10 Biggest Brendan Rodgers Mistakes As Liverpool Manager

5. Putting Players In The Wrong Positions

James Milner will presumably fill Gerrad's role of an older captain the younger players look up to, and Rodgers has already gilded the lily by promising the central midfielding position he prefers, instead of the jack-of-all-trades Pellegrini tried to make Milner into at Man City. Which is a refreshing change of pace from Rodgers' usual approach. Perhaps he's a sort of mad genius, or idiot savant, and the results are yet to have flourished. More likely is that Rodgers is just an idiot, and his insistence on playing his squad in positions entirely unsuited to their style of play is just the result of an ignorance and stubbornness about changing things once he's made a decision. Coutinho actually deserves extra credit for scoring so often when he wasn't up front. Ibe and Markovic have been played as wing backs, for reasons that apparently make sense to Rodgers and nobody else. Sterling no doubt found it easier to leave when his gaffer shoved him into a wing-back position. Nuri Sahin said he failed at the team because he was played out of position.