Former Celtic striker John Hartson has praised Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers' decision to snub a move to Liverpool FC, but believes the the opportunity to take over at Anfield may arise again at some point in the future.
Speaking to the BBC yesterday, Swansea-born Hartson admitted that he would 'love' to see Rodgers as Liverpool manager at some point, but praised the 'extraordinary' Northern Irishman's current loyalty to the Swans. He enthused:
"It's brilliant Brendan turned down the chance to even speak to Liverpool, who are a massive club. I would love to see him go to Liverpool, but not quite yet.
"Three or four years, two or three even, Brendan will move on because he's a very ambitious young manager, he will manage at a big, big club. Maybe one day he may well have another opportunity to go to Liverpool".
Liverpool may have gone through three managers in the last two years but that is the highest turnover in the club's history, and is obviously the exception rather than the rule. Overall, only nine managers have been granted the privilege of managing the Reds in the last 53 years, and Rodgers may regret refusing to even discuss the role.
It's very rare in the modern game for young British managers to get the chance to manager a club of Liverpool's stature. The likes of Rodgers and Paul Lambert may continue to do well at their respective clubs, but I sincerely doubt the likes of Man United, Arsenal and Chelsea will come calling at any point in the future.
Liverpool is a sleeping giant at the moment - the club will rise again, and although I admire Rodgers' loyalty to Swansea, if things go wrong, and he ends up toiling away in the Championship again, I'm sure he'll look back on his Liverpool refusal as a missed opportunity.
Jaimie Kanwar
Speaking to the BBC yesterday, Swansea-born Hartson admitted that he would 'love' to see Rodgers as Liverpool manager at some point, but praised the 'extraordinary' Northern Irishman's current loyalty to the Swans. He enthused:
"It's brilliant Brendan turned down the chance to even speak to Liverpool, who are a massive club. I would love to see him go to Liverpool, but not quite yet.
"Three or four years, two or three even, Brendan will move on because he's a very ambitious young manager, he will manage at a big, big club. Maybe one day he may well have another opportunity to go to Liverpool".
Liverpool may have gone through three managers in the last two years but that is the highest turnover in the club's history, and is obviously the exception rather than the rule. Overall, only nine managers have been granted the privilege of managing the Reds in the last 53 years, and Rodgers may regret refusing to even discuss the role.
It's very rare in the modern game for young British managers to get the chance to manager a club of Liverpool's stature. The likes of Rodgers and Paul Lambert may continue to do well at their respective clubs, but I sincerely doubt the likes of Man United, Arsenal and Chelsea will come calling at any point in the future.
Liverpool is a sleeping giant at the moment - the club will rise again, and although I admire Rodgers' loyalty to Swansea, if things go wrong, and he ends up toiling away in the Championship again, I'm sure he'll look back on his Liverpool refusal as a missed opportunity.
Jaimie Kanwar
A Note on Winning champions' league
ReplyDeleteliverpool did not spend millions on players and did not change coach alike changing shirts and pants everyweek to win the championleague in 2005liverpool came back from 3-0 down to win itliverpool played against the best team at that time to win iteven the commentators were adamant when crespo scored the 3rd goal :"... when milan play such football .. they can't be matched in this world..."when liverpool equalised, it was "mission impossible is missioan accomplished" when liverpool won, we were playing attacking football, not studborn defensive football relying on a flash in the panwhen liverpool won, ... we didn't also had players not so young when liverpool won the champions' league it was for the 5th timeit's shankly spirit, not a financial obssession for a cup, it's a supremacy confirmed , it was class not form, it was liverpool.and beware, we are coming back to conquer it again!
Brendon Rodgers never snubbed a move to Liverpool, He rightly never took up the chance of an interview.
ReplyDeleteIf you read his actual statement, it says something like 'at this time Brendan has declined this particular opportunity to speak to Liverpool', which suggests if we would have made him a top target, rather than one of many, he would have listened.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't bother me. I'd put him fairly low in my list of candidates. De Boer was my top one (of the realistic ones) but now he is gone, I'd go for AVB, Martinez and Lambert in that order. For whatever reason Van Gaal isn't being considered. It would be nice to see him as DoF since he has done it before and would be a good wise old head to help the young boss. I know AVB is familiar with Van Gaal's techniques too.
