Rodgers and the second half of the season...

[hamstrung_pigeon]

I suppose we could dump this into the "Random stuff" thread, but I thought since it's about the club, I'd put it in a new one and see how it goes.

For some weird reason today, I decided to do some research on Rodgers' record with Swansea and Liverpool in the first and second halves of each season. The results of my Wiki driving are below. The percentage figure in the square brackets is the percentage improvement in points earned, and the names in the parentheses are the main players brought in (bought or loaned) during the winter transfer window of that season.

2010/11: P23, 11W, 4D, 8L, 37 pts --> P23, 13W, 4D, 6L, 43 pts [16%] (Moore, Britton, Borini)
2011/12: P19, 4W, 8D, 7L, 20 pts --> P19, 8W, 3D, 8L, 27 pts [35%] (Sigurdsson)
2012/13: P19, 6W, 7D, 6L, 25 pts --> P19, 10W, 6D, 3L, 36 pts [44%] (Sturridge, Coutinho)
2013/14: P19, 11W, 3D, 5L, 36 pts --> P19, 15W, 3D, 1L, 48 pts [33%] (none)

As you can see, there's not a single season when his teams performed worse in the second half of the season than the first. In fact, the 2010/11 season in the Championship with Swansea aside when they made a somewhat small improvement, his teams have not just done better in the second half of the season, they've practically taken a good leap when you consider the percentage improvement.

I'm sure there are several factors that account for this - new players in the summer getting more familiar with the team/league as time passes, players getting fitter and having a better understanding with each other, shrewd moves in the winter transfer windows, exhaustion / injuries / suspensions hitting their opponents harder as the season wears on, a freakish series of fixtures that yielded a harder first half of the season versus the second for the past 4 seasons, etc.

It just seems quite remarkable to me that you could get a succession of seasons like that. I'm not sure though if this is normal for the top teams or in fact, a lot of the other managers. I suspect not, but that's just a hunch.

 

[Whirly]

I remember some people pointing out that in our first several matches we looked gassed after 60-70 minutes possibly because our training overworked our players. But later on, we definitely had more initiative late in games, maybe as the extra cardio (?) had paid off.

Except when we didn't of course.

 

[cloggypop]

He knows how to pace himself.

Probably helps with the new missus.

 

[Mystic]

He's mentioned it himself how his teams are stronger in the second half of the season. I think its to do with our play style, as so much flair and creativity is involved, I think the players being slightly rusty is exasperated, and our high pressing game takes more of an effect as the season goes on.

On a less "Rodgers is brilliant" note, there's some coincidental reasons as well, in two of the seasons, he made great signings which surely helped, also, in all but the third season, he had no Europe, and in my opinion the second half of the season is where other teams would suffer most from their European exertions, so that would also weigh in his favour.

 

[Judge Jules]

There's another likely factor IMO and that's the considerable physical demands which Rodgers' style of football makes on the players. I suspect they need a number of games to work up to peak performance in a system which requires such constant movement.