Brendan Rodgers admitted that he thought his Liverpool career as manager was coming to an end after the Reds lost to Crystal Palace back in November. That 1-3 result had left the team 12th in the table on 14 points and, the Northern Irishman made the frank admission that he feared for his future, but continued to devise a new strategy to get the club back to winning ways. The turnaround has come at the right time for the club with top 4 in their sights as Liverpool have managed to take an impressive 29 points from the past 33 available. Only Wolfsburg in the top 5 European Leagues, have a better points per game ratio in 2015.
a After that Palace game I felt that it doesna t matter how much support you have, the team is not functioning and it could not go on really,a the Liverpool manager says. a But I certainly wasna t going to roll over and die. I will always fight for my life. I love it here and I want to be successful here,” said Rodgers
a I understood the situation. My experience at Reading told me that. Thata s what I learned from my sacking there. I went in to Reading with the full backing of the chairman, who was great to me, and I got 20 games. Even though it was a three-year project and they wanted me there and I was the guy who knew the club more than anyone, I got the sack after 20 games. Funnily enough it had just started to pick up but they lost their patience.
a What I learned was it does not matter how much support you have in the boardroom, from the directors, the executives, you have to get results and you have to win.
a I needed to make decisions that would allow us to get back to somewhere near what we had been and the transformation of the team, with everyone talking about the system and how dynamic it is, has been good to see. I should have done it earlier!a
Rodgers admitted that the November period where the Reds had an unimpressive back-to-back losses in the league as well as crashed out of the Champions League after a draw to Basel at Anfield, the manager knew he had to find a way immediately, or else the job was definitely going. Not to mention, there were various reports by journalists as well as comments from the likes of Ronald de Boer – who claimed that the Liverpool job would interest his brother Frank – must not have helped the Liverpool boss sleep at night.
He explained, a We had no identity and everyone could see it. We just werena t the team I had built over a couple of years. It was not working and of course that can eat away at you.
a I knew I had to do something radical because I had seen enough of the players to know we were not going to shape up and work as we had done for the previous couple of years with what we had got.a
After switching to the 3-4-2-1 system against Manchester United in December, Liverpool have turned things around, despite losing that particular match 0-3 at Old Trafford
a I knew I needed to do something earlier than when I did do it,a he admitted. a We played the system away at Newcastle but I couldna t really work on the system in training because we didna t have the players available at the time. At Newcastle Raheem Sterling played as one of the wide players. So what did I get out of that game apart from a loss? I learned that Raheem probably wona t be able to play wide in what I was looking to do because hea s not in the game enough. He was on the side.
a I was looking at it then and used it in the cup games so I knew what I wanted to do earlier, but after Newcastle we had Real Madrid and I wasna t going to go into a game of that magnitude with a system that I knew needed more work on.
a It was just about the timing and the timing was right for the Manchester United game. By that stage I was comfortable that we had the players to make it work.a