Liverpool have gone about filling this vacancy completely the wrong way, they should have either decided who they wanted and then approached them and their clubs and offered them the job or advetised the position and then drawn up a short list and appoint the right man accordingly. They come across as a little arrogant to say the least, approaching managers to formally interview them before sending those who are rejected back to thier own clubs. This is not only disrespectful to other clubs but to their fans as well. It now appears that more and more of those managers on their list are now rejecting such approaches. When will these Yanks ever learn.
ReplyDeleteHe knocked back the suggestion of taking over Chelsea a while back. I think he is looking for a project with the right foundations in place, because that is what he has got Swansea, albeit at a different scale, and that project isn't finished yet. Both Chelsea and Liverpool are in a mess in that regard, with no real sense of direction. This club needs bringing down to earth and maybe sacrificing a season or two just to foundations right, because its a mess at the moment, a real mess.
ReplyDeleteI agree with him 100%. It's brilliant news for LFC. I mean if u have choice of AVB, Capello and BENITEZ just why o why any owner of a football club would go for him. How many teams r queuing to get him. Is Barca one of the teams as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Jaimie, that Rodgers might regret refusing Liverpool in the future, as he may not get similar opportunity in the future. Look at AVB right now, last season he was the best young manager around and after one season nobody wants him.
ReplyDeleteNowadays a manager is only as good as his last season.
2005 was a fluke. We've seen it before (Aston Villa in 1982) and since (Chelsea in 2012). There was no Benitez master plan (0-3 at half-time!), Benitez' subs were forced on him by Finnan's and Kewell's injuries - in fact seems like he lost it, his half-time plan was to send out 12 players (check Carragher's book).
ReplyDeleteThe LFC fans were the difference that night - the team went back out in the second half just wanting to get something back, to make it a respectable night for the fans, and things went from there - AC Milan thought it was over (just as Bayern Munich did in injury time in 1999) but it wasn't, and once it started slipping it took them too long to adjust.
The thing is that the fans inspired the players and the players responded (and how) but those same fans think Benitez is the tactical genius of 'Istanbul'!!! Anyway - he milked it all the way for the rest of his LFC career (which may have still more to come).
give it to holloway . the man is a very good manager .done the double over us and lives in the real world . wont get him talkin about milk in bottles or priests on top of mountains of sugar ! very strange that rafa .should have gone to rampton not inter milan!
ReplyDeletethey will never learn cos they yanks .after a quick buck!stick to runnin ur rounders team sell up and go home. friggin hillbillies!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletefacebook lost 6 billion today .yanks enough said!!!
ReplyDeleteNot the very same fans who, in your words I believe, would rather do impersonations of a Welsh male voice choir and sing show tunes.....?
ReplyDeleteReally? You're actually giving us some credit?!!!
LFC may have ridden their luck in the actual Final (though if you care to watch it again, Hyppia should have scored and Garcia could have had a pen first half), but it was Rafa who made a bunch of underachievers believe, and whose tactical nous got them through tough trips to Turin and Stamford Bridge.
And he STILL gets up Taggart's nose, so he must have been pretty good, cos we all know that Ferguson only has friends in the game who are no threat - Hodgson, Curbishley, Bruce, 'Big' Sam, The Used Car Salesman et al.
breakin news ,after being snubbed by frank de boer .liverpool have now approached his brother rupert !!!!!!
ReplyDeletePLEASE DON'T BRING THIS MANAGERS TO LIVERPOOL......Nooooooooo
ReplyDeleteRoberto Martinez
Rafa Benitez
Brendan Rodgers
Fabio Capello
Andre Villas-Boas
Pep Guardiola
Didier Deschamps
Jurgen Klopp
Michael Laudrup
David Moyes
Only FRANK RIJKAARD as Manager and LUIS VAN GAAL as Director Of Football.
If liverpool appoint middle class manager, only middle class player will join liverpool.
