and Ludogorets are effectively playing a 3-team mini league the winner of which will go through to the knockouts (of course the extents of their respective thrashings by Real Madrid will matter if it comes down to goal difference). So far, in this mini group, all games have gone to the “home team”.

Liverpool’s last two games of the season see them take on Basel at home and Ludogorets away, and if they win both of them, they are through to the knockouts. Even if Liverpool had come away with a point in last night’s game, this equation would not have changed significantly (three points last night would have helped but the game at Anfield showed how impossible that was).

Liverpool have had a rather busy fixture list in the last 3 weeks. In the space of three weeks they’ve had to play QPR, Real Madrid, Hull, Swansea, Newcastle, Real Madrid and Chelsea – not an easy fixture list at all, and Liverpool’s poor form in the league has made them take even the Capital One Cup seriously, meaning not too many players could be rotated for the game against Swansea. In the loss to Newcastle on Saturday, the fatigue was evident as Liverpool’s attackers were all anonymous. A rest day was thus in order.

This, combined with the weird nature of the Champions League group that Liverpool are in meant that last night’s game was the “least important” for Liverpool in the current run of fixtures, which permitted them to rest key players and give a run out to the perennial subs. And on the evidence of the 1-0 defeat, it seems it didn’t go too badly. Now if only Liverpool can make use of this rest and beat Chelsea on the weekend!

Postscript

Gerrard came on around three-quarters into last night’s game. I have come to believe that is his best position for the team now. Come on as an “impact substitute” in the second half and play in the “old Gerrard role”.

Dear Brendan Rodgers

I’m beginning to write this at 64 minutes played in Basel-Liverpool. Basel is leading 1-0, not undeservedly. Liverpool have so far been extremely poor, and deserve to have gone behind. We started well in the first ten minutes, and it seemed like an eminently winnable game, but after the tactical substitution made by Paulo Sousa, we’ve never been in it. Some pertinent observations so far.

  • I understand our need to have wanted to buy a world class striker to replace Luis Suarez. One might have thought the purchase of Mario Balotelli, no doubt a world class striker, was vindicated when Sturridge got injured. But Balotelli just doesn’t suit Liverpool. He is too slow. He just doesn’t move.

    I don’t have the statistics (football statistics are extremely hard to come by, unlike cricket), but we need to look at the number of off sides conceded between last season and this one. Balotelli gives away too many of those. Most of them come about because of his slow movement

  • Raheem Sterling was due a poor game, and we are seeing one now. His touch has been poor all day today. In his defence, he was due one bad day. Except that you had no clue how to handle that.
  • Sousa saw the weakness in Liverpool’s left back zone with Jose Enrique, and thus decided to double up on his right wingers to attack that zone. Now, this ended up pushing Raheem Sterling back, and he has had more defending to do than what he thought would have been his share. That is understandable.

    But then you need to realise that when you double up on one zone, you end up weakening yourself in another. Basel have played almost the entire night without a left back, or anyone on their left side apart from their left winger Hamoudi. They are playing a very lopsided 3-4-3. And you have done nothing so far to exploit that. Markovic has played all evening, but hasn’t been leading attacks down that wing as would be optimal. Manquillo has been leading the attacks there, with Markovic drifting inside. What we needed was Manquillo and Markovic doubling down in that unguarded zone. Haven’t seen that at all.

  • Then there is the centre of midfield. The two of Gerrard and Henderson isn’t simply working. Even when playing out from the back, they have consistently been stopped at the halfway line. Ok there is Gerrard and Henderson, but they haven’t had a forward pass to play! Coutinho has been lost in the crowd. And Balotelli, unlike Suarez doesn’t come back to pick the ball there. So how do we go forward from there?
  • Liverpool simply haven’t been picking up the second balls in the middle of the pitch today. They’ve been thoroughly outnumbered in that area – with only Gerrard and Henderson against three central midfielders of Basel. When we demolished Tottenham last December, the key was in our picking up all these second balls and keeping attacks flowing. That’s been sorely missing all day today.
  • Lallana’s introduction was good, but it should have been Sterling who should have come off. He is evidently extremely tired, and nowhere close to his best. We can see that in the two clear chances he’s missed since I started writing this post.
  • Markovic shouldn’t start. He’s not enough of a lone ranger for that. With his pace you should look to him as a super-sub. A plan B to be introduced along with Balotelli and Lambert. I just don’t see him gelling with the rest of the team. And please – someone along with Gerrard and Henderson there. I know Allen and Can are injured, but even someone like Lallana along with Gerrard and Henderson would help. The World Cup showed us how those two together in a 4-2-3-1 are ineffectual. You haven’t learnt from that.
  • It’s been a scrappy game so far, but a great tactical battle. There was one big question that Sousa posed – by putting on Gonzales for Safari, but you have thoroughly failed to answer that. After two moves by Gonzales, you went into a shell, and didn’t attack enough in the newly posed gap. I’m absolutely disappointed with you for that. I expected you of all people to be more tactically sound.
  • The best formation Liverpool has played with the available players this season was in the second half against Everton. With Gerrard-Henderson-Lallana-Coutinho-(not out of form)Sterling-Balotelli. You never even tried that in this game, while I expected you to start that way.
  • The game has ended as I finish this post. We have lost. Deservedly.
  • Maybe a you could use the services of a statistical analyst to help you figure out the gaps in play and how Liverpool should structure themselves given the available players. You can leave me a comment if you think you need one (you surely do!), and I’ll come over to help!