It’s been a hard long year for Liverpool fans; firstly Rafael Benitez managed to transform a side that had pushed Man United so close in 08/09 into an average, mid table club. And his replacement, Roy Hodgson, hasn’t had much more luck in stopping the rot at Anfield. Managing just three wins in the Premier League out of a possible thirteen, including an embarrassing home defeat to newly promoted Blackpool and away losses against teams Liverpool should really be decimating.
Benitez managed to hide behind the spectres of Hicks and Gillett for over three years, playing a fantastic political game in ensuring that the fans ire was completely focused on the seemingly malevolent owners of the club. The fact that he spent £229 million on new players was completely overlooked, even when the sales of Liverpool players is deducted Benitez still managed a net spend of £78 million. Benitez failed Liverpool just as much as Hicks and Gillett, failing to bring in the players Liverpool really needed. Instead buying expensive sub standard luxuries such as Alberto Aquilani at £17 million and Glen Johnson at £18 million. Yet Benitez had an uncanny ability of manipulating the Liverpool supporters into believing he was being held back by the much-maligned owners.
Hodgson now has no such excuses; he has found himself in the always-uncomfortable territory of having new owners who didn’t choose him. The NESV group have strode into Anfield on the back of a torrent of good will, they are the shining knights who managed to alleviate the club of their Texan leeches. It is now Hodgson who is the fall guy in the red half of Liverpool, every loss, draw and bad performance is now his fault, not the owners. NESV have promised to give Hodgson time, but a proportion of the Liverpool support is already agitating for the return of a certain Kenneth Daglish.
In defence of Hodgson, a manager that the whole of the Football community has the upmost respect for, he walked into an impossible job. Liverpool was in turmoil. Torres and Reina were being targeted by other clubs, Mascherano went to Barcelona and even the Demi-god that is Steven Gerrard was apparently considering his future. Alas only the Argentine departed Merseyside as Hodgson persuaded the rest that the future was bright at Anfield. Joe Cole was signed in something of a coup, Aquilani was shipped out and Hodgson began to bring in his own players to the club, Konchesky, Meireles, Poulsen and Danny Wilson all coming in.
Except not everything has gone to plan. Liverpool’s two opening games pitted them against Manchester City and Arsenal and to come out with only a point would not have surprised too many outside of Anfield. After the shaky 1-0 win against West Bromich Albion many presumed that Liverpool’s season was about to kick-start. It didn’t. They managed to go five league games without victory, amongst the minor discrepancy of crashing out of the League Cup to League two side Northampton. In something of sideshow, Liverpool’s European campaign thus far has been excellent, unbeaten in all of their of group stage games. It’s just a shame it’s in the Europa League, the fact that even the Liverpool fans recognise the inadequacy of the competition demeans the achievement.
Hodgson had failed to imprint anything of his own ethos on the club, they seemed to an outside observer to be a carbon copy of Benitez’s regime. Overly reliant on Steven Gerrard and a misfiring Fernando Torres. Coupled with Joe Cole’s anonymous performances alongside the majority of Hodgson’s signings and the signs were not good. Even the stimulus of being taken over by NESV couldn’t give the team the fuel they needed; crashing 2-0 to bitter rivals Everton in the first game under new management.
It was the home fixture against Blackburn when we saw a glimpse of the Liverpool of old with Dirk Kuyt partnering Torres up front and Gerrard pulling the strings from his favoured central midfield position they demonstrated a stark improvement on their early season form. A hard fought win at the Reebok stadium followed and then a home fixture against the Champions, Chelsea. Liverpool were seen as underdogs at home and given their shortest odds of a home victory in the history of the Premier League. The subsequent performance was fantastic, Torres was supreme, the defence solid and even Lucas Leiva performed excellently. Roy Hodgson had managed to do what no team in the league had done; make Chelsea look ordinary.