BUT if liverpool appoint SUPERP manager, sure all the SUPERP and fantastic players will join liverpool.
Before this, liverpool already try managers from:
FRANCE (Gerard Houllier).
SPAIN: (Rafa Benitez).
ENGLANG: (Roy Hodgson).
SCOTLAND: Kenny Dalglish.
So now go for Holland Management… because Holland always got talen, that is Frank Rijkaard who bring Barcelona to the Top & also Luis Van Gaal that win 2 La Liga title in 3 season with Barcelona.
Both also like to play Attacking Game. So i hope liverpool will appoint FRANK RIJKAARD as Manager and LUIS VAN GAAL as Director Of Football.
And Give Them Money To SIGN:
Higuain (Striker)
Ibrahim Affaley (Right Winger)
Eden Hazard (Playmaker)
Kagawa (Left Winger)
Lucas Biglia (Defensive Midfielder)
click!......and your awake.
ReplyDeleteDifficult times for us red's after the last few years especially after beavis and buttheads ownership... Thankfully that is now history what we have at the moment is a cloud of uncertainty and who knows what direction it is going to take but we as supporters of our great club have to stick together it is what makes our fanbase special
ReplyDeleteLet me put it another way since bill shankly became our manager....We have finished outside the top six....well six times the lowest place being eighth in a period of time that stretches over fifty years is that in itself not something to be proud of??? cos as sure as hell as i'm sat here that seriously is
and remember no player is bigger than the club but by the same token no club is bigger than the game itself ...Its all about perspective just look at all the promoted teams and the ones who win in the play offs and you can see what it means to them and i'm more than sure they would love to swap places with us.
Ok we are at the moment in stormy waters but that is what our anthem is all about isn't it????
pass the dutchie...
ReplyDeleteReally - I'm actually giving you some credit. I even have some friends that are LFC fans. The point I try to make is that LFC are not some 'special' club above all others - they're just one of the great clubs that have won a hell of a lot of trophies over the years and most of their fans, particularly those who get to the games, are aware of this, but there's a loud minority that think following LFC is some kind of religion (hence the 'choir' and 'show tune' reference). I'm getting the impression that its that which is becoming more
ReplyDeleteimportant to some of the fans than the actual football - that its better to go
on about "5 times" and "18 times" than enjoy good football. LFC used to be the "thinking man's" team, playing subtle intelligent football while teams like Spurs and Man Utd played an exciting game but ineffectively.
As for Benitez and 2005: I know an LFC fan who got to go to Istanbul that time and he said that at halftime the supporters were fantastic - it wasn't that they thought they'd go on to win (no one did), it was that they weren't going to allow LFC to roll over, their history demanded that they'd at least go down fighting, not just flop away and lose 4-0 or 5-0. And, IMHO, its that which made the difference. The team went out to try and get something back, Milan stopped playing for 10 minutes thinking they'd won it. Onc eit got back to 3-3 Benitez changed the formation back to the usual defensive setup and that saw the game out. I'm on fairly safe ground in saying that Benitez made a worse mess of that CL final than Ferguson did of the 1999 CL final. I'd also say that he was fortunate as well in the Juventus and Chelsea ties. The Juventus games, after that first half hour blitz at Anfield, were essentially a Houllier defense job, although there was something 'strange' about Juventus in the Turin leg - one commentator on the night said he'd never seen such an "inept" performance from Juventus. There was a theory at the time that Juventus and AC Milan had made a decision to split the spoils, that the 'Scudetto' was for Juventus and the CL was for Milan. If you care to watch that Juventus-Liverpool second leg again there's a definite lack of urgency about Juventus - remember just one goal would have put them through. After Calciopoli who really knows. As for the Chelsea tie, that's gone into legend but the great tactical genius of Benitez was basically keep everyone behind the ball, work hard and try and sneak a goal. Again its more of the Houllier game plan and just what exactly were his alternatives?
