When a man is digging his way through the Earth, then he will eventually fall out the other side. This is what I told myself after Liverpool’s most recent abhorrent performance against Stoke. Sure, it’s simplistic, but the meaning is clear. Liverpool are on a hiding to nothing this season, after last season’s nightmare, everything was up in the air. To my dismay, Rafa went first and not the board. Despite the potentially good work Chris Purslow did in removing the Americans (eventually), he hired Roy Hodgson. Now, I like Roy, many people do. He seems like a ‘nice’ guy, which is probably a label he detests, however, his tameness in his methods is justification for the tag. The Rafa years, aka ‘The Champions League Years’ if you wish, seem like a golden age at the moment. Liverpool may have whimpered on occasion, but I had always thought that when the chips were down, we had teeth. Now we’re just all gummy and frail, a sad state of affairs. If euthanasia were legal in this country, I’d have taken us to the clinic a long time a go.
The next decision for the board, we all know, will be the managers job. Roy isn’t their guy, in fact, he’s no ones guy except for Purslow’s and Hicks, and what relevance do they have any more? As ever with Liverpool, it’s all about the next step, and after a fresh start off the pitch, it will inevitably a fresh start on it that’s needed. NESV appear to be clever people, they want to win the fans over just as much as Roy does. I think now is the time when the fans will have the most influence. The board will be keen to get a thumbs up from the faithful, keen to know that when they start spending more time back in America, that things in ol’ Blighty are going well. They must know that the fans are not in favour of Hodgson, most people don’t detest him, they just don’t want him. Sure Roy, go off and do well somewhere else, we really wish you the best, but your time here is ticking.
Chanting Dalglish’s name, may have been disrespectful to Mr. Hodgson, but some would argue that his team were disrespectful to the fans in the game against Stoke. The players, we know, are mostly quality players. Okay, there’s no Mascherano or Aquilani or Insua, but Hodgson stepped into a team with World Cup winners and Champions League winners and just generally, a team of winners. he quality is there, but he’s just not inspiring them. The war of words Rafa was so fond of, while ridiculed by some, often stoked the players. They’d go out on to the pitch determined to shove someones comment back down their throat. In time more and more people will realise we were punching dramatically above our weight, but I looked forward to the next game. This season, I feel like I’m going to some unwanted school disco. Oh how awkward and cringe-worthy it inevitably is going to be. If the league wasn’t so competitive this year, with these kind of performances we’d be cut adrift in the bottom half. Luckily we’re still in touching distance of Europe.
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We dont want that fool Benitez back, hes on the verge of being sacked by Inter after turning them from European champions to a shower of shite….in 5 months, Rafa obviously hasnt lost his ‘magic touch’, we finished 2nd in the leage DESPITE of Benitez NOT BECAUSE of him! – Frank Rijkarrd is the man!, sack Woy and get him NOW!……before Chelsea go for him when Ancelotti gets sacked.
only a fool would call Rafa a fool, you are such a fool.
The same “fool” who won the champions league in his first season at Liverpool? The same Frank Rijkard who got sacked by Galatasaray? Do you watch football or read the press?
yea, Riijkaard was sacked by Galatasary in a minor league where he probably hardly knew any of the clubs or players, so that they could put a club legend in charge.
And Rafa was sacked by Liverpool.
And Mourinho was sacked by Chelsea.
And Capello should’ve been sacked by England.
So what’s your point??
Oh right and that ‘fool’ as you say, won us the champions league in his first season, won us the european super cup, won us the FA cup, won the community shield, got to the champions league final again, beat manutd, real madrid and inter away, got us second in the epl, our highest standing and point tally.
A balanced view on Roy Hodgson, Rafa Benitez and what John Henry needs to look into ….
http://www.thehardtackle.com/index.php/liverpools-corner-roy-hodgson-a-mismatch-or-a-misunderstanding/
I still think Kenny was the man to steady the ship not our propper manager as i think he may be past it (though i would be more than happy for King Kenny to have proved me wrong).
I think Kenny as the interim manager start of the season and an in depth search for the next manager, no good manager wouldve moved to a club with board room uncertaintiys and general poor stability.
Having said that I wouldve rather rafa stayed one poor season out of five good ‘uns
I dissagree, I think that you all think that you can just exert pressure and the board will jump! I think that some Liverpool fans have got to big for their boots, the same old claims if Rafa done this Rafa done that, this manager should take over or Kenny should take over.
But let the board choose for themselves, they have a hard job, and you are making it harder by putting pressure on them. Maybe Roy is not the man for the job but who is? who is out there that is available? hive me an answer?
Then we install a new manager next week and he doesnt do well, we dont make 4th, what do you do then, start an internet campaign, scream in the streets like SOS until we hound the manager out.
Come on tell me? because I think you should show Roy some humility and stop trying to be the judge and jury before the season is half over.
My Blackburn rovers friends call Everton fans Jack Russells because they scream at everything, Liverpool fans are now becoming the new Jack russells!!
And you bloggers are stirring more trouble than is needed after such a hard 12 months…
What a load of rubbish. The supporters don’t want Hodgson out because of where Liverpool are in the table, or even the poor results. They want him out because he has what is still a pretty good Liverpool squad playing appalling, negative football against the likes of Blackpool, Wigan and Stoke.
Not to mention the fact that every time he opens his mouth to the press he sounds less and less like a Liverpool manager – slating the ex-manager, slating his own players, writing off the youngsters after the Northampton debacle, telling the supporters not to protest against the previous owners, telling supporters to lower their expectations after a “famous” draw against the mighty Utrect, telling the world Liverpool are in a relegation fight after 4 games, not defending Torres against Ferguson. The list goes on and I just find myself what wonderful pearls he’ll come out with next.
