How Rodgers is showing Van Gaal what total football is all about
22 Mar 2015 08:15:00
Liverpool host Manchester United on Sunday with the Northern Irish manager's team the most in-form side in the Premier League and flourishing under his tactical nousWhen Brendan Rodgers was appointed as Liverpool manager in 2012, the club’s owners wanted to support the ambitious young coach by naming an experienced mentor as director of football.
The man they had in mind was Louis van Gaal.
Not that Van Gaal would have taken the job but Rodgers blocked the idea by refusing to work with a technical director and insisting to Fenway Sports Group that he would only accept a traditional managerial role, albeit working with a transfer committee.
It wasn’t that the Northern Irishman did not respect such a legendary coach’s work. After all, they share many elements of their football blueprint, passed down through Jose Mourinho, who was Van Gaal’s star pupil and subsequently became Rodgers’ mentor.
But by that stage in his career, Rodgers felt that his days as an apprentice were over.
As Liverpool prepare to host Manchester United on Sunday in a huge game in the race for the top four, Rodgers takes on Van Gaal with no sense of inferiority despite the vast gap between them in age and experience.
In the home dugout will sit a 42-year-old who has never won a trophy, up against a 63-year-old who has won titles in three different countries and has a Champions League triumph to his name.
Yet Liverpool are the team playing total football at the moment as Rodgers's side hunt down United and look to book a Champions League place that looked beyond reach when they were thumped 3-0 at Old Trafford on December 14.
After that match, the Reds were 10th in the table - 10 points behind United - and Rodgers was forced to admit that he was fighting for his job after the club’s miserable Champions League exit just days earlier.
But Liverpool have won 10 of their 13 league matches since and are the form team in the division; now fifth in the league, two points behind United, three off Arsenal and eyeing second-placed Manchester City four points ahead.
While that humbling defeat at United was the nadir of Liverpool’s season, it was also the turning point - not just because they have bounced back so emphatically but because it was the match that Rodgers tried the 3-4-3 formation that reignited the Reds' dwindling hopes.
The signs of attacking fluency were evident even that day as David de Gea produced a man-of-the-match performance with a string of sensational saves to keep the visitors at bay.
It was a brave move from Rodgers but one he felt necessary as he watched his players flounder and the season slip away just months after coming agonisingly close to winning the club’s first title in 24 years.
It is a complicated formation, one that required hours of work on their Melwood training ground but it has paid off and Liverpool are playing with the sort of attacking fluency they showed last season.
In goal, Simon Mignolet - dropped at Old Trafford only to return thanks to Brad Jones's injury - finally looks like the player that Liverpool thought they were buying.
At the back, Emre Can has slotted in effortlessly in a defence that has equalled a club record of six consecutive away clean sheets in a row.
Jordan Henderson is driving the midfield with goals in his last three appearances, Joe Allen’s form is likely to prevent Steven Gerrard from starting his final match against United, while Philippe Coutinho has been arguably the best player in the country since the turn of the year.
On Monday night, Swansea City appeared to have worked out how to play against Rodgers's’ system in the first half before the Liverpool manager spotted the problems from the touchline and changed the game with his half-time tweaks.
He switched to a midfield diamond to put Swansea under more pressure in possession, pushed forward his wide men, and Liverpool dominated the second period as they went on to secure a 1-0 victory.
In a week when the tactical naivety of English clubs in Europe has been questioned,
Rodgers is a manager who constantly thinks about the game. He is not a standard coach using a standard formation. (
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Nor is Van Gaal, who Rodgers didn’t meet for the first time until the pre-season friendly between Liverpool and United last summer.
While Rodgers managed to find the winning formula for Liverpool in December, Van Gaal has been endlessly tinkering with his formations and tactics this season to get the best of a star-studded squad boosted by £150 million of investment.
Much of Van Gaal’s experimentation, like playing Wayne Rooney in midfield, has been counterproductive, but last weekend’s 3-0 victory over Tottenham could be the turning point.
United produced a high tempo performance playing with the 4-3-3 system that has been Van Gaal’s trademarks at the biggest of his other clubs, overwhelming Spurs with the intensity of their pressing and the speed of their forward play.
It was out of place in a season in which United have largely played slow, predictable football without attacking ambition but found ways to pick up points. For all Van Gaal’s focus on technique, his main Plan B when his side have struggled this season has been to play long balls towards the biggest player in his squad.
This Sunday, we will see if that Tottenham display was a one-off.
Despite the intense rivalry between the two most successful clubs in England, Rodgers admits he looks up to his opposite number.
"When you come through as a coach, you look at the guys who have a vision and a philosophy, and he was obviously one of those guys," said Rodgers when asked about Van Gaal last summer.
"I've obviously been an admirer of his work and his career."
Rodgers, though, is the one producing the football that we should all admire.www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896/premier-league/2015/03/20/10008592/how-rodgers-is-showing-van-gaal-what-total-football-is-all?CMPID=TWUK_150320_rodgersvangaal_____________________________________________________________________________________
