I do kind of agree with you that 2013/2014 was perfect storm but I don't think he gets the credit he deserves from some of our fans about that season, mainly because they tend to put most of it down to Suarez being unplayable that year.
Also, his track record in England is pretty good no? He got Swansea promoted and comfortably stayed in the Premier League with them. He did ok with us initially before 2013/2014 but then it did kind of fall apart. And an FA Cup and 2 5th place finishes with Leicester before things went pear shaped.
I have doubts about some facets of his ability - namely whether he can stay at a club long enough to be consistently successful, signing players and how he deals with adversity when his teams are on the slide. Also, for someone who gets criticised for being arrogant, when things start to go wrong, that's when he seems most unsure of himself, changing players and formations regularly in the hope of stumbling onto something successful.
But, I don't know, I still think he's a talented coach despite those flaws. If Chelsea hired him say, I think he'd have an immediate impact there this season and next.
He's clearly the best of the rest, but his best isn't anywhere near as good as people seem to think it is. At least as far as I'm concerned. He's not a legacy manager. Maybe it's something he picked up from working with Mourhino at Chelsea, but he seems to be a similar "3 season" manager.
Yes, Rodgers won the FA Cup with Leicester. Wigan won it too, against City no less. So did Portsmouth. Rodgers didn't win it with us. Admittedly, our record in the domestic cups has been pretty crap in recent years, but then we were gunning for titles and European Cups.
I was chatting with a Man United fan yesterday. A pretty nice young lad, quite level headed about his footie. He asked me, "at what point is it 'Klopp out'?", and I replied "Never." I said that because Klopp has proved himself and (should have at least) earned the goodwill of the supporters. What's happening is not entirely under his control, and he only has a few seasons left with us in any case.
Rodgers, on the other hand, just lost the plot completely - for many of the reasons you yourself described. Yes, we didn't have the resources we have now, but we were still at a point where £50m for a player was a lot of money rather than a clever bit of business.
He is, as you say, pretty good. But pretty good is not what LFC have ever wanted to aspire to - even though it was a big improvement on the "pretty fucking dire" that had preceded it. And I think that might be why people have such fond memories of him.
In that sense, Rodgers WAS a step up; after the dark years under Hodgson, and the stuttering under Dalglish, 13-14 was a breath of fresh air. But from almost a decade in the future, I view it differently now. Rodgers showed that he was never going to be the destination.
Did Rodgers put the club on a footing where Klopp was interested in taking over, or was that just the club and FSG making an excellent sales pitch? I don't know, but kudos to him if that's what transpired.
I'm not trying to demean Rodgers' achievements. But people seem intent on really bigging him up. I've just not seen anything to suggest he's much more than an above-average journeyman manager, who could just as likely relegate you as win you something.
By British standards, you could say he's very good. But by European standards, as I said, he's above average. I don't see that as a controversial statement, but I'll say no more as I won't want to drag the thread in circles any longer.