I'm not trying to say LFC didn't deserve to win in 2005 (what's 'deserving' to win it got to do with anything in a cup competition any way? Chelsea didn't care last Saturday whether they 'deserved' to win or not). I'm trying to say that the credit Benitez got was over blown - he just did the basics and got a few things wrong while he was at it. In my view he's about as responsible for LFC's win in 2005 as Tony Barton was for Aston Villa's in 1982 or Di Matteo was for Chelsea's in 2012 (i.e. just happened to be in the right place at the right time and didn't do too much to screw it up). If you see how Benitez' career has gone since its pretty much the same - a defensive set up being pretty much his main choice of tactic except when he gambled on attack in the closing months of 2009 when the league had been lost anyway.
Finally, Benitez doesn't get up Ferguson's nose. He laughed when he heard about Rafa's 'facts' Rant that time. He doesn't care about losers, its the winners he's worried about (Dalglish first time around, then Wenger, then Mourinho and now Mancini).
oh yes dream on boy
ReplyDeleteExtremely well known; famous or renowned = legend, dont regard Hartson as a legend, Welsh legends, Rush, John Charles, Southall, Speed, Giggs, Tom Jones and Shirley Bassey
ReplyDeleteYep i remember what he did to berkovic on the training ground when at west ham ....Saying that though feel sorry for him now given his current condition
ReplyDeletebilly you forgot mary hopkin and the greatest welsh man ever joey jones !!
ReplyDeleteHow could Rodgers do an interview for Liverpool job, given his current position?
ReplyDeleteOn the crest of a wave with Swansea, PL status secured, 3 year deal to see out...... Good luck to him
I seriously doubt he will look back at missing out on the POSSIBILITY of the Liverpool job.
Money talks in PL, United and Arsenal are the only teams to have won it without financial doping.
FFP is our sole hope at ever achieving things again, or a return to CL and a petro dollar buyout..... Sad situation for football
holloway?
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, we now look like we are floundering around trying to convince anyone that will listen to our overture's. In my opinion the like's of Martinez or Roger's are not the type of manager we should be pursuing,not enough experience for a club like LFC. On the other hand all the top name's being mentioned, are going to be wary because of the undisputed turmoil going on at the club at present. I believe FSG will rue the day they dispatched Kenny so hastily and without a lot of forethought on what they were going to do after his departure.
ReplyDeleteYou are funny. The benitez haters will always say that he is lucky. I wonder how many mangers have been "as lucky" as him in their careers. There is no point arguing with you, cos stuff you say, can only be laughed at.
ReplyDeleteGus Hiddink. Will sort all the nonsense out.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see Jaimie still writing good stuff about Liverpool! i thought he would somehow criticize somehow, but he didn't.... Kudos to you Jaimie!
ReplyDeleteThe decision was a no-brainer for Rogers - do you really think he will lose sleep over turning down the chance to join a long interview queue, just to be seen bowing at the altar of the mighty Liverpool? I'm afraid that young Jaimie comes across as arrogant and out of touch. True, Liverpool hasn't had a huge turnover of managers until recently, but the club is now in an era of American ownership, which sees a top four finish as all that counts and the cups as worthless. It is all about income and teh bottom line. Given the huge 'catch up' task to make the top four (remember the 'Pool were lucky to get a single point off Swansea this season), working within that structure is not a very appealing prospect for a rising manager like Rodgers.
ReplyDeletey do u post this on every site? - heard u the first time
ReplyDeleteAgreed, Rodgers will come to regret to not even talking to Fenway about the position. At the moment he is flavour of the month. Look what happened to the other flavours of the month in the previous seasons: Owen Coyle, Phil Brown, Paul Jewell, Aidy Boothroyd, Ian Holloway and Roy Keane?
ReplyDeleteWhat a nonsense - I am very happy that the club is interviewing as many people as possible before making a decision as to who the right man is, instead of blindly picking a name based on the media's representation of the man.
ReplyDeleteIf a man feels disrespected by having to interview for the position of manager at LFC, by all means let him turn the opportunity down and continue in his current role - obviously he doesn't think LFC is a big enough opportunity, or believe enough in his own ability and as such wouldn't have been the man to turn us around into champions again anytime soon
Chelsea and Liverpool may be in a mess relative to our own standards, but we are still two of few clubs capable of giving a manager the opportunity to achieve true greatness.
