Super Super Rodgers

[zummerset]

'Cuse me but Brendon reckons your reserve team are the dogs bxllocks and world class (glorious Brendon rose-tinted vision). Also he has been complicit in the sale and loans that have removed the last of our prem team and replaced them with players that hardly anyone can get excited about. If you accept the premise that you are judged by actions and results then Mr Rodgers is at least half way down the plank.

[Terminal Boardom]

'Cuse me but Brendon reckons your reserve team are the dogs bxllocks and world class (glorious Brendon rose-tinted vision). Also he has been complicit in the sale and loans that have removed the last of our prem team and replaced them with players that hardly anyone can get excited about. If you accept the premise that you are judged by actions and results then Mr Rodgers is at least half way down the plank.

But is it a world class plank?

[Ian Royal]

You may be right Strap BUT who are we going to get that is better? My point earlier is that changing course could well make a difficult situation impossible.

Plenty. There are a lot of managers at a lower level who would jump at the chance of managing our club and team. They might not be right in the long run, but I can't see anyway Rodgers will keep us up.

I guess the only consolation is he started similarly cluelessly at Watford:
Played 12, Won 3, Drawn 3, Lost 6, For 14, Against 21, GD -7, Pts 12.
And went on to have a pretty storming next twelve games:
Played 12, Won 6, Drawn 4, Lost 2, For 20, Against 13, GD +7, Pts 22.

Although as you can see he's already doing worse with us, than he was with a hopeless team that was already staring relegation in the face when he joined. Can't really see us winning the next 3 on the bounce.

[Thaumagurist*]

'Cuse me but Brendon reckons your reserve team are the dogs bxllocks and world class (glorious Brendon rose-tinted vision).

I don't think he has exactly said his team is world class.

[Royal Lady]

Jeez - I was trying to say I'd rather we ONLY had 3 defeats in a row, (which means we'd won or drawn the rest of the games) - sorry if it was too difficult to grasp!!

[strap]

What has happened to RFC in the last year is UNPRECEDENTED in our history. We've ripped out a record breaking Premiership team and left it with a reserve team. This hasn't happened in 138 years.

Well not quite true. Whilst accepting the bit about the Premiership level, we did something very similar when we missed out in the play-offs 94-95. Sold all our best players and replaced them with journeymen rubbish. Of course back then, "our best players" amounted to say 5 of the then squad, rather than perhaps the 10 we got rid of over the space of the last 2 years recently.

Going further back, we did something similar on a lesser scale in 87-88, was it?

Take your point, but then in this situation the last thing you should do is hire a manager with no playing or managerial experience! If Mr Mad was so dead set on destroying everything SSC built, then he at least should have realised that what was needed was an experienced leader who actually knew what he was doing. Someone else on here mentioned the blind the leading the blind. A very apt description.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

we needed continuity, we got upheavel.

[strap]

You may be right Strap BUT who are we going to get that is better? My point earlier is that changing course could well make a difficult situation impossible.

The key here, when the club has stripped the 1st XI of experience, is to have an old head in charge who has seen it all before, and actually worked in and around the muck and bullets. A total novice like Rodgers is totally pointless when the team is also shorn of experience. As said on previous threads, I still reckon a short-term contract, (until the end of the season), for SSC would just about keep us afloat this season.

He knows the club and especially the constraints. There would be no pressure on him to get us in the play-offs (merely to survive), so the expectation levels on him will be signifiacntly reduced from last season, AND he knows how he wants to play football with a system that is proven to work, AND with a system the players can understand.

Let him then be a key palyer in the interviewing and signing of a proper managerial replacement in the summer.

It solves so many problems that the only reason it hasn;t been implemented is becasue of Mr Mad's lose of face when he has to make the phone call! Rodgers was the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

[rfctabs]

Can't help thinking SSC might have something to say about that. He had the opportunity to stay at the end of last season but clearly felt that he'd done his time and was ready to move on (even if only to the golf course).

Curbs is too much of his own man. If he took the job it would be on his terms, which would certainly include sensible money for Jan '10, and if those terms were not honoured he'd move on pretty smartly. Clearly, SJM hasn't got/doesn't want to spend the money that would be needed to get us back on an even keel - if he had/did, he wouldn't have sold the Prem squad. His financial statement seemed clear enough and he's had to balance the books. The last thing he'd want to do now is unbalance them again, even for Curbs.

The only thing that might save us, as stated by Pearcey, is

SJM stands to watch the asset value in the club plummet if we go down again...£80 million for the club would then seem laughable. He may well realise that he has to spend a bit to keep the club at this level to ensure the clubs value doesn't disintegrate.

Right now, SJM is watching the value of the club dive faster than Eduardo in the box, and if SJM is anything it's a businessman first and a fan second. We have to hope that he really, really doesn't want to lose any more on his investment.

I was talking to someone at work today about the days of Elm Park on a wet Tuesday night in January for Wigan with the other 3499 defectives. We're still a long way from that, but if there's no significant injection of cash or talent soon I can see us playing Southampton again, but this time in the Second Division. All we need is a new league - Second Division South - and we've come full circle.

[Jerry St Clair]

In honour of Vision's classic 2001 thread which (correct me if I'm wrong) cocked a snook at the plethora of Pardew detractors on HNA? who'd wanted him gone within months of joining in 1999. Pardew took on a squad that had been ground into the dust during the TB1 and TB2 eras, and it took him the best part of two seasons to rebuild it.

Rodgers is in the same situation now. This team already had it's backbone shattered by the summer firesale, but the disastrous run of results has seen it's confidence obliterated. I don't know if Rodgers is a shit manager. You can't possibly tell after two months. But what would the benefit in getting rid of him now be? Perhaps a Martin Allen-type character could come in and galvanise the team against the spectre of relegation? Or, more likely in my view, RFC will plunge into a deeper spiral of decline. Remember, there'd be little or no money for the new man to spend. If Rodgers is given time, perhaps he'll avoid relegation, as Pardew did in 2000, and then build a team in coming seasons. As Pardew did in 2000-2003. It's risky, but I think it's a risk worth taking.

[PEARCEY]

There's always Martin Allen...Jerry

[Jerry St Clair]

There's always Martin Allen...Jerry

Perhaps we can give him a fork and set him to work on the pitch?

[PEARCEY]

There's always Martin Allen...Jerry

Perhaps we can give him a fork and set him to work on the pitch?

Perhaps you could give me a fork and I could set to work on Mr Allen instead.