For many, the cock-sure, fast-talking Brendan Rodgers is the Premier League's biggest enigma – producing cheesy management speak that is so toe-curling that it's hard to dismiss he might simply be Sacha Baron Cohen's latest spoof character.
Certainly, given the perception of footballers' IQs, it's a struggle to imagine that the Anfield dressing room would've been bowled over by the 180-page 'One Vision, One Club' dossier the Northern Irishman produced for his interview with the club's board.
Likewise, can you really picture all-conquering captain Steven Gerrard being impressed with Rodgers' standard initial pep-talk – drawing a stick man with a crown on his head, presumably in painstaking detail, before delivering the nauseating punch-line: "you are the king of your own destiny, son."
Such techniques were rife throughout the glorious Being: Liverpool documentary, which offered viewers a front row view inside the mind of a real-life David Brent.
Little wonder Mario Balotelli has hardly set the world alight since arriving on Merseyside – cliché catchphrases are one thing, but they're never going to register with a man who likes to set off fireworks inside his own home for fun.
And yet, for a man with more waffle than Belgium, he has also overseen some spectacular football at Liverpool – last season's maraud towards the title surely the most exciting style of play in Premier League history.
If Rodgers' management style can be compared to Brent at times, then it is only fair to point out that it is also equal parts Busby, at others.
Somehow, with his neck on the chopping block, he managed to reinvent Liverpool's wheel, and recover them from a season of disaster – as Alan Shearer and Robbie Savage have probably told you umpteen times already, the Reds would be top if the season had started in January.
On Sunday, Rodgers and his side host Manchester United, in a tie widely highlighted as crucial in the race for a lucrative top-four spot – a discussion, frankly, his side have performed miracles to be a part of.
When the two teams last met, United's 3-0 victory seemed to prove that Rodgers was all talk and no trousers, his side ten points off their vanquishers in mid-table, their successes of the season before a fluke.
A reversal of that result tomorrow would see Liverpool leapfrog their rivals into a Champions League berth, and re-coronate Rodgers as cock of the walk.
Share This Article
