by Anthony Stanley (Dannyluke10).

Part 4: The Fall Guys.

“I can only talk about myself…I came in to build upon the work Kenny had done” – Brendan Rodgers.

As many on The Tomkins Times have pointed out, a manager’s tenure is defined not only by the players he inherits (and hopefully improves) and brings in, but by those who he decides to dispense with.  I originally envisioned this series to be a celebration of a particular cadre of young players; those who, in my opinion, and for various and disparate reasons, summed up the Brendan Rodgers way the most.  But the natural evolution of this – and the more I wrote, the more this became very apparent – is to ask this question: what are the characteristics that the Reds’ manager seems to look for the most in his players? What, if anything, defines a Liverpool player under Brendan?  I believe there are tangible answers to this and that he has a very specific type of player in mind that he will trust to take heed of his instructions and venture into battle.  The inverse of this is, of course, that if a footballer doesn’t possess enough of these characteristics than he is surely in danger of being bombed out, as it were.  For the purposes of this article, I have narrowed these desired traits down to four: footballing ability, mental strength and character, decision-making and mobility.  It is the intention of this piece to look at some of the most high profile of Rodgers’ causalities under each of these headings in the hope of lending some kind of clarification to the often opaque and mysterious world of transfer dealings.  Each of the players that are featured will be given a score out of ten for each individual attribute.  This is not an elucidation as such; more a vehicle for initiating debate and, it is hoped, some nodding of heads.  So without further ado…

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