No calls from me for any managerial change, finishing 5th and our performances in the cup competitions has to be seen as a massive success for the club, but when you look at how the season actually unfolded then you have to say it is success tinged with massive disappointment and tainted with missed opportunities.
We had the opportunity to play Aston Villa home and away to reach a Wembley Showpiece final and we managed to blow that, then with Champions League qualification comforatably in our grasp, we managed to capitulate and limp into 5th place.
I know we were impacted by injuries throughout restart, but still had plenty of opportunities to secure the points that would have guaranteed champions league qualification including Watford away, Brighton at home and then Bournemouth away where we collected 2 points from 9, add to that the utterly shambolic first 15 minutes away to Everton and you can understand the sense of frustration and angst of missing out on such a golden opportunity.
As for Rodgers, this summer will be a massive acid test of his managerial credentials, can he lift the squad mentally, can he identify the players and characters required to improve key areas of the starting XI and add much needed quality to the overall depth of the squad. Is he prepared to analyse his own performance and failings, what can he do better next season.
I know we had bad luck with injuries but I felt his selections, tactics and use of substitutions were not great, I remember Martin O'Neill suffering some terrible injury problems during his reign but he still seemed to be able to make tweaks to how we set up and play to grind out results and keep our season on track, Brendan looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights, which was summed up perfectly by the half time change at Bournemouth that proceeded one of the worst capitulations i have ever witnessed and then the insane tactics employed for the 1st half of the Spurs game, where we played a high defensive line against a team renowned for counter attack when we had 3 absolute cart horses at the back, it was football suicide and effectively sealed our exit from the Champions League.
Looking at Brendan's back room staff it does look like it lacks some experience, and would it benefit from bringing in some additional experience as support, someone who can offer Rodgers new ideas and bring in more steel, someone who has a bit of know how. Chris Davies and Kolo Toure are both relatively inexperienced and Brendan isn't the great tactician when things are going wrong, therefore should the club be working with Rodgers to identify someone who can provide that experience and support.