Brendan Rodgers to Continue on as Liverpool Manager in 2015/16

They say that when you want to drop bad news, you do it on a Friday evening, long after people have stopped paying attention to the news for the week and are already thinking about how long they'll sleep in on Saturday or where they'll go for brunch on Sunday. In a world with a twenty-four hour news cycle, the story will be long forgotten by the time the general population plugs back in on Monday morning.

It may only be Monday and Liverpool may not have timed it this way on purpose, but as news of Sepp Blatter's resignation from FIFA amidst the major scandal currently enveloping football's governing body, the Merseyside club quietly let slip that Brendan Rodgers had passed his performance review and would be staying on with the club for the foreseeable future.

It's clear that the manger didn't get an Outstanding or an Exceeds Expectations on his examination, but Tom Werner and Mike Gordon seem to have awarded him the minimum passing grade of Acceptable in order allow him to continue in his post. Rodgers allegedly presented "comprehensive" plan for moving forward next season that convinced the FSG representatives not to terminate his employment, which many thought might be the outcome based on persistent ties to "Rodgers"-type transfer targets.

With both Carlo Ancelotti and Jurgen Klopp coincidentally-but-maybe-not-coincidentally announcing sabbaticals now that both men have moved on from their old clubs, there were few real replacements left for Rodgers should he have made a failing grade during his performance assessment. Whether that was a factor in FSG's ultimate decision to keep Rodgers on remains unknown, but even for those who support the current manager, FSG's decision will probably raise more questions than it answers.