ReplyDeleteIn a very best case scenario, what is Swansea going to achieve - the League Cup? FA Cup? Top 6?
Liverpool and Chelsea are still achieving these aims, even in our worst case scenarios!
Same thing I've been saying - Rodgers could just as easily get sacked after a couple of poor seasons as after a couple of poor seasons with Liverpool.
ReplyDeleteThe difference is that you have a chance to achieve higher highs at Liverpool (surely a manager doesn't go into a new job expecting to fail, even at the worst of clubs)
I agree with you about Rijkaard, but the player targets are a bit unrealistic mate.
ReplyDeleteIf looking at managers to bring in players of a certain nationality, I'd probably favor a German manager though
yes of course cat how can I have forgotten the immortal Joey Jones, plus Harry Seacombe and Catherine Zeta Zones she is fit.
ReplyDeleteFFP is only going to be a hindrance to Liverpool, not a savior.
ReplyDeleteFFP isn't designed to create parity - it's designed to protect the 'haves' from fresh new money upstarts at the top table, and unfortunately we are currently seated amongst the 'have-nots'
I personally think the Rafa 'rant' was to deflect the media away from Gerrard, who had just got arrested a few days before. Only an opinion, but I think Rafa took one for the team and protected his Captain there.
ReplyDeleteHe DOES still get up Taggart's nose, cos he commented recently, "Benitez is still out of work. I don't like that man". [May have paraphrased that a bit!]Respect your other points of view.Thought I'd add: I don't have any friends who support MU, just 'colleagues'..... ;)
Its one thing having the big club background and standing in world football, its another having the right circumstances in place at the club to achieve those aims.
ReplyDeleteHence, one of the reasons why we haven't won the league title in TWO DECADES. Bar a Champions League title, nothing much to brag about in relation to 'true greatness' in our past two decades. Chelsea are in a better situation to allow a manager to achieve well, thanks to the backing of Roman and even than, the two Manchester clubs are still ahead. We are miles off, miles off and hence most managers probably think 'true greatness' will probably won't happen anytime soon at Liverpool unless it gets some serious transfer funds and if not, it needs bringing back down to earth, to let go of the short term and focus on the long term.
Its nice to have a history museum but you have to keep adding to it as the 'present' sooner or later inevitably becomes 'history', yet we have only added one truly great thing in the last two decades to that history museum.
Rogers is picking his battles and I think he has done the right thing, if it is his thought process behind it. He is a 'project' manager it seems and wants the backing of the club & fans to do in that way, instead of the bloodthirsty short-term-success craving the fans and the club have at the moment with a squad that has more than its fair share of mediocrity, just because we were the number one team in the 70s/80s. This club needs bringing back down to earth and to allow a manager real time, even if it means a mediocre short term future in the process.
Well we did finish outside of the top 6 this season. 'Worse case scenario' surpassed eh
Where did Swansea finish again?
ReplyDeleteMoreover, would you put money on them finishing above us any time in the next 5 years??
You say that, we've got 'nothing much' to brag about in the last two decades, but I can only think of THREE teams (Man U, Chelsea & Arsenal) that have delivered more success over that period!
Everybody overplays Liverpool's failures to ridiculous levels. Our failures are success for most teams, simple as.
At the end of the day, Rogers seems to want a particular project and not a club who are in a mess who unrealistically want something for nothing in the short term. It doesn't matter how big the club is, if its in a mess, than some managers will be put off and rightly so. Just because a club is big, doesn't mean managers should automatically go for it.
ReplyDeleteI don't care about where Swansea finished or their chances of future success, in relation to the context of my point. My point is that Rogers seems to want a club that aligns well with his ideas and has the patience for those ideas to fruition.
And those three teams have had success, especially on the domestic level, that far outweighs ours in the last two decades. At the end of the day, we haven't won a league title in the past two decades. That is just shit, regardly of how few different teams have won it. That is shit, for a club of our so-called standing. No use saying 'our failures are success to other teams', that is apologist poetry. Failure is failure, no matter how you spin it.
