(Brendan at the station waving goodbye to Steven Gerrard, Luis Suarez and Raheem Sterling along with any chance he had of keeping his job)
Brendan has decided that tomorrow is another day. Not an original quote, but one that Margaret Mitchell would have been pleased to hear. On his sacking by Liverpool he should have said that frankly, my dear, he didn’t give a damn, but he probably didn’t so an opportunity went begging.
The only surprising factor in Rodgers’ dismissal is that it took Liverpool so long to commit the act. Many thought he might go after he sent the money received from Barcelona for Luis Suarez to Southampton and asked them to send him some players in return. The ones that chose to join have hardly pulled up any trees. In fact, Ricky Lambert has already moved on, Adam Lallana and Dejan Lovren have struggled to make an impact, although both have improved recently, and Nathaniel Clyne is the only one who can be considered a regular.
Similarly, Dick Advocaat has struggled at Sunderland due to poor players under-performing. He obviously thought that, having narrowly escaped relegation last season, due to his ability to perform the occasional miracle, the same would happen this time out. The problem with that way of thinking is that you have to flirt with relegation all season in order to narrowly avoid it and, if you’re fresh out of miracles, avoiding it may not happen.
The best way to avoid the drop has always been to have players who are good enough to keep you in the Premier League. Liverpool’s players are good enough to do that, Sunderland’s aren’t.
Consequently, the natural chain of events when your players aren’t good enough, is for you to resign before you are sacked and let someone else have the problem. Maybe a new face will get some more money out of the owner. Maybe a new face will buy some good players, which is what Sunderland need.
The natural chain of events when your players ARE good enough and you are not winning, is to get sacked and someone else will get the problem you didn’t want to give up anyway. Liverpool’s players are not good enough to win the Premier League but they should be aiming for a top four finish. Although they are still on target for that top four, it is unlikely that they would have got there under Rodgers. So, although the timing may seem a little strange, particularly after collecting a decent away point at Everton, it is all designed to give Jurgen Kl……..sorry, the new man, time to achieve the desired goal.
So Rodgers jumped on a flight to Spain for a break with his girlfriend. No doubt he will take a look at the jobs section of the local paper while he is there, as he has always expressed a desire to manage abroad, although landing at Malaga leaves him some distance from Sociedad where the next managerial vacancy is likely to be. David Moyes is currently proving that an ability to count to four in Spanish is no substitute for your team winning games when it comes to job retention.
Spare a thought also for Jackie McNamara and Steve Evans who left their posts for one reason or another. The Uniteds of Dundee and Rotherham will be going through the same process as Liverpool and Sunderland although they may be looking a little lower down the managerial ladder.
Whilst there is absolutely no reason to feel sorry for any football manger who loses his job as they generally get some form of compensation package and have usually been well paid for their troubles, they can sometimes be considered to be unlucky that they didn’t get longer, didn’t get more money to spend, didn’t have a better squad. Most of them, however, will walk into another job at some stage beginning the whole cycle all over again.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 