Liverpool’s Brendan Rodgers expects the sack if he gets big calls wrong

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/nov/06/liverpool-brendan-rodgers-changes-real-madrid

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Brendan Rodgers has said he will pay with his job for too many wrong calls as Liverpool manager but maintained his team selection at Real Madrid did not fall into that category. He also flatly denied that seven changes at the Bernabéu represented an acceptance of defeat against the reigning European champions.

Liverpool’s manager has been accused of betraying the club’s heritage and demeaning the Champions League since making wholesale changes for Tuesday’s 1-0 loss in the Spanish capital.

The fall-out continued on Thursday during Rodgers’ press conference to preview Chelsea’s impending visit to Anfield – the game he made a priority over Real, with Liverpool 12 points behind the Premier League leaders – when he described the criticism as a “disservice” to players who were “absolutely magnificent” atthe Bernabéu.

Tom Werner, the Liverpool chairman, who is over from the United States for Saturday’s match, met Rodgers at the club’s Melwood training ground on Thursday and was fully supportive of the decisions taken in Spain, according to the manager. Rodgers insisted he was employed to make “big calls” and accepted there would be consequences should they go awry. But he rebutted claims that the decision to omit Steven Gerrard, Raheem Sterling, Philippe Coutinho, Jordan Henderson et al was part of a damage-limitation strategy against Real.

“The only thing I showed the other night was the trust I have in the team and in this group of players,” Rodgers said. “I never feared that if I play this team we are going to end up losing seven- or eight-nil and what would be the consequence of that?

“I would never do that, I would never pick a team that I believe couldn’t get a result from a game. I never went into a game in my life and felt that we are not going to get a result.

“The thinking and the strategy that goes behind it is deep in terms of analysing the opponent. You have to be bold enough to make the decisions as a manager and that is why you are paid the money you are. If you make more wrong ones than right ones you will be out of work, it’s as simple as that. It’s a big risk but for me I’m happy with the decisions I make. It can be a big call and people might think ‘You took a massive risk there’, but you weigh up the risk and reward.

“The reward for me was you get the opportunity to trust the squad and hopefully that is the biggest thing that comes out of it for me with the players, because that is what I look to do. We didn’t quite make the result but it bodes well for us in the future.”

The Liverpool manager believes he is under no more pressure than usual against Chelsea on Saturday despite resting players and claiming before the Real game that the Premier League was the priority.

“I don’t feel it,” he claimed, adding that Werner backed his judgment at the Bernabéu. “Tom spoke to me and straight away they [the owners] see the courage in playing a different team and younger players and how I have dealt with my situation here. They have always been supportive, they have been great.”

Rodgers revealed that Gerrard had a scan on a hamstring problem before Liverpool’s departure for Spain on Monday. The Liverpool captain was named on the substitutes’ bench against Real in readiness for Chelsea while other players were dropped following last Saturday’s defeat at Newcastle United, the manager explained, but he denies taking the Champions League lightly.

“There is no way that by changing the team I was undermining the competition or the size of the task that we had and I am not sending out a Liverpool team to lose convincingly or just accepting defeat,” Rodgers added. “People know me well enough now that, if anything, I am full of optimism we can get a result in any arena in the world. It was no different the other night.

“We had a plan to stay in the game. We were out of the game at half-time in some ways at Anfield so we needed to find a way with a team that hasn’t scored in four of the last five games.

“Maybe last year’s team might have gone and played differently but this is the present, we are where we are, and I had to find a way to give us an opportunity to get something from the game. It wasn’t to be as we didn’t get the result.”