IF YOU WANT to get to know Brendan Rodgers a little better, read his interview in Michael Calvin’s book Living On The Volcano: The Secrets of Surviving as a Football Manager, conducted when he was in charge at Liverpool.
You get the trademark, cloying schmaltz: Rodgers tells Calvin of how he loved to run around the streets of Liverpool in the evening time, greeting “our people” when “the doors are open and the dinners are on, and you can smell the mince cooking”.
There’s a bit more to this chat, however, once Calvin cuts beyond the, eh, mince, as we finally get a glimpse to the man behind the teeth.
“I’ve had to create a brand for myself around my philosophy, because I was never a big player.”
Now Brand Brendan is back in the Premier League with Leicester City, and it’s a move that should suit the club at least as, in Rodgers, they are getting one of the game’s great marketeers.
Those skills are highly useful at a club like Leicester nowadays, given that the Big Six have annexed the top of the table and left a Europa League place as the greatest glory available to the remaining 14 clubs.
Given that ‘Doing a Leicester’ is an extremely unlikely prospect to these clubs – including Leicester – there is now a renewed importance on playing good football and giving fans at least the impression of progress.
This is what Leicester were missing during the confounding but too often dreary reign of Claude Puel, so Rodgers will deliver on this.
He is a very fine coach with a long track record of improving talented players, and consequently the likes of Harvey Barnes, Ben Chilwell, and James Maddison should prosper under his tutelage.
Ultimately, Leicester should do fine under Rodgers: they may not break new ground but they certainly won’t feel like they are doubling back over old terrain, either.
But what of Rodgers?
A banner unfurled among Celtic fans said he had traded “immortality for mediocrity”, but even to someone as maudlin as Rodgers, immortality hints at a kind of stasis. He is highly ambitious and his opponents this weekend know all about that: having said he was “100% committed” to Watford in 2009, Rodgers was unveiled as Reading manager 10 days later.
Rodgers will have noted the fates of his predecessors at Celtic – Ronny Deila went to Valerenga, Neil Lennon took a job in the English Championship with Bolton Wanderers while Tony Mowbray and Gordon Strachan went to the same league with Middlesbrough – and concluded that Leicester might have been the best option to give him another shot at a top six job.
There is the chance of European football through the Europa League, but ultimately there is a regular opportunity to take a few scalps in a competition beamed around the world; it is notable that he often referred to Scottish football as being “up here”, implying it is somewhat out of sight and, perhaps, out of mind.
He has a lot to prove, however, and the irony is that he has been at his best when he has strayed from the image he has carved for himself to compensate for his mediocre playing career.
His best period at Liverpool was when he did away with his largely impotent, ‘death by football’ shtick and let slip his dogs of war; packing a team with an attack so ferocious that it largely negated a porcelain back line.
Also, for a man who is supposedly so dogmatic on how to play the game, he has a curiously bad record when it comes to finding players to fit it.
The waste at Liverpool wasn’t all his fault – Mario Balotelli was foisted upon him, for example – but he was primarily responsible for buying Christian Benteke, a bizarre choice given he had been so adamant in getting rid of Andy Carroll at the start of his reign.
Recruitment was an issue at Celtic, too. While there were successes in Moussa Dembele, Odsonne Eduoard, Olivier Ntcham and Scott Sinclair there were several failures, too: none of Charly Musonda, Eboue Kouassi, and Cristian Gamboa worked out.
He will work with a Director of Football (Jon Rudkin) at Leicester, and his reign will be a greater success if he is willing to forego full control over transfers.
His defensive record remains a big issue: Celtic kept just six clean sheets in 21 European away games under Rodgers, meaning that a 2014 dispute with Daniel Agger – in which he criticised the player’s defending only to be met with “How can you stand there and say that when we are only doing what you have been going on about all week?” – will follow him around for some time yet.
While the Liverpool and presumably Manchester United jobs are gone owing to his past affiliation with the former, he might fancy a future move to London.
Tottenham will eventually have to find a successor for Mauricio Pochettino – and likely won’t have the budget to prise a coach away from a Champions League rival – while Rodgers had his eye on the long-game when he was coaching at Chelsea, where he gave extra coaching sessions to Roman Abramovich’s son.
Rodgers is a good move for Leicester, but if he wants to prove he can do it again at the top… he has a lot to prove.
Premier League fixtures (kick off 3pm unless stated)
Saturday
Spurs v Arsenal (12.30pm)
Burnley v Crystal Palace
Brighton v Huddersfield
Bournemouth v Man City
Man United v Southampton
Wolves v Cardiff
West Ham v Newcastle (5.30pm)
Sunday
Watford v Leicester (12pm)
Fulham v Chelsea (2.05pm)
Everton v Liverpool (4.15pm)
Bernard Jackman joins Murray Kinsella and Gavan Casey to discuss the backlash to World Rugby’s league proposal, captaincy styles, sports psychology and more in The42 Rugby Weekly.
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