O'Neill backs Liverpool boss Rodgers

O'Neill and Rodgers will go head-to-head when their sides meet at the Stadium of Light on Saturday.

Rodgers has endured a turbulent start to his first season at the helm of the Anfield club and his side are currently languishing in 18th place, with just one point out of their first three Premiership games.

"Brendan obviously has his style, which he brought to Swansea," O'Neill said.

"Their start to the season under [Michael] Laudrup now is maybe a continuation of that work. People can tinker with it whatever way they want, but it's worked very well.

"On the back of that, he's gone to Liverpool and obviously wants to stamp his authority - or his mark, rather than authority, perhaps - on Liverpool Football Club.

"Obviously, that's what you want to do as a manager."

Rodgers has found himself under fire in some quarters over the handling of £35m striker Andy Carroll's release on loan, without a replacement having been secured.

He'll be hoping to put that behind him as soon as possible and a win over the Black Cats would certainly go some way towards helping to do just that.

With the game set to be emotional for liverpool, in the wake of the findings of the report into the Hillsborough disaster which killed 96 of their fans, Rodgers is also hoping for an end to chants about the tragedy from any opposition fans.

"I speak as a human being and I don't ever like to hear anything like that, whatever club it is, that associates with other people's tragedies and death," the Carnlough man said.

"Unfortunately you have a very small percentage of idiots at any club who will always try to smear another club's reputation.

"Unfortunately there are that minority of supporters who will maybe disappoint but let's hope we can all move on and we can all learn from this whole process."

I’m never sure whether it's a good or bad time to play them.

Martin O’Neill

O'Neill's feeling positive about his own side though, heading into the weekend's game with two credible draws against Arsenal and Swansea already under their belt.

"Liverpool come here with great tradition," the Sunderland boss said.

"I know the word 'legendary' is used almost as the throw of a dice now, but the club has legend and everything else that you could possibly think about behind it now - particularly over the last 50 years since Bill Shankly came in.

"It's a really proud tradition and it will be a highly-charged atmosphere."

Meanwhile, O'Neill is also preparing to deal with Derry-born player and Republic of Ireland international James McClean, in the wake of his Twitter controversy.

He incurred the wrath of Giovanni Trapattoni after tweeting that the manager's decision to keep him on the bench during a game was a "f***ing joke".

O'Neill didn't seem too impressed by the behaviour either, but said they can now laugh about it.

"I think Mr Trapattoni has got a couple of years on him and a couple of titles too in front of James, so I think he's entitled to pick the team," the Kilrea man added.

"He has even admitted himself he has been rather foolish.

"He has taken himself off Twitter, apparently then he might have a situation with Facebook as well and about 14 other accounts that he has.

"He has a bit of a problem and we will have to rectify it."