‘Klopp took over a better team because of Rodgers…’

Have yourselves a cracking weekend. Watch some football and then mail us at theeditor@football365.com

Credit and love for Brendan
I am disappointed there aren’t more positive mails about Brendan Rodgers time at Liverpool. Kenny Dalglish was my childhood hero but that last few months in charge we were a real mess of a side. If you look at the squad at the start of the 2012/13 season it’s not pretty. I know he only finished a place higher than Kenny but he needed time to bed in as it was a huge step up from Swansea. He needs to be given huge credit for that title push. He had a lot to contend with:-

1) Moreno couldn’t defend
2) Gerrard was starting to slide
3) Carragher retired
4) Suarez and Sturridge had to play together up front
5) The squad for his first season – https://www.transfermarkt.com/liverpool-fc/kader/verein/31/saison_id/2012 needed to be sorted out
6) The side was imbalanced and he needed to optimise our capabilities

When the 13/14 season was over we had:-

1) Taken City to the wire
2) Scored 101 goals which was a record for a team finishing second and the fourth highest in history at that time
3) Put pride back into Anfield
4) Gave the fans one of the most emotional title charges in history. The weight of expectation was immense, the crowds lining the streets to the stadium before the matches had me in tears, imagine how the players must have thought
5) Klopp said Liverpool was an emotional club, imagine that emotion when we had our first genuine charge at the title in years. Hammering Arsenal, Spurs, defeating City, it was an emotional wonderful time.
6) He was tactically flexible employing 4-3-3 and 3-5-2
7) People always forget but the reason we attacked Chelsea at Anfield was because it was the only way we knew how to play and only Chelsea could catch us with their games in hand so the theory was to beat them as we had a wobble in us somewhere, the general theory was Palace…and we know how that ended!

In light of the questions asked the big thing I feel he did at Liverpool was assess what was best and go for it. I therefore think he will go back to that fast counter-attacking style, play quickly into Vardy to maximise his potential and ‘make Leicester great again’ (there’s a blue cap idea there waiting to be sold).

I know this is all a little controversial but I thank Brendan for what he did, Klopp took over a better team because of Brendan’s time there. A manager’s reputation is always sullied once they leave as it’s normally in failure…
Ian (good luck Brendan, MLGA) LFC

How did Ranieri win the title?
In answer to Paul in Brussels email, I am a Leicester fan and even I don’t know how he did it. What I do know is that it was indeed that perfect, perfect storm where everything just slotted in so acutely and it was mind-boggling, spell-binding to behold just how inch perfect the whole escapade was that season.

I liken it to Fantasy Football, and that is not to denigrate the achievement or the man behind it in any way. But let me explain. Every year I faithfully do a team, try and think a little about who best to add and watch in confusion as I end, yet again, in the also-rans. I occasionally look at who is top of the whole thing and, without fail, they are bounding ahead despite having almost identical teams to me yet somehow score a hatful of points more each week. ‘How do they do it? What witchcraft is involved? How did they know Salomon Rondon was going to hit a purple patch that included a triple captain pick the week he scored a hat-trick v Man City?!?!’ These are the questions of our times.

And then you look at some of their history, including their final placings in previous seasons and you realise they usually average somewhere around the one million mark. And then it dawns on you – they are just on one of those runs where every decision they make turns to gold and they are riding that wave for as long as they can. The bast**ds.

I think that is what happened in that fateful year for us. Decisions were made, canny and informed decisions nonetheless, but every single one came off. It wasn’t exactly luck (we bloody deserved it in the end so I don’t subscribe to that theory at all) it, just, somehow, worked that year. It just was.

And that is what makes it so sodding glorious and never to be repeated.

Brendan is a great coup for us. He will undoubtedly improve us, which you cannot always feel confident about when a new manager arrives. If that is 7th-ish and a couple of decent cup runs in a couple of years before he flashes a bit of leg to a ‘Top Top’ side then I’ll take that and it will have been an enjoyable ride. But it would really be something if we somehow found ourselves near the top of the pile, even CL places again, rather than maintaining our usual place in the middle.
Rob (Looking forward to the next batch of Brenda-isms), Leicester

…Ranieri was just a small factor in the Leicester title win, the main two were 1) they hit on a perfect combination of players who were at the peak of their powers at the same time. Once they hit the top of the wave, they rode it all the way to the title. If they all possessed real ability, more would’ve been picked off by the clubs who can pay more and offer consistent trophy challenges. The way they crashed the next season was maybe a bit further than anyone expected, but looks inevitable in hindsight.

2) All of the big 6 were useless. Chelsea the champions imploded, City were waiting for Pep and going nowhere, Van Gaal was boring everyone to death at United, Liverpool were recovering from Brendanitis, and Arsenal and Spurs were doing what they do best these days and falling over themselves whenever they got a sniff of the title. To say Leicester were a great team would be over-romanticising, they achieved the second-lowest points total for champions in the last twenty years.

Taking nothing away from them, they took advantage of the situation and it was brilliant, but I think Ranieri’s reputation took a massive boost when in any other season, he wouldn’t have got anywhere near.

Have a nice weekend.
Andy in Cheshire

Stop talking about £8m Robertson
Following on from today’s Mediawatch, can I make a request? Can we put a moratorium (I think this is the right word) on mentioning how much Liverpool paid for Andy Robertson.

