Time and patience are the watch words as Liverpool attempt to ignore their poor start to the season in favour of long term rebuilding and future goals.

Overview

Neither Rome, nor Swansea City, were built in a day.

For Liverpool the aim is now clear and admirable: they want to build a young team that is attractive to watch; they want to give players from their academy a chance – the imminent £6m signing of Tom Ince from Blackpool two years after he was released for a nominal fee from Anfield shows how poor they’ve been in that area before; they want a good, young manager building the footballing side of the club so that there is a clear ethos and philosophy running right the way through the teams at every level. They want what Swansea City have, and they’ve stolen the Welsh club’s manager to accomplish it.

The problem is Brendan Rodgers has arrived at a club that has been mismanaged for years, both on the football and boardroom side of things.

Rafael Benitez was lauded by the Kop, and rightly so having won one European Cup and reached the final of another against all odds and expectation, but having built a team capable of winning the league in 2008/09 his persistent tinkering with it meant that although they only lost two league matches in the entire season they often failed to win their easier games. Draws with Fulham, West Ham, Stoke and Hull at Anfield looked costly on a final league table where they trailed champions Man Utd by just four points. Had Benitez left well alone and picked his strongest team for the league matches rather than trying to second guess fitness levels for an endless European campaign they’d have been champions – and what he never seemed to grasp was that after such a long gap, dominated by bitter rivals Manchester United, Liverpool fans probably value a league title above all else.

Whether Europe should take preference over domestic competitions became academic when the takeover by George Gillettt and Tom Hicks turned sour the club became a farce. Benitez left after becoming too embroiled in the politics and signing expensive Spanish left backs and Roy Hodgson was brought in from Fulham.

Hodgson’s modus operandi is well known – lengthy training sessions based around pattern of play that involve repetitive, laborious drills. Even the Fulham players, who Hodgson took to the Europa League final, admitted the training was boring and while Hodgson’s methods work well for teams punching above their weight, you need to be more expansive and positive at teams that don’t see avoiding defeat as the main aim of the game. It’s difficult to motivate millionaires at the top of their game to run a monotonous pattern of play drill a dozen times; the mindset required for the half of the league just grateful to stay in the division is entirely different as QPR have found this year by buying players used to the former as an attempt to progress from the latter.

In Hodgson’s defence though Leeds and Blackburn have won the top division since Liverpool last did it so there’s not much reason for Liverpool to think themselves above his basic methods, and even if they had all bought into it he was unlikely to ever be a success at a club that was being driven to financial collapse by owners making no secret of their self interest and capable only of adding the likes of Paul Konchesky and Christian Poulsen to an already limited squad.

The other thing Hodgson had to contend with was the omnipresence of legendary former Liverpool player and manager Kenny Dalglish behind him in the director’s box making little secret of the fact that he’d quite like to have a crack at the top job. As Newcastle found with Alan Shearer, when a situation like that develops the best thing to do is just give them the reigns, let them make a mess of it, and then get back to running the club with head rather than heart.

Liverpool did exactly that. Not only did they appoint Dalglish as manager, and then stand by and allow his partisan approach to the Luis Suarez racism allegations – which stretched as far as the team warming up in t-shirts bearing the striker’s name – sully the reputation of the club, but they also named Damien Comolli as sporting director above him. Presumably that job was to uncover the hidden gems of European football as clubs like West Brom, Swansea and Newcastle have proved rather adept at doing. Instead Comolli oversaw a catastrophically awful transfer policy where Liverpool threw astonishing amounts of money at mediocre players - £35m for Andy Carroll, £20m on Stuart Downing, £16m on Jordan Henderson, £9m on Charlie Adam and so on. I mean Konchesky and Poulsen were lousy signings but at least they were cheap.

The Liverpool fans are a sentimental lot and despite saturating radio phone ins with calls for Hodgson’s head they rarely say a word against Dalglish whose second reign as boss, League Cup win accepted, proved to be an expensive disaster.

What the club has done since missing out on that league title in 2009 is dig itself into a rather large hole. Brendan Rodgers is the man they’ve put their faith in to extract them from that but he has plenty working against him in addition to the mess he inherited. For a start, the transfer window system means the squad can only be changed every six months. When moves for Clint Dempsey and others floundered in the summer it left them relying almost exclusively on Louis Suarez for goals in the first half of this season – Liverpool have never had less points at this stage since three points for a win was introduced.