As usual, Liverpool failed to kick on, drawing at Wigan and losing away at Stoke, a defeat in which chants of “Dalglish, Dalgish” were heard at the whistle. The game against West Ham this weekend is huge not only for Hodgson but for Liverpool as a whole. Unfortunately they will have to make do without their talisman and captain Steven Gerrard, due to Fabio’s “amateurish” treatment. A hamstring injury suffered against France will ensure he is out for a month; the £500,000 compensation from the FA will be inconsequential for Liverpool if they struggle without Gerrard as they perennially do.
Hodgson is a good manager, whether he is cut out for a job like the Liverpool one is up for debate. It is a very tight league at the moment and a run of form could catapult Liverpool up the league, just as easily as a couple of defeats and they could find themselves back in the relegation zone. It looks like he will be given till at least January where NESV have ensured there is money available. However Hodgson may not even have much of a say in that due to the appointment of Damien Comolli as Director of Football Strategy. It is interesting to note that Comolli was appointed without consulting Hodgson, possibly a precursor for future decisions?
The calls of for Dalglish do not help but there is a feeling amongst the Kop that Hodgson is not the man to lead Liverpool in this post-texan era. The script has been ruined, Liverpool were meant to being an assault on the Champions League places without the board room troubles. Hodgson may well be the fall guy for dampening that enthusiasm.
SACK ROY, BRING BACK THE JOY……The mans useless, way out of his depth. Hes just a nice guy a mid-table team manager. He doesn’t have a long future at our club and those fans who support Roy know this aswell, so why should we wait until he ruins any chances of getting 4th spot, before we get rid of him, it needs to be done NOW……YNWA……SACK ROY, BRING BACK THE JOY
Wasn’t overly happy when Mr. Hodgson got the job. I felt it was the wrong idea at the time and basically unpragmatic. The club was in limbo with the impending sale inevitable. The job should have been given to Kenny on an interim basis until new owners were found who could, in time, appoint their own man. I think it’s a safe bet they wouldn’t have gone for Mr. Hodgson. He is no doubt an affable man and this affable manner coupled with his London roots ensures he can enjoy a level of security from criticism not enjoyed by his predecessors. The manner in which he sets his teams up to play is defined by decades managing sub standard clubs in sub standard leagues. He’s not going to last at Liverpool. That is one thing I can guarantee. Mr Henry made his money taking human emotion out of predicting the futures markets. I wish he would apply the same pragmatism to our managerial situation.
STOP defending CLUELESS roy hodgson, cause he is english!.Roy inherited a team FULL of internationals(Compare it to Fulham) and, he’s STILL SH*T, worst so-called manager ever, even worse than Souness and, that saying something!!.Just take a look at his 35 years in management of winning NO MAJOR TROPHY’S, and if you can’t see an INPOSTER of a manager than, you should go and watch Cricket!!!!
Maybe Woy will get sacked after West Ham win or draw at Anfield later.
Do you realise how daft you sound when you say Rafa hid behind the boardroom strife and manipulated the fans well. Then follow up with Roy came into an impossible job because of the same issues. You so called journos are hilarious. Just admit it, you backed a loser and there is no hiding from it. Describing the loss to Northampton as a ‘minor discrepancy’ just about sums this article up. Did you know Fulham won the least amount of games away last season. Less than the relegated teams. 24 away wins in his entire english managerial career. Why is he respected? I’d love to know, cos i don’t understand why/
Sorry but he has to go ! hodgson is a good manager at medioca teams but this is liverpool fc but the way that he is managing us we are on the way to becoming a medioca football club he is boring his football is boring all the players he has bought are not good enough to be in the first team the player he has inherited are not playing to there full potential we need to make a decision today and go and get a manager with carisma with attacking ideas with precence with kowledge of top class players we can entice to the club not fulham rejects and porto and juventus rejects if we dont do this soon we will not regain our status as one of the biggest if not the biggest football club in the world act now or become medioca .
Bring Frank Rijkaard ………….
Only one choise…………
Actually, Rafa Benitez’s net spend was something like £70 million, which is a little over £11 million a year.
Now consider the unprecedented Champions League income he brought the club over that time. And consider the value of the squad he left vs the value of the squad he inherited.
Look at both those things and you’ll realise that Benitez’s transfer record, as maligned as it is, was not the disaster that the press likes to portray.
