As you can imagine, there was uproar from the Anfield faithful when they heard that bookies favourite Brendan Rodgers had been pipped to the Liverpool post by unknown manager Ryan Bowen during the summer of 2012. However, the owners must have known something that the fans didn't!
Liverpool fans know that the likes of Raheem Sterling and Adam Morgan were expected to be the next best thing at the Merseyside club and they were to expect these guys to prove into gems and lead the club to future success given the chance, and maybe their manager could be described in the same boat as this. But on a managerial front.
When manager Ryan Bowen walked into the Anfield Club, he set his stall early, by releasing Colin Pascoe who was in temporary charge of the club whilst they searched for a new manager. This move didn't come to a surprise to pundits in the sport as it is common knowledge that Pascoe is a close friend of Rodgers' so this move by Bowen wasn't really unexpected. Bowen acted quickly to bring in assistant manager Johan Cryuff alongside him, and maybe a move like this to bring in such a footballing legend - a old, experienced head - would be a good decision to make to work alongside a youthful Bowen. In this move, Bowen was quoted as saying 'Johan is going to bring in loads of old ideas that we can implement to these players, and with the fresh ideas that I have, then hopefully all will be well here sooner rather than later.
However Bowen couldn't rest on his laurels for long as this time, he personally upset the anfield faithful. It looked like the board had been more than faithful to him and therefore gave Bowen a very generous budget of 30 million, with both players leaving and new players arriving. The first three signings showed Bowen's intent with the arrival of 3 attacking players, proven premier league goalscorer and two up and coming names Wellington Nem and Wilfried Zaha. During this time Doni, Jordan Henderson and Peter Gulacsi left the club on permanent deals.
August also saw a lot of ins and outs for the club. In were experienced players such as Razvan Rat and Landon Donovan as well as further youngsters Matias Ezequiel Scheletto and Adryan as well as Adrian Ramos from Hertha Berlin. During this time though, two shock deals were sealed as top stars Glen Johnson and Luis Suarez left the club, both leaving to league rivals for 15 million each. Before too much of the season had passed, the Liverpool faithful had turned their back on Bowen and he must have definitely felt that he was walking alone.
The season did however get off to a good start, with Liverpool only losing 1 competitive game until the start of October which included the team advancing to the group stages of the Europa league, a win over merseyside rivals Everton on opening day and crushing Academica by 7 goals to 1 where Samed Yesil came off the bench to score his first goals for the club.
Home defeat by Manchester United was probably the only poor result (not unexpected nevertheless) up until the christmas period which proved to be a challenging period for the team, but before then the team saw regular wins during this period again, including a 3-2 win at Stamford Bridge at the start of December with goals coming from Nem, Ramos and Ba. The challenging christmas period included 4 away games on the bounce, where the team only picked up 4 points, the high point being that again this Liverpool team again beat their rivals Everton, again 1-0 to complete the league double over them this season however this wasn't before a draw at Sunderland (2-2); and losses at Manchester City (7-2) and Tottenham (2-1) didn't leave much christmas cheer in the stocking of Liverpool fans.
Overall, I'd say Liverpool were satisfied with Bowen and Liverpools performance with his new look side before we went into the New Year and things were looking rather positive at Anfield.
Liverpool fans know that the likes of Raheem Sterling and Adam Morgan were expected to be the next best thing at the Merseyside club and they were to expect these guys to prove into gems and lead the club to future success given the chance, and maybe their manager could be described in the same boat as this. But on a managerial front.
When manager Ryan Bowen walked into the Anfield Club, he set his stall early, by releasing Colin Pascoe who was in temporary charge of the club whilst they searched for a new manager. This move didn't come to a surprise to pundits in the sport as it is common knowledge that Pascoe is a close friend of Rodgers' so this move by Bowen wasn't really unexpected. Bowen acted quickly to bring in assistant manager Johan Cryuff alongside him, and maybe a move like this to bring in such a footballing legend - a old, experienced head - would be a good decision to make to work alongside a youthful Bowen. In this move, Bowen was quoted as saying 'Johan is going to bring in loads of old ideas that we can implement to these players, and with the fresh ideas that I have, then hopefully all will be well here sooner rather than later.
However Bowen couldn't rest on his laurels for long as this time, he personally upset the anfield faithful. It looked like the board had been more than faithful to him and therefore gave Bowen a very generous budget of 30 million, with both players leaving and new players arriving. The first three signings showed Bowen's intent with the arrival of 3 attacking players, proven premier league goalscorer and two up and coming names Wellington Nem and Wilfried Zaha. During this time Doni, Jordan Henderson and Peter Gulacsi left the club on permanent deals.
August also saw a lot of ins and outs for the club. In were experienced players such as Razvan Rat and Landon Donovan as well as further youngsters Matias Ezequiel Scheletto and Adryan as well as Adrian Ramos from Hertha Berlin. During this time though, two shock deals were sealed as top stars Glen Johnson and Luis Suarez left the club, both leaving to league rivals for 15 million each. Before too much of the season had passed, the Liverpool faithful had turned their back on Bowen and he must have definitely felt that he was walking alone.
The season did however get off to a good start, with Liverpool only losing 1 competitive game until the start of October which included the team advancing to the group stages of the Europa league, a win over merseyside rivals Everton on opening day and crushing Academica by 7 goals to 1 where Samed Yesil came off the bench to score his first goals for the club.
Home defeat by Manchester United was probably the only poor result (not unexpected nevertheless) up until the christmas period which proved to be a challenging period for the team, but before then the team saw regular wins during this period again, including a 3-2 win at Stamford Bridge at the start of December with goals coming from Nem, Ramos and Ba. The challenging christmas period included 4 away games on the bounce, where the team only picked up 4 points, the high point being that again this Liverpool team again beat their rivals Everton, again 1-0 to complete the league double over them this season however this wasn't before a draw at Sunderland (2-2); and losses at Manchester City (7-2) and Tottenham (2-1) didn't leave much christmas cheer in the stocking of Liverpool fans.
Overall, I'd say Liverpool were satisfied with Bowen and Liverpools performance with his new look side before we went into the New Year and things were looking rather positive at Anfield.
you got robbed.