Brendan Rodgers says time has come for his first trophy at Anfield

Posted Tuesday, January 20, 2015 by The Telegraph

The Liverpool manager is pinning his silverware hopes this season on the Capital One Cup, as he admits friendship with former mentor Jose Mourinho has been compromised in recent years

Brendan Rodgers says time has come for his first trophy at Anfield
Time to deliver: Brendan Rodgers knows he needs to start winning trophies at Anfield

Brendan Rodgers has said that the success of his Anfield career will be measured in silverware, making the Capital One Cup semi-final first leg with Chelsea on Tuesday night a potentially defining evening of the Liverpool manager’s reign.

Rodgers’s long-term ambition on Merseyside is to restore the club’s reputation as consistent cup winners, and after 2½ years he has waited long enough for his first trophy.

Just as it was when Liverpool were closing in on the Premier League in May last year, Jose Mourinho is the formidable immediate obstacle, with Rodgers admitting that his friendship with his former mentor has been compromised since the pair became managerial adversaries.

While the League Cup’s reputation may have diminished in recent years, that will not seem the case at Anfield and Rodgers hopes that Liverpool can learn from Chelsea’s example in 2005, when Mourinho’s first major trophy led to a decade of success.

“We have worked really hard in the majority of the 2½ years since I have been here but we are here to win,” Rodgers said. “We are a club that is synonymous with winning trophies and we want to get that back again. Hopefully we can do that this season. It is that taste of success that hopefully pushes players on.

“I joined Chelsea in 2004 and at that point they wanted to win titles and trophies and they showed once you win the first you go on. The first was most important.

“I know Jose well and I know they will be very keen to put a trophy in the cabinet, especially having had nothing last year. It’s the first trophy you can win. Maybe if it was another team or club it might be different but knowing him and some of the other players and the mentality there, they will want to win this trophy.”

Rodgers versus Mourinho is a sub-plot of its own. Chelsea have won all their meetings with Liverpool since Mourinho’s return, and are seeking a third consecutive Anfield victory. However, the Northern Irishman played down his head-to-head record, suggesting that the resources at the Chelsea manager’s disposal would always give him an advantage.

“I’ve never really seen it as a direct match up against the other manager because there are so many other things that can dictate that,” Rodgers said. “If you’re a manager that is working with a big group of players, experienced, winners, you’re going to have a great chance to win trophies.

“As a manager the big part of it is the players you have. Of course you make an impact with players and you work with them, develop them and make them better but if you’re a manager that comes into a group of super experienced players or into a dressing room that has won consistently and you have top players, you’re going to have a better chance to win trophies. It’s not rocket science. For me it is just about winning the game, regardless of the manager.”

Rodgers did admit, however, he is no longer in touch with Mourinho as much as he was. “There is probably not as much contact but the respect has not left,” he said. “The opportunity to work with him in that period of three and a bit years was invaluable to me and hopefully in some ways I helped him as well because we had a lot of communication. But of course when you’re fighting for the same competition, the friendship, well, I think it was questioned when I first came in here about how it would work.

“I have a huge respect for him; he is a wonderful man and coach but in time you are so engrossed in your own work, you don’t communicate as much, you don’t have the conversations you had before and ultimately you could be a rival. But certainly the respect hasn’t dropped or been lost.”

There is always an epic quality to meetings between Liverpool and Chelsea, especially as a midweek semi-final conjures memories of their Champions League matches. “For a few years they were great games,” Rodgers said. “We played in the final of this competition as well, in 2005. When you get to this stage of the competition, the big players and managers want to win.

“We don’t like to lose and it doesn’t matter who against but I think in particular against Chelsea we haven’t played as well as we would have liked. The game [at Anfield] last season was disappointing of course for obvious reasons. That was the moment we probably lost the league.

“Early on in this season, not just the Chelsea game, there were plenty of other games we didn’t do well in and obviously lost the game. At this moment in time it is a different feeling, a different aggression, a different mood that is in the squad. Hopefully we can go into these two games and be positive.”

Rodgers is hoping that Steven Gerrard can return after a hamstring problem, although Mario Balotelli missed training on Monday, complaining of chest pain. The Italian had no chance of starting anyway.

Rodgers said that he was increasingly resigned to striker Divock Origi remaining on loan to Lille until the summer.