Been a long time since I came, surprised to see so much negativity.

Rafa Benitez is a great manager, I really would love to have him back but let us not pretend he is infallible. There were many decisions he made which were absolutely baffling. Substituting Torres or Gerrard off when we need a goal, he dropped Peter Crouch even when he was on form, he prefered Nabil El Zhar over Jermaine Pennant, tried to sell Xabi Alonso to sign Gareth Barry... No doubt he worked under very difficult circumstances under H & G, but there were poor decisions that were made by him alone. Robbie Keane was a poor signing, and his attempt to replace the outgoing Xabi ALonso with the injured Aquilani was another one. And then there was his time at Inter Milan which was to put it mildly, disastrous.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Rafa but every manager makes mistakes, Rafa did as well. So why are we using Rodgers mistakes to beat him up? He is a young manager and he has shown that he is brave enough to adapt, some say Allen was his favourite boy and he won't drop him, but in the last two games he has dropped Allen after some sub-par performances. He is learning from his mistakes and is doing his best to revamp our squad.

Another thing to note is that the squad that Rodgers had inherited is nowhere near good enough. Can he had done better in the last 6 months? Yes, he probably could but our position now in midtable is not entirely unexpected. We have been on a downward trend for many years now. The truth is we have a bunch of players who are grossly overpaid and overrated. Reina hsa been declining and is nowhere near his best. Johnson has always been good going forward but suspect in defending. Kelly is very good but very injury prone. Skrtel and Agger are not world class defenders, they are good defenders, no more than that. Enrique was good for half of last season, and crap for the other half. Gerrard has not been at his best for around three years now. The young players like Shelvey and Sterling has been inconsistent, is that surprising for players at that age? I reckon not. Well, I could go on and on... Surely this issues need to be taken into consideration, Rodgers isn't doing a very good job, but he isn't doing bad either. Give him time, there ain't no quick fix for the mess we are in.

I've seen some people saying that Rodgers isn't making the best of what players he has right now. I'm curious to know how you guys can come to this conclusion? Is it because he prefers to play short passing? Then I would ask, how do you know that we would have done better if we play long ball/direct football? Or is it because he axe Andy Carroll? Any statistical proof that can show us to be better when playing direct football? Was Andy Carroll scoring plenty of goals before he was injured? All these stuff are uncertainties, I don't get how they could be used to criticise Rodgers. The only criticism I have, with the benefit of hindsight, is perhaps player selection but like I said, he has shown that he learns from his mistakes. I reckon we won't see Jonjo tomorrow against QPR.

Nobody knows for sure if Rodgers is the right guy to take us back to the top, but he is just 6 months into his job for god's sake! As supporters we should unite and support our manager, regardless of who he is. If the time comes for him to be sacked for poor performance, then so be it. But right now we should support him, cause you know... That's what 'supporters' are supposed to do.

YNWA

Lol yep, I was very frustrated after the Stoke game too. I will say this though, I think some of our players are a bunch of cowards. They are not willing to fight for our cause, just look at Stoke players, their commitment and work rate was amazing. Our players were like that since Roy's era, similar under Kenny, and now under Brendan. Perhaps the many years of underachieving has left out senior players mentally drained, they give up too easily. I wish they all had the fiery passion of Suarez.

I think the problem with Sahin is that whenever he plays, he has shown very little contribution defensively. Both Allen and Henderson have shown more willingness to track and mark opposition players imo, Sahin's best position is to play deep, beside a proper defensive midfielder like Lucas who will do the defensive work. Problem is that Allen, Gerrard and Henderson have all shown better performance than him playing in that role. Sahin had been given very little opportunity, but whatever little opportunity given to him has not been taken. Apart from that game where he scored twice, he had been relatively anonymous. Hence, I dont think I will feel too sad if his loan is cancelled in January. At the moment, he is no more than a luxury player, we don't really need him imo. If he regains his Dortmund form, then he will be a super player. Sadly, it looks like he is very far away from that kind of form, and he surely won't get back that form by sitting on the bench. It is just not meant to be.

2013 starts well for us. One more goal and we can wrap this match up. Super suarez and sterling, downing also playing well.

Interesting article.

Liverpool's Brendan Rodgers avoiding pitfalls that cost Roy Hodgson job two years ago

I like the part where it says that Liverpool has now implemented the 4-3-3 formation all the way down to the Under-9s , to have a great academy, you need the youngsters to be trained with the same tactics as the first team. This is a long term plan. if you look at Barca's acdemy, they always train the youngsters using the same tactics as the first team. That is why for a team like Barca, it doesn't matter who their manager is, Vilanova or Guardiola... Cause the players are all trained to play the same tactics from young. The manager just needs to send them out using that tactics.