And then there are expectation levels. Rodgers did well at Swansea, a club that could only of dreamed of Premier League football five or six years ago, and at Watford, who only wanted to stay in the Championship when he was there. But charged with another rebuilding operation at Reading, where the high-earning Premier League squad needed to be quickly dismantled after relegation and then speedily rebuilt for a promotion push, he was given barely five months and then sacked when results were not instantaneous.

The Liverpool fans, recognising the size of Rodgers’ task, have been patient thus far despite a poor beginning. But many more performances and results like the one on Boxing Day against Stoke and the knives will be out. I think it will take Rodgers the rest of this season and all of next to get this team into a position where it might once again qualify for the Champions League at the end of the 2014/15 season, but I doubt he’ll be given that long. Football clubs turn like super tankers, but are owned and supported by people who want speedboat performance.

Interview

Three for the price of one this week as the Liverpool fans rushed to answer our Twitter plea for input. Thanks to Gareth Williams, Mark Kulke and Shane Thorne for their time.

Liverpool have never had fewer points at this stage of the season since the three points for a win rule was introduced - assess the start to the season from the fan's perspective.

ST: Some fans saw the 2011/12 as reasonably successful following the Carling Cup triumph and a modest defeat in the FA Cup final. However, when you consider the amount of investment in a new 'youthful and British' transfer policy under the helm of a Liverpool legend in King Kenny then realistically eighth place in the league was simply not good enough. This brought about the demise of Dalglish's second tenure and an exciting appointment in the promising Brendan Rodgers. This is a guy who came in with a dossier composed over 15 years in coaching and a tiki-taka style of play fans were eager to see.

From the outset it was clear that Rodgers would begin the opening four months of the league season with a youthful, inexperienced and small first team squad. Although we knew it would be tough, there was a positive vibe within the LFC family that we had the right man in charge and if the players had the right balance of hunger and desire then we should be challenging for a top six place. Then the season started.....

We started with West Brom away - you would feel that this would be a great fixture to open with in playing a hit and miss Baggies side with a first time manager in Steve Clarke. A red card and 3-0 (even after a missed penalty) later then all of a sudden, excitement disappeared only to be replaced with a 'here we go again' feeling and this was just game one.

Now18 games on and 25 points later then you can only see six victories as disappointing. With only one fit, recognisable striker in Luis Suarez since October, Liverpool have lacked the firepower needed to turn the unlimited amount of chances we seem to create in games into goals. That being said the defensive end has also looked uncharacteristically weak with a keeper seemingly struggling with confidence and too many individual defensive errors occurring. The good is overshadowed by the bad meaning that inconsistency and the failure to string together a run of results is dampening our chances of any European qualification let alone a Champions League place.

With January a matter of days away and all the teams at the top dropping points then we can only hope that sensible additions in the window will lead to a change of fortunes.

MK: Disappointing without a doubt. We looked like we were heading in the right direction, we had only lost one in ten games a few weeks ago and looked hard to beat. What we needed to start doing was turning draws into wins, and then we got hammered at home by Villa; a team we should have beaten really, who then go onto to have 12 put passed them in their next two games. We bounced back against Fulham and then got bullied by Stoke. The squad looks a little tired and the January transfer window seems to have popped along just at the right time. A few additions to the squad will hopefully add a little bit of quality and freshness to it, we will have to wait and see who comes in. It's still early days into Rodgers reign and having a short term view will get us nowhere.

GW: I think one word sums up our season so far: frustrating. It’s not just the results that have been up and down, but more annoyingly the performances. One week we will play flowing sharp football, the next we look like Hartlepool (no offence Jeff!). I accept our squad is wafer thin and we have got rid of a lot of average players, but from what have left and the wages and reputation some of them have we should expect more. I guess looking at it glass half full you would say we have some good youngsters and the rebuilding has started.

The fans really didn't take to Roy Hodgson and gave him some serious grief, and yet Brendan Rodgers seems to still enjoy support despite a worse start. Is he under any pressure? Why are fans being more tolerant with him?

