Brendan Rodgers Faces Baptism Of Fire.
Liverpool Manager faces a stern test of his ability.
If a new football club manager was going to have nightmares over the announcement of the new season fixture list then Brendan Rodgers' worst fears just came true.
Facing Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United in your first three home games is just plain bad luck.
There are two ways to look at this:
On the one hand the new Liverpool manager has the opportunity to get those games out of the way and by the time the reverse fixtures come around he should have been able to have enough time to impress his playing style on the team.
On the other, defeat away to West Bromwich in the season opener and a poor start against what are expected to be three teams sure to be pushing for European qualification and the knives will be coming out early.
For Liverpool to have any chance of getting themselves out of the abyss into which David Moore's has plunged the club they must keep faith with their managerial appointment. It is unthinkable that Liverpool could lose another manager ten games into the new season but that is a real possibility with this fixture list.
The problem for FSG and for Rodgers is that he was not the fans choice and when things start going badly the chants for Benitez will be deafening. The resolve for the management team is going to need to be steely to avoid disaster. This does not bode well.
How quickly can Rodgers get this Liverpool team playing his style of pressing and pass and move football before they are overwhelmed? That is the question.
Towards the end of the last season Liverpool started to show some signs of a team starting to come together and with Andy Carroll coming into form there was a clear belief starting to filter back.
But the awful defeat to Swansea in the last game of the season showed exactly how far Liverpool's star has fallen.
The addition of Sigurdsson should provide some much needed steel in the Liverpool midfield and Lucas may be back for the start of the season so that is good news.
Liverpool fans need to hope that they are not going to stick rigidly to a new formation and style of play under Rodgers when what is needed is evolution and not radical change.
Get 11/2 at Paddy Power that Brendan Rodgers will be sacked before the Christmas Day festivities begin.