Will a trip to Everton mark the end for Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool?
Editor’s Note: Once again, we’re thrilled that Guy Bailey will write columns for The Yanks Are Coming throughout the Barclay’s Premier League season. In those columns, he’ll discuss the happenings overseas in the world’s most popular sports league, as well as The Championship, where many Americans ply their trade. Guy offers a unique perspective on the league as a Brit who lived for a long while in the United States before moving back to Teeside a year ago. He can be reached at guyrbailey@gmail.com and you can follow him on Twitter @guyrbailey all EPL season.
Turn Again, Yedlin
Being seasoned football watchers we can all testify to the truism that goals not only change the course of matches but also careers. We are now at the stage of Brendan Rodgers’s Liverpool career where one goal – either for or against – will see him cement his tenure in the Anfield dugout beyond this season or, as is looking increasingly likely, see him vacate it for the cosmopolitan European glamour of a Carlo Ancellotti or the German Nu-Metal stylings of Jurgen Klopp.
A year after it took 28 penalties to separate themselves from Championship high-flyers Middlesbrough, it took less but a still nervy shoot out after being unable to beat Carlisle United from League Two over 120 minutes. One goal for a team 80 places below them in the league ladder would have seen Rodgers dispatched forthwith and middling results since including a narrow win against a poor Aston Villa and a draw against Swiss non-entities Sion do not suggest an immediate return to sunnier uplands.
In fact, after Old Trafford, the last place Rodgers would want to travel to would be to make the short trip over Stanley Park to Everton, who are playing well and would take the greatest delight in nailing the coffin lid shut on the inscrutable Ulsterman.
A win and/or creditable draw will keep him going for another week but it’s hard to see them hitting the immediate upturn in form the summer transfer fee splurge authorised by John Henry promised. And given Henry’s notoriously quick hand and trigger finger, Rodgers may offer too little too late, even if the Reds get hot.
Ironically a manager enjoying a worse start to the season than Rodgers, yet under no external pressure is Jose Mourinho. The worst for twenty years to be precise, as they nearly gave Newcastle– NEWCASTLE- a first win of the season trailing the hosts by 2 – 0 after an hour before equalising late and running out of time. Another defensive clanger from Zouma leaves the increasing absence of Terry looking more like an act of willful flagellation than tactical necessity.
Another London manager suffering from self inflicted wounds this week is Arsene Wenger, whose Arsenal side lost a routine looking ECL game at home to Olympiakos of Greece 3-2. The surprise omission of Petr Cech for Ospina was questionable enough without him throwing the ball into his own net to set the Greeks on their way. Two defeats in two leave them starring down the barrel of an early exit with two back to back games against Bayern Munich to come. If it isn’t a winter of discontent for Arsenal and Chelsea yet it’s certainly an early autumn of anxiety.
Can DeAndre Yedlin help save Dick Advocaat at Sunderland? Does Advocaat want to be saved?
Early season pace setters are Manchester United and probably nobody is as surprised as their fans who have embraced the patient possession based build up style with the same enthusiasm as you would a broccoli coach. But the proof of the pudding is that they are looking dangerous with Martial and Memphis hitting form while Rooney is relaxing into his role of creator, only scoring his first EPL goal last week. A sterner test awaits at the Emirates on Saturday.
It would be impossible to find a less stern test for a team than Sunderland this season and West Ham, already with three away wins, might just be the final straw for flower loving Dick Advocaat who could decide that tending to his tulips back over the North Sea is preferable to marshaling the weeds in his defence. Whether Spurs product DeAndre Yedlin can make much of a difference we will see but the spring heeled USMNT wide man could use his stint as a springboard to better employment, although this is shaping up to be a ghastly career ending season for more than one mackem so maybe keeping his fingerprints off the body is the most sensible strategy.
As noted, Guy Bailey writes on the Barclay’s Premier League for The Yanks Are Coming. Want more Guy Bailey? We highly recommend his new book, Blessay From America, a collection of writings on football and life made while living in America, where he married a southern belle and saw his son born, which you can purchase here.