“Sacked in the morning,” sang the Toon fans. “You’re getting sacked in the morning…”
Bit churlish towards a former manager, surely? But that’s what Kenny Dalglish was hearing on Sunday at ‘YOUR NAME HERE FOR MONEY’ Park.
Well, the morning came and KK’s is still on the throne. But it can’t be denied that THIS WON’T DO.
Couple of weeks ago we were still clinging to hopes of fourth place and the Champions League. Then it was trying to keep in some sort of touch with Newcastle in sixth. Now it’s a serious possibility that Liverpool will fail to finish in the top half of the table. (And, if we hadn’t won the Merseyside derby, we’d still be looking for the fortieth point which traditionally provides the guarantee against relegation.)
This is not acceptable at Liverpool FC. So what are we going to do about it?
The traditional response to a sustained run of bad form is of course “sack the manager”. Well, Kenny knows as well as any manager that the buck ultimately stops on his desk, but let’s be honest: would that help, and how? Kenny doesn’t perform well in public; personally, I respect the fact that he clearly hates all journalists. But that’s not what we pay him for. He’s not very imaginative, and needs more support on the creative front. But our appalling run of form is not his fault, and, more importantly, we don’t need knee-jerk reactions. We’re not Chelsea, for Pete’s sake.
And I don’t think he’s cocked up the signings too badly – just failed to get the best out of those he’s made. Andy Carroll, the real point at issue, was not entirely Kenny’s call – FSG were fully involved throughout with the agreement of that enormous fee, which has enabled Newcastle to rebuild their team and steal a march on us.
Andy Carroll. Sometimes one just has to cut one’s losses. I don’t think he deserved his yellow for a simulated dive when one-on-one with Tim Krul. He isn’t coordinated enough to pull off a proper classy Suárez dive. He tripped over his bloody feet, or possibly the bloody ball, in front of an open goal, for the nth time this season. Philip Larkin, in one of his poems, wrote of an element “that, unworkable itself, stops all the rest from working”. That’s Andy Carroll. We haven’t been able to integrate him into the strike force – he’s just too unreliable. In the box he shows all the poise and control of a camel on roller-skates. He’s a good lad with a big heart, and not just one but two good left-feet, but, let’s face it, if he were a horse someone would have shot him by now.
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And the eternal failures in front of goal – are they Kenny’s fault? Those incredible stats for Liverpool strikers hitting the woodwork (although now we’ve been overtaken there by the faltering Man City). The impression that every keeper in the Premiership saves his real blinders for Anfield. It can’t be coincidence. It surely means that our players are just not accurate enough where it counts. They should be practising until they can reach the equivalent of 180 on the dartboard. What Kenny can do about that, short of sloughing off twenty-five years and bringing himself on to show the buggers where the net is, I just don’t know.
But it’s worse than that now. Since the 75th minute at Loftus Road (when my birthday was ruined for me) Liverpool have imploded. Up till then there had been some bad luck and bad judgment, but team discipline had held. Now it’s all gone to ratshit. Defenders – all of them – have made stupid mistakes, and left wide open spaces in front of our goal, which we NEVER did in the first half of the season. And, as Kenny pointed out after the game, the frustration brought down the red mist even on the imperturbable Pepe Reina.
MOTD2 has shown me that the 2012 league table puts us 19th. This cannot be tolerated. We shouldn’t go into automatic sack-the-manager mode. Let’s at least throw everything we’ve got at the FA Cup. If the Bitters are going to finish above us don’t let them knock us out of the cup too.
After all, is there an alternative manager waiting in the wings? Well, of course there is. But don’t anyone tell me that the return of Rafa wouldn’t look just a little bit desperate….
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lets just not accept mediocrity because once we do we become middle table club thats all behind the criticism!
Liverpool is class and class that should be respected by every please no more mediocrity players tactics and team sheet. Newcastle should us how to buy players no more british bias
Just more mediocre excuses for a dreadful team! Yes we are to blame and it has nothing to do with Dalglish or his crap buys! get your head from out your xxxx and face up to the real world!
Rafa coming back is not desperate it’s bloody inspirational. Kenny has done his bit and I say judge him at end of the season it’s what the man himself has said all season .
At the end of the season we’ll add points and c where we r he said. Well it doesn’t look good does it. No points for CC win so there’s no points to add there. Sentiment should not come into any decision made as is the fans and mostly LFC who suffering We r in danger of becoming mid table team and for the life of me I can’t c next season being any better than this one. I just don’t believe that Caroll, Adam, Downing and Henderson will b any better. They r not good enough and that’s it. It’s not their fault. And as for lots of us who want Rafa back and you say it’s act of desperation well I don’t know what to say my friend. Watching the Chavs going to the semis of CHL hurts. Not so long ago it was us who were playing there. If we didn’t make the semis we’d b dissapointed. Now we can’t get even close to qualify for it. With the new owners taking over I would have loved to c Benitez having to spend 100 million English pounds at once. Replacing CHL winner with R Hodgson from that Purslow boy and a Chav supporter has to go down as the worst decision made in our clubs history.
Effectively what the author is saying is that as KD was a great player for us eventhough : 1) he signs overpriced and overrated players mainly because they all have a common passport,(2) condones them playing badly,(3) alienates inherited players who actually performs, (4)tactically hopeless, (5)has lousy man management, (6)presiding over a run of loses that dates back to the 1950’s, yes LFC or rather Mr. Henry should keep him because not doing so would be err.. a knee jerk reaction.
This is a man who was given 113 mill, suposedly a walking encyclopedia on football and knows the club inside out, all that was ask of him is to get us 4th not wim the prem (yes we are very reasonable people) if you win a cup or two fine, but get us 4th please. Frankly, if we did not get 4th but came close to it at the end of the season, i would be happy and so does many fans. We are now closer to relegation than 4th in term of points and the 2 teams directly above us Everton and Newcastle, spend less than what we paid for Carroll. Everton spent 5.5 mill to be exact.
After all this, sacking KD is still considered a knee jerk reaction? What had this chap been smoking?
Consider this, if KD is at another club or a CEO of some non football entity, he proceed to blow 113 mill of the company’s cash with such disastarous result do you still think he has a job by now?