MK: Yes, I think from this point onwards he (Rodgers) is under pressure. The honeymoon period is over, even the players will now say they understand how he wants them to play, so he will start to be judged on his selections and tactical decisions. Liverpool supporters are under no illusion that he cannot compete financially with others in the top three, so whoever is in charge will have the same problem. If everyone has to get their house in order, in line with financial fair play, then living within your means, youth development and prudent spending in the transfer market will become a must. This is what he has been brought in to do, that is what he has to work with. Any other couch would have been given the same brief. If you look at both Houllier and Bentiez they both finished runners up in their third seasons respectively and were in a position to follow it up the next season. For whatever reasons (this isn't the place to go into this) they didn't. So, is it any different for Rodgers? No, he has to be seen to be moving in the right direction. Take Borussia Dortmund as an example who had finished a disappointing thirteenth the year before Jurgen Klopp came in. Klopp is about the same age as Rodgers and was relatively inexperienced having only managed Mainze 05 before. He got Dortmund to sixth then fifth in successive seasons before winning it the next, and the one after that too. He inherited a decent squad with some excellent player coming through the youth set-up and Rodgers is in exactly the same position as I see it and ,as I said, he will now start to be judged on his selections and tactical decisions - both of which I thought he got horribly wrong against Stoke. Pass and move is the Liverpool groove, he's not introducing anything new at Anfield, but sometimes you have to be up for a fight. We were horribly out fought against Stoke, but you know what you are going to get there and the way they play is valid, but sometimes you have to be prepared to have a scrap and we weren't or can't more like.

As for Hodgson?? At the time the club was owned by the two cancers - Hicks and Gillettt. Benitez had clearly got distracted by the internal politics going on and the then MD Christian Purslow, a man who knew nothing about football, decided to replace him with Hodgson. There was a definite them and us mentality between the supporters and the owners at the time. Purslow was one of them and Benitez was one of us. This clearly wasn't a popular move and we didn't warm to Hodgson or believe in him. All I can say is, let's see how England fair or how long it is before England fans and the media share our view.

GW: You can see the footballing philosophy is different with Rodgers. So much is made of the Liverpool way, and people say Liverpool have always played passing football. This was not true with Roy, the football was very, very poor. All I have to say is Paul Konchesky! The club was in a poor state, with a lot of underlying problems that cannot be resolved in a month or even a year. It is about getting the foundations right, getting the right people. Getting Joe Cole on a free looks good at first sight but £90,000 a week causes a lot of problems you then get others who want that kind of money and then the club is not in a good place.

ST: Roy Hodgson is one of the most respected men in football and that shows with the FA's decision to give him the national post. When he came to Liverpool, it was on the basis that he was vastly experienced and could work on a limited budget. That being said and with no disrespect to Fulham, there was very little ambition in his gameplay and it seemed as though they were happy to play out for draws. Brendan Rodgers is the complete opposite. You only need sit back and watch Swansea City, whether it be last season or this, to see what impression he left on the club. Arguably they are one of the best sides in the league to watch. Pass and move whilst keeping possession of the ball is 'sexy' football and something associated to the 'Liverpool Way' made famous when we were the dominant force of the game from the sixties through eighties. There is no doubting that Rodgers and Hodgson are at complete opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to coaching. Although results between the two managers are similar, Rodgers was appointed on the basis that there is a long term plan in place, which is something not necessarily guaranteed with a man of Hodgson's age. Rodgers is building from the bottom up and also proving popular in bringing through youth with the likes of Sterling, Shelvey, Suso and Wisdom all earning their first real tastes of weekly top flight football. Miracles do not happen overnight and at times we have seen glimpses of what is still to come; all we need to do is be patient and in Brendan we trust.

What is the feeling towards the club's owners? The previous pair seemed like a nightmare, how has Henry improved things - if indeed he has improved things?

GW: I think we have to accept football is either a plaything for rich owners or a business. I look at the way Henry and Werner have run the Red Sox and am impressed with the way they do things. On the whole they are doing it the right way here; it will just take a lot of time. We have to accept mistakes will be made but I think we are all pulling in the same direction, and they are working with the manager, which wasn't happening with Hicks and Gillett. They were just out to make a quick buck and were cowboys in more ways than one. It still makes me angry thinking about the way they tried to ruin the club.

MK: The previous owners, Hicks and Gillettte, are by far the worst custodians of the club we have ever had. They were purely in it for their own gain and nearly bankrupted us. Now, regardless of any tribal allegiance I would hate to see what happened in the SPL happen here. So the best I can say about the current owners is they averted that particular scenario. FSG have a plan and have promised to make us competitive and win the league within three to five years and have also announced the rebuilding of Anfield. We will have to wait and see, and I hope for the best.

ST: You only have to mention the names Hicks and Gillettt for any Liverpool fan to look at you in disgust. These are the men that almost ran the football club to ruin and still to this day fight in US Courts against being forced to sell to FSG.

Mr Henry and his group saved Liverpool FC from going into administration, cleared more than half of outstanding debt, agreed plans to redevelop Anfield and the surrounding area, doubled incoming revenue with new corporate/commercial sponsorships, shown a willingness to invest in the squad and eagerness to interact with fans following creation of a supporters committee and through social media. All of this has been achieved in two years and for that, us fans will forever be in their debt.

