Liverpool: 8 Things Brendan Rodgers Must Do To Improve In 2015
5. Be Less Stubborn
All great managers have total belief in their ability, but they are also intelligent enough to realise that when things arent going well, you have to go with a Plan B. Rodgers clearly has a huge amount of confidence in his own talents, and genuinely believes he is the right man for the job, but he must stop refusing to change his beliefs even when the team is losing consistently. The Northern Irishman loves his team to pass the ball out from the back and believes strongly in death by football, rather than playing a more direct style. Thats all well and good, but when you have people as inept as Simon Mignolet, Martin Skrtel and Lovren with the ball at their feet, who keep losing possession and putting each other under pressure, its time to change things up a bit. Similarly, what is the point of looking for tricky, incisive passes into space for Rickie Lmabert? The Englishman is a targetman, and occasional the ball should be played long in order to play to his strengths. Its almost as if Rodgers believes that eventually it will come good, and that Mignolet, Skrtel and Lovren will turn into Manuel Neuer, Gerard Pique and Thiago Silva, playing the ball out from the back with consummate ease. It wont. He has to accept his system doesnt always work, and stop being so stubborn.
