Quote:
Originally Posted by KenwrightsWallet
"It was complacency." he says, "All week, you couldn't avoid it, the radio...the papers...everyone saying that Liverpool could be top four, and everyone's feeling that, and everyone's thinking that. And the Friday before the game, the atmosphere here was fantastic. But there are a lot of inexperienced players in our group, and they're hearing these things, and no matter what you tell them, they're believing it, but you have to go through experiences, to realise that no matter what people say, think or do, you have to graft. We never got the goal early on, and then when we went behind, we just didn't have the intensity or the aggression in our game."
What really riled him, however, was seeing fans leaving Anfield with still 20 minutes to go.
"It was probably as disappointed as I've been. We're not always going to get the results, it happens in football. But the one thing I never, ever want to see, is the home supporters walking out of Anfield, with fifteen, twenty minutes to go. That's not acceptable. It's not acceptable that they don't believe we're going to get something from the game. That was something that hurt."
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You can question Rogers's managerial capabilities if you want, I'll give you that, but one thing I don't think anyone can dispute is his mastery of the rhetorical arts. Very few managers in the history of the sport, let alone alive today, let alone in such circumstances, could speak with such ferocious passion and moving eloquence, and all so tightly bonded to the service of reason. Truly, he stands amongst men as a lion does amongst the lesser beasts. And not yet in his fourth decade. Phenomenal.