Yes, there are times where the frustrated fan will say why didn't we pay that extra bit to get a player or two in to help balance the squad and I'm sure the owners too have learnt a lot with over spending in certain areas but let’s not forget they are the other side of the Atlantic and this is all still relatively new to them. It is clear that the powers that be have a plan, a shrewd business sense and in years to come the club will reap the rewards of their infrastructure.

Pretty well known that Liverpool are short of strikers and it seems like Daniel Sturridge will come this January. What do you make of that signing and what or who else would you like to see brought in this January?

ST: It's common knowledge that Daniel Sturridge will be the first new arrival through the Melwood door. The reported fee of £12m also seems quite steep but if you consider some of our other recent additions then this seems reasonable. If you look back on the goals he did score when given the opportunity and a loan spell at Bolton Wanderers then there is potential. I'm certainly not expecting him to single handedly propel us up the table but if he shows a willingness to help the team and work as a team player then he should produce much needed goals.

Every transfer window sees Liverpool linked with 20+ players but the other likely link at the moment seems to be the return of Tom Ince. This is a relatively unknown player we sold to Blackpool in 2010 for a mere compensation payment and are now looking to bring back for more than 200% of that fee. Most will see that as poor from a business sense but if you look back and consider this was under a previous regime and a young player who was in desperate need of first team action the you may also see that the goals and assists he produces in the Championship will make him a useful addition to the side.

The January window is always the most difficult as you have to look at availability and inflated prices on players. Therefore, loan markets are also a possibility. Based on what we know and there being a desperation for attacking options then Demba Ba or David Villa (loan) would prove very good additions. If it were down to me personally though, one player I'm surprised that isn't linked with bigger clubs more often is Dries Mertens of PSV Eindhoven - look him up.

MK: Daniel Sturridge?? Doesn't really fill me with a great deal of excitement if I'm honest and looking at his career total 38 goals in 140 games that doesn't look great, but I'm quite happy to be proven wrong. In his favour he has played all his career in the Premier League. Tom Ince has been tearing the Championship up and looks immense and did come through our youth system so should slot straight in to the club. Can he do it in the Premier League though? Honda, Llorente or Moussa Sissoko (I think they all have six months left on their contracts) would all improve our squad, though I'm not sure how realistic any of them are. Considering we are reportedly about to spend £18m in Jan that is a lot of talent there we could have got.

GW: Sturridge I think will be a good signing, not amazing but he is young English and I think it’s a better deal than we had done before when we went a bit silly paying large fees. He can't do it on his own though, and we need more. I like the fact Ince may come back and we are not being stubborn to the fact we sold him less than two years ago, but we are saying "he is good lets go for him". Would love to see Walcott, but I don't think that will happen, and maybe another central midfielder. How about Alonso coming back. I can dream can't I?

What are the realistic aims for this season, and the medium to long term? Can Liverpool realistically challenge for the league again any time soon?

MK: I don't think there is anything to gain from short term-ism. If Rodgers can impose a style of play and implement this then why not give him time to develop it. But I can tell you this, no one will be willing to be a mid table team for a year or two. Not the players, not the fans, not the owners. This time next year will be the point to gauge his work. After all he will have had three transfer markets, including January, and enough time to get a team to play the way he wants. Realistic aims for his season? I don't know, if you had asked me a few weeks ago I would have said somewhere in the top six...now?? Let's see where we are after Christmas fixtures and how the new signing pan out. Medium to long term I don't see why Rodgers, who is clearly a good couch, can't get us moving in the right direction. I think we have the core of a really good squad, (Reina, Johnson, Skrtl, Agger, Gerrard, Lucas, Suarez) with some really exciting youth prospects coming through (Sterling, Suso, Wisdom, etc) and with the right signings I don't see any reason why we can't improve and certainly be competing the season after next. What's the point in being negative?

GW: This season is about rebuilding the foundations, anything more is a bonus. I wish Rodgers hadn't bigged us up, there is only one way to fall from there. Medium term we need to continue to rebuild, let our youth come through we have a really good academy and I love seeing those boys come through. I think you know all about young Raheem Sterling. The league? I think if we are lucky we are looking four or five years if the youngsters all come through and the manager gets the support, but we have to accept we are not what we were 20 years ago.

ST: Unless there are a few surprises in January and if Liverpool hit a real hot streak then realistically this season we should be looking at a top eight finish. When considering our inconsistencies and the league being wide open this year then this achievement alone will take a lot of hard work. Can Liverpool challenge for the title any time soon? I feel it will still take a couple of years for us to get back to challenging for the Champions League spots let alone challenge for the title. All we have to do is be patient, carry on supporting the club and see where we are then.

