Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

it's like purgatory in this place, i swear.

xpost i think rodgers has mostly assessed games accurately. many of the times he's defended them it's been when they've battered a team and lost, which has happened a lot this year. not disputing that's a problem with something he's doing, but it's not as much of a problem as creating nothing and being beaten easily.

plus a siege mentality is part of management, he hasn't ranted and raved about decisions or been wild about referees.

Rodgers rants at referee

Brendan Rodgers launched in to a tirade against referee Phil Dowd for his performance as Liverpool's eight-match unbeaten run came to an unfortunate end at Tottenham.

Date 29/11/12

Top google hit for brendan rodger rant (of about 325,000 results (0.30 seconds) ).

"rodgers", rather

go and tell the headmaster exactly what you googled

mahatma gandhi nazi

About 1,920,000 results (0.47 seconds)

fucking hell

I tried "ronan is an entitled prick" once, but my screen just filled with zeroes.

insult away, i merely commented on your football-related research.

Well, apart from the fact you didn't...

I googled brendan rodgers rant with no quotes, I then realised as soon as it came on screen I typed that I'd googled rodger instead so corrected it. You then jumped in with some irrelevant guff about headmasters.

OK, why not comment on what I found then? From the Mail report of the same incident:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2240115/Brendan-Rodgers-rages-Phil-Dowd.html

'Nothing is going for us away from home, that's how its been all season in terms of decisions,' Liverpool boss Rodgers said in his post-match press conference.

'Clint Dempsey has been clever (with the free-kick). He gets a hand in his back and goes down.

'We should have had two [penalties tonight]. It's incredible to have gone through the season without getting a penalty.

'The Steven Gerrard one was nearly assault. How is that not a penalty?

'Watch the second one. Luis Suarez spins, William Gallas swings his left foot, catches him and he goes down.

'The statistics will tell you that we've been in the box as much as anyone, but to arrive at this stage of season and not get a penalty.'

everybody knows that the smaller Premier League clubs get nothing off refs

In fairness it was all true.

motd the other night claimed that Liverpool have had more shots than anyone in Europe's big leagues. Sturridge will make a hell of a difference if that's right. Some of them will even be from in the box now I reckon.

just because he commented that they weren't getting penalties after a few weeks of controversial calls (discussed in a decent amount of detail by pundits, g nev etc), probably based on suarez's rep for diving, doesn't mean he's been blaming referees habitually.

Jaysus folks its only football, he said

only one person flinging insults.

when you criticise a man's googling you criticise his very being

OK, I apologise for that.

I may well have assumed you were having a go at me, which you apparently were not. However, you have in the past, and as a Liverpool fan you'll understand the notion of someone clinging to history even if it has no relevance to the present day, and it colouring their notions of what people say to them.

sickening

I was having a go at your argument, is all. No prob at all, thanks.

Will Ye Take a Drink on it folks

he says, with the phone in his hand under the counter, ready to call the gardai.

Eh hand on the bottle, in hope and with a dry mouth and an itch behind the eyes

Anyway rodgers is doing ok except for the press thing, which is not only killing goodwill but is eroding faith in his common sense imo

Is this press thing really all over the place, or just an ILF hobbyhorse? I can't say I'd noticed 'til it was brought up here.

It is a thing

my lfc fanatic mate hates rodgers at this stage, wants him gone, cringes any time he gets near a mic. I find myself arguing the case

ilf hobbyhorse.

i had no idea people found rodgers obnoxious until i read this thread tbh

My world is falling in here

I had no idea either.

I like him, while remaining unconvinced he can set up a team to play the way he wants while still defending well enough to beat the top teams. Regularly running over the struggling teams is definitely progress of a sort, and they usually look competitive vs the Big Howevermany without quite getting the wins.

re: 'is just an ilf hobbyhorse?', this was in The Fiver last week:

It is not true that before becoming a popular football manager Brendan Rodgers was a tantalising stand-up comedian, whose best joke went thus: "A man with a slightly disconcerting habit of patting interlocutors on the cheeks while staring them in the eye with a blend of friendly earnestness and deranged confidence walks into a bar and says: 'Hello, I would like an orange juice please and something to take home for my pet'. The barman asks: 'What type of pet do you have?' The man replies to this question."

It's not a very good joke, is it? When all is said and done, it is badly let down by the lack of a punchline. The buildup was fine, you might even go so far as to call it promising, but ultimately you have to conclude that it was a non-gag. A flop. Downright irritating, if you want to be frank. Feel familiar, Liverpool fans?

