May 30, 2012

Brendan Rodgers Wants To Work For A Club Who Has The Potential To Win Silverware


Brendan Rodgers
Liverpool have renewed attempts to discuss their vacant managerial post with Swansea's Brendan Rodgers.

Continue reading the main story“We would like to confirm that there has been no contact from Liverpool and nothing has changed since our previous statement on the issue”Swansea City statement on MondayOwner John W Henry arrived on Merseyside on Tuesday to personally oversee the recruitment process.

Having spoken to Wigan manager Roberto Martinez, Liverpool have gone back to Rodgers to discuss the position.

Rodgers 39, met Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins on Tuesday morning but the Welsh club insist the manager's future was not discussed.

Martinez has yet to hear back from Liverpool, but Henry is understood to have been impressed with him when the pair met in Miami last week and was keen to speak to him a second time.

Though persistent rumours that Rodgers would be meeting Liverpool last night proved unfounded, Swansea are today bracing themselves for the call from Merseyside. City chairman Huw Jenkins emerged from morning discussions with the Northern Irishman – which had been scheduled long before the Liverpool position became available – to insist that there had still been no contact from Anfield. But Rodgers' return to the UK from a visit to New York has coincided with a sudden sense of pessimism in south Wales that he could be persuaded to stay – and Liverpool may now be prepared to make their move. An announcement may be forthcoming on Friday.

But Rodgers has never made any secret of the fact that he wants to work for a club who have the potential to win silverware and though the presence of his family in South Wales is important, the Liverpool opportunity may prove too good to resist.

The outcome of Liverpool's pursuit of a new manager may now depend on how Martinez and Rodgers feel about the prospect of working under Louis van Gaal, who is favourite to become the club's sporting director. Van Gaal has always had an imperious streak and said 11 years ago that he had been top of Manchester United's list to succeed Sir Alex Ferguson.

"I knew I was first on the list to succeed [Ferguson] last year," he said. "I don't have any contact with them now... but I can imagine that a club like Manchester United are still interested in Louis van Gaal."

With Wigan's Martinez weighing up the structure that Liverpool's owner, Fenway Sports Group, has put before him, Rodgers has told friends that although he is happy in Wales he is intrigued by the chance to manage one of football's biggest clubs. He is pondering whether such an opening will come around again.

Swansea are on the verge of completing a club-record £6.8 million (AED 39.1m) transfer for on-loan Hoffenheim midfielder Gylfi Sigurdsson and are interested in a loan deal for Tottenham's out-of-favour Giovani dos Santos - whom Rodgers watched on Sunday as a guest of the Football Association of Wales for the friendly against Mexico in New Jersey.

However, despite suggestions elsewhere that Rodgers had already been offered the Liverpool job, the club refused to comment officially on their manager's position.

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