Confident prediction.
If Rodgers does not sign a reputable Defensive Midfield player he will not improve results sufficiently to retain his job beyond the next season and may even be lucky to make it beyond Christmas.
It has been a glaring weakness now for the entire period of Rodgers stewardship,which with th exception of signing Can he has consistently not addressed.
With the possible signinging of a Right Back, Rodgers may be hoping that Can may indeed may be released from a defensive role to be employed in mid-field this season, however this may not be enough to really tighten up our non-competitive mid-field.
As exciting and all as some of the new signings have been, You have to worry about our pretty gruesome opening set of fixtures. If things don't gel immediately, Brendan could be fired by the end of october. Our home fixtures aren't so bad, but our away fixtures in order are Stoke, Arsenal, man utd, everton, tottenham, chelsea and Man city. I can't quite remember off hand how we did in these games last season, but I suspect that something really traumatic happened in most of them.
I think it is time for people put the idea of a fully fit Lucas rampaging around the back of the midfleld like some Whelan of old away, in a box, along with idle dreams of unicorns, care bears, and a fully fit Daniel Sturridge. Lucas has been a great servant to the club, has shown great attitude and determination, and seems like an all round decent lad. However it does have to be remembered that the teams he is such an important part of are among the defensively worst in the history of liverpool ever since the arrival of bill shankly. The last three seasons are in the top 10 as regards goals conceded, and the 2010-11 season is also in there as well. The figure for 2011-12 isn't quite so high, but it does also include the worst 20 game run of league results since before Shankly.
Lucas may have been an important player for us in that time, but It has to be borne in mind that he was also the best of a bad lot. There is a slight tendency to confuse relative quality, with absolute quality. That probably sounds harsh, but we've been conceding an average of 45 league goals a season for the last five years. And that's just shameful. (lucas should take less of the blame than all the others, but that's a separate issue to whether or not he is the future for us in that position).
It's difficult to follow this idea that the manager doesn't believe, or seem to want a screening defensive midfielder. In large part because I find it so difficult to be able to pin down exactly what the manager does believe. what he says in press conferences, or on the training ground doesn't seem to translate very well to the pitch, certainly when it comes to defending. From close observation it would seem that he believes in really small players, it would seem that he believes in not marking at set pieces, He doesn't seem to believe in having a midfielder standing in front of the defence to hinder the opposition. He seems to believe in conceding on average 4 goals in every three games. and it seems like he believes in keeping clean sheets against teams that aren't that strong, and conceding on average two goals against everyone else.
when he was in charge of reading and Watford he believed in 9 men behind the ball, two defensive midfielders, practicing set pieces, resting on the ball, quick transitions and counter attacking and basically copying everything jose mourinho did at chelsea, right down to using portuguese phrases in training. two years at swansea and he doesn't believe in any of that at all. It would seem that his core beliefs can potentially change at the drop of a hat, so hopefully this one can change too.
As with the post I quoted, unless he starts to believe in the usefulness of a defensive midfield shield, then we may quickly wind up no longer be believing in him. I nearly cried when I heard that Geoffrey Kongdogbia signed for Inter milan, a club so far from european football that they may as well be in South America, and so financially screwed that they would consider looking for investors in Greece. There are plenty of players out there that could do at least a decent job in that position for us. I'd just love to see us make an effort to buy one at some point, If only to make me feel better. I'll even make do with a Daily star link, but even they seem to consider it too outlandish to link us with a DM.