Scout Report

QPR have two things going for them this Sunday.

Firstly, for the second time in three home matches they’re playing a team that can be seriously hampered by paying special attention to one player: Fulham had Dimitar Berbatov and once Rangers had nullified him the Cottagers lacked threat and purpose; Liverpool have Luis Suarez and if Harry Redknapp can figure out a way to do the same to him the R’s will be more than halfway there.

Against Fulham, Rangers were able to nullify Berbatov because his desire to drop deep away from the forward line and receive the ball in the line between the QPR defence and midfield meant Stephane Mbia could be dropped deeper to close that space and trample over him. Suarez is a different beast, playing on the shoulder of the last defender and constantly moving left and right along that line looking for opportunities. His movement off the ball is the best in the league and will pose serious problems for QPR who will have two immobile, cumbersome centre halves out there regardless of whether they select Anton Ferdinand or Ryan Nelsen alongside Clint Hill. Then there’s the speed and the inevitability of a goal from former QPR trainee Raheem Sterling – absent against Stoke but almost certain to be recalled here – to worry about.

But the second thing the R’s have going for them is that, on Boxing Day, Stoke City were good enough to provide a point by point guide for beating the current Liverpool team and it wasn’t actually that difficult to follow. Rodgers has set down a mantra of playing out from the back and is currently trying to enforce it on players not quite good enough for the job. In time he will bring in more players like Joe Allen that he wants and knows will be able to perform the tasks he’s demanding but at the moment Liverpool look uncomfortable in their work and are easily harassed. Stoke did little more than work hard and press ridiculously high up the field on Boxing Day and that was enough.

The other thing that was clearly noticeable during Liverpool’s recent win at West Ham is the threat posed and opportunity created by right back Glen Johnson. On that occasion the Hammers never got to grips with his forward runs, which are always focused on cutting infield towards the edge of the penalty area to get a shot or damaging pass away, rather than the traditional full back method of aiming for the byline to deliver a cross. QPR, with Shaun Wright-Phillips and Jamie Mackie more known for their defence than attack at the moment, would seem well equipped to cope with that but victory can be achieved by exploiting the space that Johnson leaves behind, and also targeting Jose Enrique at left back who is in poor form. When I’ve seen Liverpool this season the obvious fault has been when they lose the ball in the midfield area, and are broken upon by a counter attacking team, both full backs are often too far down the field leaving the centre backs alone and isolated to face the rush of three or four players.

I think QPR would be more suited to Stoke’s basic game plan of pressing up the field as high as possible, but if they do want to sit off slightly then they must first of all look to win the ball not too far past the halfway line and then, when they do so, spring it quickly in behind the advanced full backs for maximum reward.

Or, you know, leave Luis Suarez with Anton Ferdinand and pump long balls at Djibril Cisse all afternoon. That might work too.

Links >>> Official Website >>> This Is Anfield – blog and forum >>> Liverpool Echo – local paper >>> LFC Online – blog and forum >>> Anfield Red – blog >>> Anfield Online – blog and forum >>> Kop Talk – blog and forum >>> Anfield Road – blog >>> Paisley Gates – blog

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TacticalR added 02:39 - Dec 29 Reading the contributions from the Liverpool fans, I get the feeling that there is a lot of confusion about where the club should be. I suppose it's not that surprising when one of the most successful clubs in the history of English football is currently rubbing shoulders with the likes of Swansea and Norwich. Perhaps the confusion is due to the fact that as recently as 2011 Liverpool were forking out £35 million for Andy Carroll (i.e. spending a fortune in a desperate attempt to get back into the top four). However, it looks to me that since then John Henry has had a major rethink - abandoning the idea of building a new stadium, and giving up on the idea of getting into the top four too. Rodgers probably added to the confusion by saying over Christmas that Liverpool were aiming for a top two place. Joe Cole is one of the lost men of English football. His acquisition at great expense to do very little is reminiscent of many of the recent bad purchases at QPR.

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derbyhoop added 22:22 - Dec 29 Liverpool fans still think they are a big club. Given the number of followers around the world it is still a big name club. But, they haven't looked a top side for 3 or 4 years. Given time, Rodgers may set them moving in the right direction, but he may not get the time. At the moment, they are over reliant on Suarez for goals and if we can nullify his threat, we could win. But the chancesof emulating Stoke's pressing game with Cisse and Taarabt is unlikely.

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