It probably wouldn't have been raised had it not been for the chants for our previous manager.
Didn't get the impression Bascombe was shit stirring.
Rodgers pre WBA press conference video
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Didn't get the impression Bascombe was shit stirring.
By Chris Bascombe9:00PM BST 17 Aug 20121 Comment
The process of repairing the damage after a prolonged period of deterioration intensified over the summer, from the underperforming team through to the club’s tainted image and their ageing arena. What will become ‘new Anfield’ has received its first lick of paint.
More than £1million was spent on upgrading the stadium’s interiors, while Liverpool City Council has just announced the demolition of 36 neighbouring houses, one of numerous obstacles to expansion removed.
If the Stanley Park blueprint has not already been ripped up, it is hovering suggestively near a shredder in owner John Henry’s office. The plush refurbishment extends to the corporate areas of the Centenary Stand with the newly christened ‘Shankly’ and ‘Paisley’ lounges.
“Looking to the future while also remembering our past,” said the accompanying promotion on Liverpool’s website.
It is always thus with English football, especially Liverpool. If you have a modern idea that might be perceived as a dangerous challenge to tradition, you have to camouflage it with a comforting image from history.
Rodgers has captured this synchronised philosophy with his capacity to speak a language the supporters find reassuringly familiar, while at the same time presenting the youthful, dynamic and forward-thinking front the owners have wanted for two years.
As well as the Anfield décor, Fenway Sports Group took steps to polish up how the club are projected, transforming their media operation. A behind-the-scenes documentary airs next month and a PR firm has been asked to present the board with a clearer definition of what Liverpool represent in the 21st century, warts and all, asking an assortment of journalists and fan groups for their views.
Bloggers, website editors and opinionated Liverpool fans with enough followers on Twitter to get them noticed are invited to press briefings, and will be granted an audience with Rodgers once a month, an acknowledgement of the changed media landscape. To some it is a risky Americanisation of the brand, to others the kind of perceptiveness that was once the club’s hallmark but was cast adrift in the complacency of global popularity.
The rethink may be a mixture of the classy and tacky (the introduction of a dozen attractive girls dressed in tight fitting red dresses to welcome media and VIPs on a matchday was clearly dreamed up by middle-aged men) but, at its heart, is a merciful realisation Liverpool Football Club have been in too much trouble of their own making for too long and have surrendered too much of the respect they once enjoyed from those with no emotional attachment to the place. The aim is to be more inclusive, less parochial and to impart greater wisdom from the top down.
Of course, all this will not mean a hoot if Liverpool do not perform where it matters. Pre-season has brought a surge of tolerance for calls to accept the financial and sporting reality that Liverpool have been the seventh, sixth and eighth best club in the country under three managers over the last three years. It has been an unstable and unfulfilling era.
There is no logical reason for anyone to confidently predict they will return to the Champions League at Rodgers’ first attempt, but the modern shelf life for sympathetic ears tolerating pleas for patience is usually a little over a month.
Rodgers is wise enough to know the encouraging performance and results need to start at the Hawthorns on Saturday to buy him the time he needs for a long overhaul.
It was telling that for Rodgers’ opening game at Anfield, against FC Gomel in the Europa League, supporters chanted an emotional farewell to Kenny Dalglish, while the latest appointment was barely acknowledged. A new manager must always deal with the substantial and debilitating weight of Liverpool’s past.
“As a club it is an iconic one, you can never take that away. History has to be remembered and respected and that’s what I will always do, but we have to create new memories, new history,” said Rodgers. “I will always respect the past and have as much knowledge as you can get, but we must use it to create our own.
“These are educated supporters, brilliant supporters, who I’m sure are wondering how it’s all going to work out. As a manager and a coach, you have to earn the respect. Everything in life over the last 20 years I have had to earn and gain that respect and, for me, here it’s no different. People have said to me about them not chanting my name yet, but it’s more important for them to be singing the names of the players. When they feel the time is right, whenever that is, they will, but I will never be offended by it if they don’t.”
Everyone at Anfield has been impressed by the eloquent cut of Rodgers’ jib. Tactically, he says he has a plan A and “if plan A doesn’t work, plan B is to make a change to make plan A more effective”.
The pass and move mantra he espouses is not radical for Liverpool. Again, it is about restoring existing values that were lost when Liverpool turned to successive defensive, counter-attacking managers and when Dalglish was unable to find the consistency or fully re-acclimatise to a football world very different to the one he had left.
There will be plenty of casualties along the way under Rodgers. The most headline grabbing will be those players unable to cope with a more technically efficient game - a hectic finale to the transfer window should not be ruled out.
If the greatest victim of Anfield’s summer of restoration is the butchering of an era in which the club’s over-inflated self-perception bore no resemblance to the mediocre reality, Liverpool will again become the club those who were at the forefront of their halcyon days would recognise.
The bit about the fans not chanting his name is pathetic. I can't recall but I doubt we chanted Bob Paisley's name in his first bloody pre-season! I don't even think we chanted his name for months after that. Talk about shit-stirring.
I always find Bascombe's articles really hard to read. Is it just me? I'm obviously not a trained journalist so it's more just a general impression, but I think he's a pretty lousy writer. No style or rhythm.
Plus he's also a dickhead.
John Zabala
Rory Smith
What has your phone got to do with poor spelling? It's like saying I can only spell correctly if I use a crayon.
We didnt have the money? It will take time? I am sick of this.
Sucks to be you.
Cue Insignificance's insignificant anti-american charade once again for the new season.
so we don't have the money to compete with wba is a good excuse?
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