A very special night really. Beskitas are a very ordinary team as well and have been in poor form recently. Demba Ba in spite of what people say is a washed up Chelsea reserve (objectively speaking, albeit a hero to me subjectively).
My prognosis that Rodgers is a loser lives on. I remember lots on here panicking he would win the Europa if he got knocked out of the champions league and wanted them to go through. That was never in doubt they have now been eliminated from both cup competitions at the first hurdle.
What we can learn from this is this is two things. Firstly Rodgers has no idea whatsoever how to play European football. Any talk of him going to a Barcelona or Real Madrid is completely laughable. He would be found out very quickly in a European league as he has been in Europe with Liverpool.
Far from playing fantastic continental football, Rodgers basically plays kick and run English football. It is effective for them but he is little more than a Sam Allardyce.
Secondly he is a born loser. Whenever he has faced any kind of challenge he has been knocked out of cup competitions. The reason they have got through to the FA Cup Quarter final (or the mickey mouse cup semi final) was down to favourable draws. Mark my words, the moment he has to play a top 10 side away from home they will get knocked out.
In every big game he has faced they have bottled it spectacularly. Chelsea away last season. Palace away last season. Basel this season. Beskitas. Chelsea in the cup, the list goes on. Last season, had they have beaten Chelsea and Palace they’d have found a way to lose to Newcastle.
I was never worried about them being in the Europa league. He has beaten us once in about 10 games due to us having a major injury crisis. This season, over the two games we’d have knocked them out and we were playing with very little confidence and lots of injuries in those games.
They remind me of how we were under Moyes. They are a not bad side, filled with tidy players like Lallana. When the pressure is off they will win games, but as soon as the pressure is on they go to pot.
They key difference between us under Moyes and them though, is that they have spent a fortune doing it, while we didn’t spend anything net.
Enjoy last night lads, it was a very special evening watching them spectacularly failing while we breezed through our game with what looked like a cricket score. But also be aware this is not an aberration. This is the new Liverpool who bottle it in the face of any semi decent team.