As a Hull fan, I thought the pain would fade eventually – but somehow it actually gets more painful every time I read it. Perhaps because Robertson keeps getting better and better, and so the price seems more and more ridiculous?

But whatever – please can we just stop mentioning it? It makes me so sad.
Rob (we never mention Maguire’s, which seems fairly cheap in hindsight) Leeds

Scotch mist
I normally just let trolling about Scottish football go by unanswered, but there’s been so many comments about the standard of the league in the last few days that I thought I’d take a bite a Jon’s mail…

First, the inaccuracies:

Jon asserts that all the games in Scotland are easily winnable for Celtic, whereas in England, every game is competitive. Currently, Liverpool top the Premier League, having lost one game and drawn six. Celtic top the Scottish Premiership, having lost 4 games and drawn 3. The gap between first and last in Scotland is 52 points. In England, it is 55. Yet somehow in Scotland, every team is easy to beat? Of course, the English league is more competitive but I wouldn’t say the gap in quality between Celtic and St. Mirren is any greater than between Liverpool and Huddersfield.

Secondly, Jon, as many people do, claims that only Rangers offer any meaningful games. Why would that be? The last time Rangers finished in the top two in Scotland was 2013. You can find faults in the league if you want but at least be accurate. Aberdeen have been the second best team in Scotland for the past four seasons.

I’ve no problem with people saying that Scottish football is not as good as the Premier League. How can it be when Bournemouth have enough money to spend £15m on Jordon Ibe, while even Celtic can only dream of spending that on a player? I don’t quite understand though why people need to be so critical, using terms like ‘pub league’.Or even Jon himself, equating an achievement never done before in the history of Scottish football to winning a pub conkers tournament.

Celtic are probably upper Championship standard with the rest of the SPL teams being League 1 or League 2. And I don’t see why that’s such a problem for everyone. I don’t see people repeatedly criticising the standard of football in League 2, yet in Scotland we hear it constantly from south of the border.

So you don’t need to watch, enjoy or praise Scottish football. But I also don’t think it needs kicked quite so hard.
Mike, LFC, London

Franchise FC
In response to Popular Pete’s email this morning I too have often wondered about an NFL style franchise for the Premier League. My teams would come under the following criteria:

Classic Big Teams:
Manchester United
Liverpool
Arsenal
Everton
Tottenham

These are the teams with the most top flight experience, the most league titles, and have large fan bases.

The New Money:
Manchester City
Chelsea

Teams who have no real big history but are seen as “big” in recent years. Appeals to a global fan base and casual fans.

Historical Teams from big cities:
Aston Villa
Leeds Utd
Newcastle United
Nottingham Forest

Big fan bases, ‘Sleeping giants’, have right to be there

Regional Franchises made up from merged sides:
Lancs – Blackburn, Burnley etc
Yorks – Huddersfield, Sheff Wed, Sheff Utd etc
West Mids – Wolves, West Brom, Birmingham City, Walsall etc
East Mids – Leicester, Derby, Notts County etc
North East – Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool etc
South West – Bristol Rovers, Bristol City, Plymouth
South Coast – Southampton, Portsmouth, Brighton etc
Anglia – Norwich, Ipswich, Peterborough etc
London – Fulham, Watford, Brentford etc

That’s 20 sides who will have huge fanbases, no promotion or relegation, a centrally controlled transfer system that encourages competition. It would make sense for the brand, every game is massive, no Watford v Fulham.

Yes it would be sad for the fans of the smaller teams to lose their identity, but Wolverhampton and West Bromwich for example are essentially the same place, they’ll get over it.
Chris ‘I’m not sure if I really mean this’ Roach

Cliche corner
I liked the feature today about football cliches. I heard a version of one the other day, I think it was a Champions League game, the commentator was referring to a goal scored after the keeper spilled it, ‘he’s almost saved that too well’. Similar to when a striker hits the post and has ‘hit it almost too well’ makes no sense.
NC LOFC

…A typically well-written article from Peter Goldstein lisiting his favourite football cliches. May I suggest one at the other end of the spectrum, that really annoys me whenever it is uttered:

‘He could have scored twice in a minute’: usually said when a player almost scores from two chances in quick succession- often from an initial shot tipped behind for a corner, followed by a header from the corner that goes wide. Except the technicalities aren’t true at all.

For example, say Harry Kane works some space in the box, and instead of his shot been saved, it flies past the keeper into the net. That means he scored from the first chance, so the second chance will never occur. Even if the first chance was saved, and he scored from the resultant corner, the maximum goals he could have scored in that particular scenario is still only one-NEVER two.

Really it should be ‘he missed two chances in a minute’. But that sounds a bit more negative than construing it as having almost scored twice.
Brian (always a pedant), Wexford

Promotion pretty much secured
Is it just me or is anyone else counting down the seven wins required for Diamond Geezers to secure promotion and be able to rest players for their triple header in the cup finals….
Tom, Tractor Boy in Switzerland (Diamond Geezers is much more enjoyable than a Paul Lambert press conference)

Mailbox strike rate
I’ve written to Football365 on 92 occasions, and been published on 20 of those. Not a bad little strike rate, if I do say so myself. And yes, I do have too much time on my hands. Is anyone else this sad?
Robert, Birmingham