Roy Hodgson’s departure on Saturday was a given from the moment his team were comprehensively beaten by Blackburn Rovers last week and even though I, and Alex Ferguson for one, believe that old ‘Woy’ should have been given more time to put his stamp on things, it was always going to be hard to win over the fans with old King Kenny lurking in the background.
Liverpool and Newcastle’s supporters’ enthusiasm for Kenny Daglish and Alan Shearer respectively, is not unlike that of a child in a shop that holds their favourite toy – they know that it’s there so they just have to have it. This left Hodgson with little respite as soon as Daglish sauntered back through the Anfield gates in an official capacity. Having witnessed him make a host of first-team changes for Sunday’s game with United, including the ousting of the much-maligned purchase, Paul Konchesky, whom Hodgson brought with him from Fulham, it makes you wonder whether Daglish had a word in owner John Henry’s ear about Hodgson’s incompetence. Liverpool’s illustrious history entails that they are a club that expect big things and with more defeats than wins so far this season – their worst start for fifty-seven years – it didn’t look promising. Hodgson seems not to have had the full backing of the dressing room or fans, which are both important for team morale, so maybe in his case, it was for the best.
The same cannot be said of Chris Hughton however; players, and high-profile ones at that, regularly turned out to publicly support the man who guided their team to a very comfortable promotion only last season. Straight after Newcastle’s 5-1 derby hammering of an impressive Sunderland side, club captain Kevin Nolan bemoaned the ridiculousness in talking of Hughton being dismissed as manager. But just over a month later, the inevitable happened and he was sacked.
Unless managers lack the support of the fans and players they should be given more time to steady the ship. Football has changed over the years but the principle remains that every manager needs time to settle in, get used to how the club is run and the numerous new personalities that he has to handle, however much money he has at his disposal. Avram Grant was right and wrong when he said that Arsene Wenger and Alex Ferguson were given a chance despite their ‘poor’ starts. I think Grant was jumping the gun when referring to Wenger because when the Frenchman joined Arsenal in September 1996, they eventually completed that season in 3rd place, a two place improvement on the 5th place finish of the previous 1995/96 season. And then in his first full season he won the Double so there were no bad seasons before he found his winning formula.