Nothing in Brendan Rodgers’ time at Anfield, with apologies to William Shakespeare, became him like the leaving it. Several dyed-in-the-wool Liverpool supporters of my acquaintance have been none too secretly praying for poor results this past month or so in order that the inevitable end might be hastened, yet no sooner did the axe fall than a whole forest of tributes, explanations, consolations and speculations sprang up anew.
Whether you think he is David Brent or a future England manager, and both theories have been persuasively advanced in the past few days, it appears everyone has an opinion on Rodgers and what must now be regarded as his failure at Liverpool. That seems a tad harsh, actually, for a manager who definitely succeeded in reviving the club’s ambition and self-belief, though sadly the record books will show that despite being in situ for roughly four times as long as Roy Hodgson, the key to the trophy cabinet was required on exactly the same number of occasions. None.
Already, and this must be particularly hurtful for departing managers still coming to terms with the pain of rejection, it is being suggested that the next man will be a perfect fit for the club. Jürgen Klopp, if it is he, will be strong where Rodgers was weak. He will sort out the defence, take no nonsense from the transfer committee – if indeed the German puts up with anything as feeble-sounding and inefficient as a transfer committee – reinvigorate Rodgers’ somewhat timid recruits merely by breathing on them, and put Liverpool back where they belong.
Fine, except where do Liverpool actually belong these days? For all Klopp’s undoubted qualities he is not going to bring Luis Suárez back, is he? He is unlikely to persuade the Fenway Sports Group to spend the sort of money that Chelsea and Manchester City have been spending either, or convince Barcelona and Real Madrid cast-offs that Liverpool have Champions League potential to match Arsenal and Manchester United. The difficulties facing Rodgers have not gone away, in other words, no matter how stupendous the Klopp CV.
There is a reason why Liverpool keep finishing just outside the Champions League and that is because – when nostalgia and tradition have been stripped away – there are four better-resourced clubs ahead of them. That is the situation at present, even before factoring in a possible future coefficient reduction to three Champions League qualifying places.
If Klopp arrives in this country in time to catch I Believe in Miracles at the cinema, he can hardly fail to note that English football has changed almost beyond recognition since the glory days of Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest marked a high point for the cult of the charismatic manager.
On the evidence of the past week, football still likes to believe that the right man in the right job can sort a club out in next to no time, but is it actually true?
Does faith in a manager’s methods still have any validity at a time when oligarch owners or overseas investors seem much more likely to shape the destiny of a sporting institution? Sir Alex Ferguson has just brought out a book entitled Leadership, and most supporters, players and directors at football clubs would settle for that single quality in a manager, though the circumstances in which Ferguson became king of all he surveyed at Old Trafford were rooted in a previous era.
Like Clough, Bill Shankly and Matt Busby, Ferguson built up the club as he went along and stayed a heck of a long time, moving from unpromising beginnings to unprecedented success, and winning the right to get things done his own way. That is what managers, at least the very best of them, used to be able to do. Now they are offered three-year contracts, and tasked to get the club back into the Champions League. Or, in the case of Manuel Pellegrini, asked to take the club into the final stages of the Champions League.
Leadership is subtly different in those conditions. It helps a great deal if you have been around for a couple of (mostly) successful decades, like Arsène Wenger, or are back by popular demand at a club where you previously won trophies, like José Mourinho. But as Rodgers was heard to remark on departing Liverpool, time is required for major rebuilding projects and most managers are short of it from the start. All you can really do if you suspect you have a three-year audition before the owners start to look elsewhere is project confidence, tidy up results and ideally impose a playing style of your own on the team. Pellegrini has been pretty good at that, though he has had more money spent on the team than most.
While Louis van Gaal certainly projects confidence, some of United’s results have been untidy and the playing style is very much a work in progress.
One would expect Klopp, based on what he achieved at Borussia Dortmund, to tick all three boxes at a new club. In fact he is such an ideal candidate for an English side one might have expected City, United or Chelsea to have approached him by now. United especially need to be looking for a younger man soon, for Van Gaal is 64 and already nearing the mid-point of his three-year term. He could stay longer, of course, yet had Klopp had the same amount of money to spend and carte blanche to redesign the team, United might have been reaping the benefits more conspicuously by now. But that sounds dangerously like belief in the old cult of the manager, the frequently optimistic view that changing the nameplate on the office door will lead to a sudden change in fortunes.
Actually, there may be circumstances in which it still might, but you need a level playing field. The right managerial appointment can still make a difference lower down the divisions, but the Premier League is skewed by the Champions League elite. One might even venture to suggest that the only level playing field in the Premier League is the Champions League elite.
That is why the very best managers, and players, tend to be picky about their clubs. Breaking into the Champions League from outside, in a now stratified system like England’s, is not easy, especially in three years.
In Germany, Dortmund play to crowds bigger than Manchester United, Bayern Munich and Barcelona, let alone Liverpool. Touchingly, some of Klopp’s friends suggested he would be up for a challenge, would quite like to take over a club at a slightly lower level and build it up. It may be that the high-energy pressing game he favoured at Dortmund would be a harder sell to established table-toppers, but you do not need to be a Liverpool supporter to hope such a revolution might still be possible, using just personality and ingenuity rather than financial clout.
For all his faults Rodgers often appeared to be making progress in that direction, which might explain why many are a little sorry to see him go. Should his successor make it happen football would be grateful as well as surprised, for it has to be said that the manager as miracle worker is on the endangered list, if not quite yet an extinct species.
