Five reasons Rodgers was sacked

Brendan Rodgers paid the price for Liverpool's daft Moneyball ideals, but he was hardly blameless.

Here are five reasons the axe had to fall on the Northern Irishman.

1. What a waste of money

Liverpool's transfer committee undermined Rodgers from the day he arrived.

It included the manager, scouts Dave Fallows and Barry Hunter, the man in charge of analysis Michael Edwards, Fenway Sports Group's representative Mike Gordon and chief executive Ian Ayre.

Perhaps to save face, Rodgers always claimed he had the final word on every signing. That didn't help him.

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Liverpool's hopeless recruitment policy led to almost £300 million ($652m) being spent, but the truly great players - Luis Suarez and Raheem Sterling - left the club.

There is an entire first 11 of Rodgers' flops doing the rounds online, but the most memorable disasters include Mario Balotelli, Iago Aspas, Fabio Borini and loan signing Nuri Sahin, who infamously said: "Thank God I have left Brendan Rodgers."

If he really had the final word on signings, Rodgers might never be trusted with a chequebook again.

If he was overruled in the transfer committee, he was a shell in a suit.

Either way, Rodgers' annual spending sprees were reason enough to call it quits.

2. Media minefield

Rodgers followed in the footsteps of Shankly, Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish and spent much of the time standing on tiptoes, trying to walk tall.

He took the job at 39 and clearly tried too hard, giving grandiose speeches and delivering excruciating sound-bites that would come back to haunt him.

He ordered pundits and punters alike to judge him after three years. So they did, harshly.

DOUBLE TALK

He said that Mario Balotelli would "categorically" not be coming. And he did, with catastrophic results.

He foolishly mocked Tottenham, saying that if a side spent more than £100m, they should be challenging for the league.

Rodgers's final bill was £292m and Liverpool are 10th. He was practically hanged by his own tongue.

3. Failing to reinvent 
the wheel

Once again, Rodgers was aware of his youth and relative inexperience of managing a global sporting giant, so he overcompensated with pretentious talk of overlapping, seven lines of attack and practically spoke from a Barcelona manual.

He talked a tremendous tactical game but rarely coached one when faced with a genuine luminary in the opposing dugout.

With every humiliating defeat, Rodgers was left looking like a fraudster. Had he said less, he might have been spared such a media savaging.

When Sir Alex Ferguson refused to speak to the British media for so long, journalists were left second-guessing his motives and strategies, which often elevated his status, sometimes undeservedly so.

But the more Rodgers spoke, the less sense he made. He exposed himself with a microphone. His rivals exposed him on a pitch.

4. Unable to 
outwit rivals

Let's quickly list a few. There was the understrength Chelsea side, masterminded by a flu-ridden Jose Mourinho, who effectively ended the title charge in 2013/2014.

There was the amateurish 3-3 draw at Crystal Palace that did end the title charge.

In this year alone, Besiktas made a fool of him in Europe. Manchester United ridiculed the so-called 3-4-3 revolution. Arsenal annihilated him, Aston Villa humiliated him in the FA Cup and then came the 6-1 hammering at Stoke.

It was the first time in 52 years that the Reds had condeded six in a league game.

Gerrard later said Liverpool had nothing to offer, no direction, no alternative options, no remedies, nothing. West Ham, Carlisle and Sion provided the confirmation.

Rodgers couldn't rescue games from the bench. He couldn't improvise or motivate. When rivals posed fresh questions, he had no answers.

5. Never down with 
the big boys

Rodgers struggled with talent management.

His indecision inadvertently drove a legend out of a club. His mishandling of Steven Gerrard's contract negotations left the skipper with little alternative but to leave.

Rodgers initially backed Balotelli, farcically claiming that he'd tamed the beast by ordering him to track back and defend corners in training sessions.

Clearly, that's where Roberto Mancini and Mourinho had been going wrong for all those years.

Then Rodgers dropped Balotelli and publically disowned him. Sterling suffered a similarly inconsistent relationship, starting with the silly motivational "envelope" routine and culminating with Rodgers essentially throwing him to the media wolves.

Sterling was no saint in his public courting of Manchester City, but his manager displayed more faces than a town-hall clock.

The greatest coaches manage individual egos and temperaments by instinct.

Rodgers always appeared to be following a textbook. In the end, the owners were left with little choice but to slam it shut.