Rodgers: My buzz? Playing well to win
For all that winning football matches is the yardstick for Brendan Rodgers, the Liverpool manager has explained why watching the training work conducted at Melwood be executed perfectly on the pitch is his biggest buzz.
In a special interview for #LFCWORLD, LFC TV's weekly magazine programme, the Northern Irishman expanded on how he believes he has improved, and continues to progress, since he became Reds boss in June 2012.
Rodgers also stressed the importance of a unified mentality within all departments throughout the club as he attempts to guide Liverpool 'back to the top' and add trophies to the Reds' roll of honour.
Read on for the full Q&A with the 40-year-old, or alternatively LFCTV Online subscribers can click play on the embedded video below to watch the whole show. Click here to sign up from £2.99.
As far as you're concerned, is football a simple game?
It is. As the years go on, it's simple of course, but it's difficult when you try to perform in a certain way. It's a wonderful game - tactics, techniques, the psychology of the game, the physicality of the game all changes and evolves each season. Coaches like myself are always looking to keep up with that leading edge. The bottom line is: it's very simple. But it's how you can then produce those effective, simple performances that dictate how well you do.
Performing precisely how you want it to, can you explain how an archetypal Brendan Rodgers team approaches and wins a football match?
It's how you train. We train in a way in order to look to maintain control of the game and the ball, and to be really offensive - be attacking, creative and create many chances. The objective without the ball is to make sure we have a real pressure and intensity in our pressure. But the common idea is to dominate the ball. I believe that when you do that, it gives you greater opportunities to create chances and score goals. That's a big part of the game.
What's the biggest buzz in football?
It's probably two-fold. For supporters, it's seeing their team win. It's getting that feeling of winning. For myself as a manager and a coach, it's winning but winning by playing well. It's great when you see the work that you have done in training, and the good work, spill out onto the field; you see the movement patterns, the dynamics of your team and they take that into the field. That's the greatest buzz I get from football. Sometimes I've been in teams that have won games and I haven't been overly happy, because we haven't performed so well.
When you first arrived here, you spoke about a one-club mentality - what exactly does that phrase mean to you and how far along the road are we to achieving it?
When I came here, I said that the club's success is the most important of any success. For me, that involves everyone. It doesn't matter where you sit on the organisational chart, what status you are; whether you are a player, manager, work in Chapel Street or you're one of the ground staff here - it really is irrelevant. It's about everyone working to one common goal, which is the good of Liverpool Football Club and everyone working and going in the same direction. If you can do that, you can be a really powerful force. The problems come when you have people going in different directions. It was very important to me to create an environment that was going to be positive and allow people, individually, to develop - which is key - but also within that, ensuring that everyone is for the common good of the club. That's something that is very important to me in my work.
How do you assess your progression and growth as a manager since you arrived at Liverpool?
I feel as if I have developed. Absolutely no question, now I feel I get better in my job here every single day. The longer I'm here, the more I'm dealing with different pressures and different tasks to achieve. But there's no doubt that the players and the club have made me a better manager. Hopefully I can reward the club and the people here, the supporters, by winning trophies and getting us back up to the top where the club belongs. But you've got to earn the right to do that, and that's something that as someone who is keen to learn and develop, hopefully I can do that and take the club back there.