Liverpool's season and style of play seems sadly bereft of certain crucial components, such as reliability in front of goal, reliability at the back, basic toughness and positive results, all of which means the club are currently three points and two places worse off now than they were at this stage last season and, of course, out of the Cup after being bullied by mighty Oldham Athletic.

Still, the campaign has also had some highs, of course: indeed, at one stage Liverpool were threatening to play so well that Rodgers predicted they could storm up the table and finish in second place – that was right before they lost at home to Aston Villa; and several weeks later they looked so close to getting their act together that Rodgers predicted they could storm up the table and finish fourth – that was just before they lost at home to West Bromwich Albion. Rodgers wisely refrained from declaring Liverpool imminent Euro Vase champions before last night's first leg in St Petersburg but he unwisely opened his mouth afterwards to baffle listeners with talk of "a near-on perfect away performance" after Liverpool were deservedly beaten 2-0 by Zenit.

There is no shame in losing to a team as talented and expensively-assembled as Zenit … unless you then try to convince people who actually saw the match that the loss was some kind of unjust anomaly and that, if we overlook trifles such as appalling finishing, patchy interplay and feeble defending, the losers were moral victors. There is, of course, something even more basic than defending and attacking effectively and even easier to get right: talking.

And yet previous Liverpool managers have failed even on that front: Roy Hodgson alienated the few Anfield regulars who were prepared to cut him some slack when he started babbling about sides such as Wolves and Birmingham being fearsome opponents and Kenny Dalglish lost his messiah status when he began guffing about conspiracies everywhere and trumpeting advertising deals as major honours. After those two flops Liverpool fans have been prepared to give Rodgers time to repair years of neglect and ineptitude, and some even maintain that Rodgers's recruits such as Fabio Borini and Joe Allen will yet prove inspired hires, but it is hard for anyone to be convinced that Rodgers knows what he is doing when he persistently spouts blatant bull.

It is not true that before becoming a popular football manager Brendan Rodgers was a tantalising stand-up comedian, whose best joke went thus: "A man with a slightly disconcerting habit of patting interlocutors on the cheeks while staring them in the eye with a blend of friendly earnestness and deranged confidence walks into a bar and says: 'Hello, I would like an orange juice please and something to take home for my pet'. The barman asks: 'What type of pet do you have?' The man replies to this question."

It's not a very good joke, is it? When all is said and done, it is badly let down by the lack of a punchline. The buildup was fine, you might even go so far as to call it promising, but ultimately you have to conclude that it was a non-gag. A flop. Downright irritating, if you want to be frank. Feel familiar, Liverpool fans?

what thundering dipshit wrote the above?

great opening par, really gets you into the piece.

That rant at Phil Dowd isn't any worse than you get from any butthurt Premiership manager, I'm not even sure what's being illustrated here.

great opening par, really gets you into the piece

I had to re-read it, thinking I must have missed something

It's one of those epics that just won't let your brain take it in.

Eh if you put a liverpool jersey on that piece you'd tear into a harsh review of it imo lg

But it is a terrible opener

a WBA 3-0 Liverpool of an opener

Liverpool's season and style of play seems sadly bereft of certain crucial components, such as reliability in front of goal, reliability at the back, basic toughness and positive results, all of which means the club are currently three points and two places worse off now than they were at this stage last season and, of course, out of the Cup after being bullied by mighty Oldham Athletic.

did arsene wenger write this article?

Eh if you put a liverpool jersey on that piece you'd tear into a harsh review of it imo lg

you say this like you think you're free of madness

Comfortable with it, tbh. I certainly dont feel like i kneejerk against ilf tropes nor fair -or otherwise- criticism of spurs in quite as blatantly partisan a manner but i mean im not bothered overmuch either way it keeps things lively etc

woy is my jol. you must grant a man his jol.

plus nobody defends jol

too harsh on woy by far, that

Too harsh on jol

No, woy

Fellaini claims his hair made him head butt Shawcross:

http://metro.co.uk/2013/02/20/marouane-fellaini-i-pick-so-many-yellow-cards-because-of-my-afro-hairdo-3505447/

Samba said: "Bobby Zamora showed us what the Premier League is about when he came on.

"I think more of the players should have his attitude: urgency that reflects we have 12 games left and must play every one like a cup final."

2 for 1 value there

Carpark lunch offer

friends don't let friends make harlem shake vids

that being said, the man city one was passable

i swear it's only a matter of time before north korea releases a harlem shake video