As for players like Torres and Reina being targetted by other clubs, well, I don’t recall any of that happening before Benitez was let go. If you can point to even one article before his departure that talked about either leaving then I’ll be surprised. Contrast that with the acres of talk about either or both of them leaving in the last couple of months…
Make all the excuses you want about Roy Hodgson but he has been a near complete disaster, in almost every department.
Even his strongest critic has to admit that Benitez’s signings contained some superb hits as well as misses (Torres, Reina, Alonso, Mascherano, Kuyt, etc didn’t just fall out of the sky) yet has even one of Hodgson’s five major signings contributed anything to the club? Two of them have actually been a hindrance: Konchesky has gifted goals galore and Poulsen has been so bad that I struggle to imagine how he’s ever been capped.
The results, well, they speak for themselves. Losses to clubs that should be getting thumped. Narrow, last-minute victories against mid-table teams presented as minor triumphs. Cup embarrassment against a team three divisions below. The team is still closer to the relegation spots than fourth, and the memory of seeing them in the bottom three for so long is not something that will be quickly forgotten.
Performance and entertainment-wise, there’s been 45 minutes to enjoy all season. The rest has been dire, dire, dire. Bolton fans wouldn’t put up with those sorts of displays under Gary Megson, never did I imagine that they’d be the norm for a Liverpool side.
As if the signings, and the results, and the performances weren’t bad enough, Hodgson compounds them all with his awful comments. He fails to defend his players, he fails to dismiss transfer speculation (even talk of Torres to Manchester United!), he criticises players to the point where they just want out, he defends awful performances (I can’t believe he said that he couldn’t understand how we lost to Everton) and he seems to embrace the idea of letting everybody walk all over him and his team. The only time I’ve seen him passionate is when his own managerial record was being questioned
Hodgson being sacked seems inevitable. It’s not “if”, it’s “when”. And, for the sake of everybody involved, it should be sooner rather than later.
How bad was Benitez eh!!! He only made us relevant in Europe again, got to 2 Champions League finals (winning one of course), improved our league placing 5 out of 6 years, won an F.A. Cup and in 2008/09 came second in the league with 86 points (Liverpool highest Premier League points tally). All that with according to yourself a massive £78 million net spend! That averages at £13.5m per year (it was actually £9m per year). Disgraceful!!!!
Your statement “buying expensive sub standard luxuries such as Alberto Aquilani at £17 million and Glen Johnson at £18 million” is a joke right? Aquilani is at present playing brilliantly in Turin and Johnson is the England right back and was superb when playing at Portsmouth hence the consensus agreement from ALL when purchased.
Benitez didn’t need to manipulate the Liverpool supporters into believing he was being held back! He was FACT just look at the figures net sped 6 years £ 78 million! What did you hope for? Premier League win? We mad a profit in the last 4 transfer windows!!!
Rafas problem was he got too entwined in the politics at Liverpool at the time. While arguing he took his eye off the ball, quite literally, affecting the team play. He had to go!
Now stop blaming Rafa! This team is a lot better than the team Rafa inherited and should be doing a lot better than it is right now!
Liverpool will soon be full of Scandinavians and sub par English players! We’ve been here before.
Hodgson is the problem….I’d have Rafa back in a heart beat….
With respect Hodgson should not be mentioned in the same article at Benitez….. La Liga x 2, EUFA Cup, Champions League, Champions League Finalists, FA Cup Winners, 2nd in EPL compared with Uncle Roy…. Double Winner Malmo (86), EUFA Finalists. One has principles, took on Staedler and Whaldorf the other is a total ‘yes man’ who has alienated true kopites. If NESV are obsessed with statistics look at Roy’s record and do the decent thing for the good of our once great club…GET SHUT before the damage is irreperable….YNWA
West Ham will get at least a draw I fear – LFC need Boltons manager
after reading the first two paragraphs, I realised you view is flawed to such a level that I needn’t carrying on reading and wasting my time. Rafa did not hide behind Hick and Gillet but rather has good success despite their interference and undermining behaviour. Please don’t try to rewrite history, the press do enough of that for my liking.