Brendan Rodgers left his position at Leicester after a loss to Crystal Palace in April. No plan was set, but still the club owners decided to part company with the man that led the club to a semi-final in Europe last season and guided the club to safe shores in all of his seasons before.
No one faults his football vision and good ideas, but in some way he decided to make changes that became difficult to accept, looking at them in perspective.
He had a similar outcome at Liverpool, not being able to replace key players in certain positions and splash out money on wild cards such as Mario Balotelli and Lazar Markovic. This made it difficult to progress from a runners-up position and instead seeing decline that led to him walking out of Anfield.
When Leicester decided to approach Brendan Rodgers for the vacant position after Claude Puel, he left Celtic in a postion few would have thought was possible. Close to winning new major trophies, and part of a plane flying in the right direction. Celtic fans were baffled and annoyed.
Being from Northern Ireland and brought up as a catholic, he also had a bond to Celtic in a different perspective, that will always be part of fans thinking and even make it more difficult to understand why he left. In a way double betrayal seen from a Celtic fan perspective, and something Brendan Rodgers should have given more careful thoughts when leaving for Leicester.
During press conferences at Leicester his talk was not easy to understand, as he believed Leicester had too little money to spend, and with no talk about his own faults and respecting the players he had at his disposal.
What we see at Fulham, Brentford, Bournemouth, Brighton and Crystal Palace shows that minor clubs, compared to the Arsenal’s, Man City’s, Man Utd’s and Liverpool’s, do fight for their lives and have less financial support that have been shown Brendan Rodgers.
Shameless talk towards owners, little or no respect for players signed for heavy fees to join Leicester and contribute, instead left on the bench, or in the stands, as other players were given game time, as difficulties in relations to all of them might be a reason. The injury problems also became almost impossible to handle in periods.
The major problem during the time Brendan Rodgers was in charge was the hunger to keep players that in a way was looking for a change and ready to move on. He also had problems in balancing his talk and walk as several players had a different view on their life at the club and what he had told them when they signed on the dotted line.
Jannik Vestergaard and Caglar Soyuncu are two central defenders of quality, and we have seen the impact Cags has had since coming back into the frame under Dean Smith. Vestergaard looks far from the player he is and in all fairness to him, should not have joined Leicester at all.
Ayoze Perez struggles at Leicester is also a shame. A very gifted player that has shown during his loan spell at Betis that he has a presence not really given the full attention by Brendan Rodgers. Certain fans have also been on the tail of Perez, but compared to other players and those coming in, he should have been a definate stay this season.
The fact that Brendan Rodgers decided to play players on merit and not on skills also shows his decision to keep Daniel Iversen out of the team and in that way probably gave away a number of points. Especially at the start of the season, when Danny Ward had been sidelined with an injury and not being played at all in pre-season.
You can add up this to strange management and personal ideas on how he would see Leicester progress, but instead he fall flat to the floor and made shambles out of a situation that he himself had created with decision making far from being calculated and instead being influenced by other matters that stopped rational thinking regarding team selection and such.
Leicester owners had put all their balls into Brendan Rodgers pockets and also supported him heavily with money splashed out in a way you thought was impossible. Hopefully we will see another approach when starting the chase for a new man to take over, and hopefully financially the club can get back on a healthy road and in balance with FFP.
Looking at it in a broader perspective we do believe Khun Top and his administration at Leicester have gone far above their limits to support Brendan Rodgers, but in a way it all crashed on the decision of keeping Caglar Soyuncu, Youri Tielemans and Ayoze Perez, who together are worth a billion and will now walk out of the club for zero.
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