However, with the potential loss of both Ba and Cisse should Senegal qualify for the 2013 African Cup of Nations it will be vitally important for Pardew to not only keep his squads playing level up but also the amount of goals being scored. With the departure of Leon Best it leaves Newcastle with the Ameobi brothers, that is unless the rumoured returning of a certain pony-tailed horse like striker comes to fruition.
The second manager under the spotlight this week is newly installed Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers. A man with a mixed managerial history to say the least. After a 7 month reign at Watford where he gained a 40% win ratio Rodgers moved to the Royal County of Berkshire to manage Reading, the club where he played and managed the youth team for short periods of time. However after a bad 6 months at the Madejski Stadium Rodgers was shown the door. He was out of work for the next 7 months, licking his wounds and building a determination to prove his doubters from his time at Reading wrong.
He was snapped up by Swansea just before the 2010/11 season. By the following summer he had gained his revenge on the club which vanquished him from Championship football, by leading the Swans to the play-off final, where they beat Reading 4-2. For Rodgers salvation and vengeance. With that win his stock in football rose and would continue to rise with Swansea’s introduction into the Premier League.
In their impressive debut Premier League season Swansea beat Liverpool Arsenal and Manchester City at home whilst claiming points from Tottenham, Chelsea and Newcastle. Swansea went onto finish 11th in the table and showed the world the Brendan Rodgers way of playing football. In a similar style to that of Barcelona and Spain, Swansea at times lit up the Premier League.
However, following the departure of Kenny Dalglish at an always turbulent Liverpool, Rodgers was installed at the helm and is now looking ahead to the 2012/13 Premier League season at his new club. A big season is needed especially because he is manager of Liverpool, a team who over the last two seasons have been stuck in the wilderness of some kind under the leadership of Dalglish and now England manager Roy Hodgson. Signings have and will be made and departures are sure to follow, but in regards of the way Rodgers’ Liverpool side will play “It”s time to go to back to the drawing board.”
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