Pass-the-buck Rodgers

Liverpool? They also can't defend, though in their case it's mainly because they sign bad defenders and keepers (whether it's Brendan Rodgers or the "transfer committee"). And, with Daniel Sturridge injured and Luis Suarez gone, they lack pace up front and have nobody "running in behind".

Easy, right?

You'd hope the game was a bit more nuanced than that.

You'd hope that, while some in the media and some supporters do truly view things in primary colors, managers - at least the ones on multi-million, multi-year deals - can see the shades of grey.

Maybe that's where Wenger and Rodgers differ. The former ignores the public narrative and sticks to his guns. When things go wrong at the back, it's never because he went into the campaign with just two natural centre-backs. When they don't win the ball back in midfield, it's never because there's no top-drawer defensive specialist.

Rodgers, on the other hand embraces the narrative. Players arrive, they don't do well straight away, the media says they're rubbish and then they disappear.

Sturridge gets hurt and he becomes the universal alibi. Someone plants the seed that Alexis Sanchez would have been a perfect replacement for Suarez and it becomes a mantra.

"I think if you look at how I ask the teams to play, it is critical to have a forward of Sanchez's type," Rodgers said Friday. "Not just with the ball, but the intensity with the pressing.

"When [Sturridge] was injured in August, everyone could see that, as a result, our game has become much deeper because of the personnel.

"Sanchez was identified for us as someone who would have been a key signing and really just a roll on to what we had with [Suarez]," he added. So not to get him was obviously bitterly disappointing."

Short-term, you can see how a statement like that makes sense. It gives him another alibi, shoves responsibility for failing to get Sanchez on to the transfer committee, reminds everyone what a massive loss Sturridge is and, again, passes the buck.

The problem with this logic is that anyone who takes a minute to think can see right through this and place the finger of blame right back at Rodgers.

OK, so you didn't get Sanchez. Once you failed to sign him, did you then go for another Sanchez-type?

Or did you take the Sanchez money and go and pick up Mario Balotelli and Lazar Markovic, who have entirely different skill sets?

And, by saying you can't play the way you want unless you have multiple Sanchez/Suarez/Sturridge types up front, are you sending a broader message about your ability to manage different guys with different attributes?

Because, frankly, dozens of guys who make a fraction of what Rodgers earns could make a strike force of Sturridge- Sanchez-Suarez work.

The trick is doing it with people who aren't named Luis Suarez or Daniel Sturridge or Alexis Sanchez.

Indeed, cast your mind back to how Rodgers got the Liverpool job in the first place.

He guided newly-promoted Swansea to 11th place. And he did it by playing a 4-3-3 system that did have pacey wingers but also Danny Graham (a player he signed after promotion) at centre-forward.

Before injuries slowed him down, Graham was a fine centre-forward, but hardly a speedster.

That's where Rodgers could take a leaf out of the Wenger book right now; don't let outsiders dictate the agenda.

Because while the simplistic, dumbed-down narrative might seem to serve your needs in the short-term, in the medium-term it makes you look silly.

The two takeaways from Fifa's Executive Committee meeting in Marrakesh on Friday were that Michael Garcia's report into potential irregularities in bidding for 2018 and 2022 will be made public and that, in any case, there will be no revote.

The first part is largely irrelevant. Because Fifa supremo Sepp Blatter insists that the report will only be released once all the relevant investigations have been completed (three current ExCo members are being investigated) it means the world won't get to see it before late spring at the earliest or, more likely, 2016, if anyone is found guilty and elects to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It will also be redacted, though that, frankly, is less important, unless whole pages are simply left out.

So, by the time it is released, the Fifa election will have taken place and - barring some cataclysm - Blatter will have been re-elected for a fifth term as Fifa president.

The second bit is entirely irrelevant, in the sense that it doesn't really matter what Blatter says. It's not for him to decide whether or not there is a revote. He can, of course, greatly influence matters, but ultimately, there are mechanisms in place to force a revote. And history suggests Blatter's opinion on such matters - on many matters - is changeable, based on the prevailing wind, as his 180-degree turn on goalline technology indicates.

Don't forget that 2022 is one instance where Blatter did not get his way. His preferred choices were the United States and, failing that, Australia. He's not exactly a Qatar cheerleader; in fact, it was a Qatari, Mohammed bin Hammam, who ran against him for the Fifa presidency and accused him of all sorts of shenanigans. Now is obviously not the time to cause unrest, with an election coming up. But after May, when he is duly rubber-stamped? What's to stop him exacting his revenge on the Qataris then?

To quote Lou Reed: "Believe only half of what you see and none of what you hear."