Friday, 2nd November, 2012
Newcastle manager Alan Pardew has laid the blame for Liverpool’s striker shortage squarely at boss Brendan Rodgers’ door.
Pardew takes his Magpies side to face Liverpool in the Premier League on Sunday and is aware he is coming up against a team which is heavily reliant on Luis Suarez to score their goals.
Rodgers’ has seen Italian forward Fabio Borini sidelined through injury, while he signed off on allowing England international Andy Carroll to leave Anfield during the summer before he had secured a replacement.
Carroll’s old club Newcastle were interested in the powerful hitman, but in the end he headed for West Ham on a season-long loan.
Liverpool meanwhile have often stuttered in matches, managing just four goals in the Premier League at Anfield all season and two of those strikes came in the club’s opening home match against Manchester City, a 2-2 draw.
Rodgers will get no sympathy from Pardew though, who thinks his troubles are of his own making.
relatedNewsStory"As I understand it, he’s a striker short. If he didn’t want the big fella [Carroll], which we know because we were involved, then he should have had a replacement", the Magpies boss told BBC Radio Newcastle.
Pardew also revealed that he always felt Rodgers would be more of a coach than a manager, an impression formed when the two worked together as youth coaches at Reading.
"We were both confident in our own ways, but I genuinely thought he would be a coach rather than a manager.
"He has a natural association with the coaching ground, and those who watch Being Liverpool [TV documentary, ed.] would sense that, he’s sort of evolved into a manager more so.
"I always felt I was the other type, and I actually did think of Brendan as a coach at a few of my other clubs but he’s found his own route and fair play to him."
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