Two years ago, Liverpool’s owners were in talks with Van Gaal to become technical director at Anfield... until then-Swansea manager Rodgers impressed them so much during the search for Kenny Dalglish's successor they scrapped the idea.
As the Northern Irishman prepared to meet Van Gaal for the first time in his life, he said: “I’m not sure how many people the club spoke to.
“But for me coming in, I was always going to work with a team of people, rather than a director of football.
“I felt it was important, with all the work that needed to be done, and the size of the job I took on, that I needed to have the full responsibility to do that job, and I think the owners backed that.”
Anfield’s American owner John Henry had wanted to pursue a European model of management, and had even dispatched MD Ian Ayre to talk with Dutchman Van Gaal.
Talks were at an advanced stage, so when Rodgers sat at the table for talks over the manager’s role, his opening gambit of insisting he could not, and should not, work under anyone, was a bold one that could have cost him the job before it had even been offered.
It was, Rodgers says now, nothing personal, merely a conviction that the rebuilding job Liverpool faced at that time was so massive it required only the manager operating at the coal face.
“I always think the manager is the technical director. He is the man who oversees the football development of the club, and I believe you should take on that responsibility when you are manager,” he explains now with a smile.
Rodgers knows from his own difficult experience that a director of football can complicate, and not smooth out, problems at a club.
At Reading, the only blip on his otherwise immaculate coaching career, he was forced to accept that model under Nick Hammond, and paid the price with his job after just six months in charge.
It was, he says now, a salutatory experience that flavoured his talks with Henry and chairman Tom Werner... and ultimately persuaded them to call off the parallel talks with Van Gaal, which could have changed Premier League history.
Former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has lost one of his sons in a car crash. Hamza El-Rufai died Tuesday morning in Abuja. The former Minister and Chieftain of the All Progressive Congress, APC, broke the news on his faceboook page today. El-Rufai wrote: “From Allah, we came and to Him we shall return. Please join our family in praying for the repose of the soul of my son, Hamza El-Rufai who died in a motor accident in Abuja.” See more photo below:
The remains of the female politicians, who died in a ghastly auto accident have been laid to rest at the Bayelsa State cemetery, Azikoro in Yenagoa, the state capital. President Goodluck Jonathan his wife, Dame Patience and the Bayelsa State Governor, Hon. Seriake Dickson as well as wives of the Anambra and Ekiti State Governors joined other sympathizers at a special memorial service in honour of the deceased women at the Dr. Gabriel Okara Cultural Centre, in Yenagoa.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has said that he did not join the All Progressive Congress (APC) so as to run for the Presidency in 2015, but to nurture the party and ensure that good governance is entrenched in Nigeria come 2015. Atiku who spoke in an interview with the BBC Hausa service, monitored in Kaduna on Monday, maintained that if it were because of a presidential ambition, he had clear chances of occupying the number one seat when he was in office with former President Olusegun Obasanjo, or even recently when he was in the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN ). He said he let that go in the interest of the nation. Atiku vowed that he would never return to the PDP, saying that from all indications, the party would no longer be what it used to be.
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