The difference is that Rodgers got Liverpool to 2nd place last year.
This buys him a grace period.
Hodgson came in and immediately had the team going downwards. He didnt do well for them at any stage, like Rodgers has done previously.
I still say that the top 5 teams this year will include Liverpool, Arsenal and Man Utd. I dont believe that Southampton will maintain their current league position.
Hodgson took over a team that finished 7th the previous season iirc, and that was after a good first half and a poor second half of the season, Torres form left before Hodgson joined, they sold a bunch of players, gave him one first team player and a few million a piece for a few players to make up the numbers, they had europa league qualifying games early and played 8 europa league games by this point.
By the end of the transfer window last year Rodgers had spent 100million already, and added to that the club had previous bought Downing, Shelvey, a little guy called Suarez, Henderson, Enrique, Reina, etc. There is 50-60mil of players he still used in the team. Last year they had no europa, no added distractions and a year in which most of the top half opposition had new managers or were just Arsenal and therefore rubbish.
He has now spent a further 120million, lost a single first team player, a back up player in Agger who he didn't use and bought 8 players of which only a single player cost less than 10million, three were 20million or more.
How are Liverpool doing, awful, truly awful.
This is a squad that has had around 300mil spent on it since Hodgson left.... 300million. Rodgers has spent a full 200million of that himself.
His buying has been overall terrible, really really terrible, he had one lucky season thanks to a stand out season from Suarez, has spent a silly amount and now they suck balls. How many wingers/attacks has he bought and Downing is currently one of the stand out players of the league this year.
Last year, crap keeper, Ilori, Sakho, Toure, Aspas, Alberto, season before Borini, Allen, Assaidi, Sturridge, Coutinho, this year, rubbish.
I'm not arguing Hodgson did great, I'm saying Rodgers has done terribly. He's destroyed the defence, he's bought horrendously, he's sold useful players, pushed out Reina(madness).
His almost singular success was Sturridge, a player he'd actually worked with before at Chelsea.