Do you write Barack Obama's speeches
ReplyDeletenot many managers are lucky to get two fat compo cheques
ReplyDeleteI'm not bemoaning Rodgers turning down an interview with LFC - if he thinks he's better off at Swansea, good for him.
ReplyDeleteThere have been more managers that have been touted as the next big thing, then there are clubs that have delivered tangible success though, so I'll take my chances on betting that Liverpool has a brighter future regardless of what projects anybody has planned.
I'm not apologizing for anything that goes on at Liverpool. I'm merely pointing out a simple fact that for all the handwringing about our 'failure', our achievements over the last 2 decades are still out of reach of most clubs in England.
At the end of the day, no spin is needed - our failures simply are success to other clubs. We haven't won a league title in 20 years, while most clubs haven't won a single major trophy in 20 years.
Our owners are just buying time waiting for the right time to appoint Rafa Benetez.That is it.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of whether most clubs haven't done as well as we have done in the last two decades, its poor and a utter failure by the standards and expectations we set for the club, whereas most other clubs don't have such standards. That is the difference between our lack of say league titles and theirs in the last two decades. For me, its no use saying that most clubs haven't achieved the success that we expect on ourselves, as we aren't 'most clubs'. That is the difference, a key difference. We like to think we are a top of tree type of club but we aren't, in the present day. This club needs bringing down to earth, I feel.
ReplyDeleteHe was asked a question about Rafa by an Italian paper while he was over there to give a lecture at a Rome university. If you don't like someone, you don't like someone. That is different from still getting up Ferguson's nose. I dislike Roy Keane, doesn't mean he still gets up my nose. I dislike him because of the past.
ReplyDeleteYou were originally going on about what a 'mess' Liverpool and Chelsea are in, and how Swansea are "a club with the right foundations in place", whereas my point is that we offer a better platform for success than most clubs, especially the likes of Swansea - there is no point going on about 'our standards', at the same time as making out that certain clubs are in a better position than LFC
ReplyDeleteSwansea are a club with the right foundations in place....for a club of their standing (I clearly said 'different scale').
ReplyDeleteWe offer better expectations/standards (ambition/expectation is what i meant about standards) but we don't offer the right foundations to match those expectations. Whereas clubs like Swansea, etc, do. Ergo, they are in a better position, in relation to ambition/expectancy/standards expected of them.
Ambition, expectations and standards alone only gets you so far. You need the foundations to match it. Just because we have high ambition/expectancy/standards doesn't mean we have a good enough platform/foundations to match it. Hence why possibly Rodgers wouldn't want to take the Liverpool job.
Not sure what you are trying to get at with your twisting of my words but I did not say or imply that Swansea or other clubs like that are in a better position for success than us. So to clarify, I meant and implied they are in a better position for the success they expect for S W A N S E A to achieve. I did not say or imply that Swansea are in a better position to achieve Liverpool's kind of expected success. Big difference.
Of course there is a point of going on about their 'better position' as it fits into the context of my original point, that Rodgers is better off Swansea than at Liverpool because Swansea have most things in place to achieve kind of success expected at Swansea, whereas at Liverpool, its a MESS in terms of having things in place to achieve the kind of success that is expected at Liverpool. That is my point.
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree here - I don't think that the foundations in place at LFC are by any means as weak as they are made out to be.
ReplyDeleteTough decisions need to be made irt the playing squad, but I expect enough investment to be made for a jump back into the CL to be a realistic aim this season.
Expectations have been watered down over recent years, so the measures of success have been skewed downwards at our club, while if all goes well, the ceiling for success is still sky high (i.e. legit title/CL contention within 2-3 years), whereas for arguments sake, a club like Swansea are pretty much near their ceiling already.
Nevertheless, good for Rodgers and I hope that he does succeed at Swansea, if for nothing else than just to prove that money isn't everything in this league, but I honestly do think that he will regret the decision not to give himself the chance to be involved in the revolution at LFC.
Aye, agree to disagree :)
ReplyDelete