Whether you agree or not, Liverpool fans are widely acknowledged as some of the most patient and knowledgeable in the game. The fact they want Hodgson gone in November tells you everything you need to know.
Hear hear! – all this talk about relegation and Dalglish allows people to continue to paint a picture of us fans as knee-jerk, reactionary idiots, but the simple fact is that we don’t want to see any sort of vision that Hodgson may have for the club and want him out asap before he embeds his small club mentality any further throughout the club leaving behind an even more difficult job for our next manager!
@max, roy hodgson ASKED us to be judge and jury, ‘judge me after 10 games’ he said, remember? so here we are, 14 games on and the VAST MAJORITY’s verdict is……PISH!
so you want an answer to ‘who is out there?’, well here’s 3 answers, 1/ martin o’neil, with his passion, enthusiasm, PL experience and preference for rolling contracts, he could be the perfect interim appointment andpotential permanent boss.
2/ frank rijkaard, young dynamic coach who loves attacking football and i believe the players would respond to such a ‘big’ name, he would also attract better players.
3/ king kenny, not long term but would certainly lift the place and i believe he would do a better job than the current boss!
any more questions?
Agree with most of what Max says. Judging RH a third of the way in is unfair. The problem is many fans made the mind up before a ball was kicked and are almost willing him to fail just so they can say ‘told you so’. I didnt want RH either but now he is here we should support him 100% and see where we are in May, not deliver a verdict 14 games into the season.
roy doesn’t seem to think it’s unfair kev, HE thought it was fair to judge him after TEN games! that was until the table showed the reality and now, all of a sudden, he’s a 38-55 games man!!!!!
“When a man is digging his way through the Earth, then he will eventually fall out the other side. ”
Lol, and about the level of the article – rubbish.
when you dig yourself into a hole – stop digging
Woy:
Judge me after 10 games: Massive failure.
Judge me after 38-55 games: Guaranteed to be another massive failure. Even if a miracle happens and you come up with a string of decent results, you’ll never be one of us. You’ll always be Ferguson’s pathetic little brown-nosing pet.
But we don’t need to use either of Woy’s criteria. We already have 35 years of utter boredom, mediocrity and ZERO trophies of any significance. The fact that he actually thinks that is a good record highlights his ambition as much as his admiration for the world class quality of Northampton, Blackpool, Wigan, Stoke, Utrecht, Sunderland, Birmingham, Everton…
An unknown random guy off the street will always have a higher chance of success than a proven failure like Woy. Stop the rot. Bring in a caretaker (Kenny or anyone else) for the rest of the season, make it crystal clear that he’s there on a temporary basis, and do the research to bring in the right person in the summer, a young, intelligent, modern, ambitious, hungry, tactical dynasty-builder with a back bone.
We don’t need just a quick fix. We need the quick fix first (bye bye Woy), and then we need to get proper long term plans in order by the summer.
Stoked players up?? How many times against the big teams did we go missing ?? How many lack lustre performances can you count in his entire reign? We were lucky that 16 other teams in the league really were that poor for us to finish as high as we did! His negative tactics stoked nobody up. And as for istanbul (yawn), he was forced into the tactical changes that occurred, not thru brilliant footballing genius. Sheer luck. Let’s not forget he failed to qualify for CL twice as manager and also lost us the 07 CL final with disgusting tactics.
I would be surprised if STe were a Liverpool fan.
I would take Benitez back any time, he proved himself over 5 seasons at Liverpool and most of the players were brought to the club by him. The question is whether Comolli wants Rafa, since a strong working relationship between him and the manager would be essential.
bring back all day every day!
he loved LFC and fought for us..
1 poor injury hit season after 4 consecutive years of out pointing the mighty Wenger!
strange how opposition fans don’t have a single bad word to say against Roy…
but when rafa was there they all cursed him and wanted him out……wonder why?
under rafa we was a bigger threat year after year…. we had respect all over Europe….
we we’re punching way above our weight and this was proven to be the case last season when we had major injuries and no quality replacements, hence our poor finish plus players been played out of position!
Whoever said istanbul was luck is sad little manker…
those who speak negative about Rafa are clueless.
pelligrini was my first option, but he’s at Mallorca winning his first 2 or 3 games there…
so I would go with Kenny until summer or go with someone with amitions to match ours is bought in!
under R
we defo dont wont rafa back, to me it was hoiuliers team that won, rafa did not buy any of them players,
lets get O Neil see what he can do, roy is just to nice,boring. i dont wont a manager that bends down kisses fergies rear, i wont a manager who’d go toe to toe and not back down, we dont wont any more fulham players, lets get fighters, let the youngsters in, we got some good young uns. age should come into it, if good enough play them, how old was owen, stevie carra etc
Come on you reds
king kenny is not the man for us, he is to close to liverpool, he is liverpool. thru and thru, what a man, what a family,
nothing in this world could be better then kenny doing it and liverpool back up there running with the big dogs, but what if, can we put him thru it all again,dalglish is like shanks a adopted scouser,
so me id say,
O Neil
Here you all go, if the board listened to you lot the club would not get anywhere..
I wanted Dalglish to be given the job but the board didnt want to risk his reputation and i felt rafa deserved another season..
But you really should all stop screaming because just olike Max says you are making it harder for the board and you are making yourselves look like petty squabblers!! We will turn into a laughing stock if you dont let board get on with the tough job they hacve in their own time..
Be thankfull H&G have gone
if the board who know nothing of english fooball, wont listen to the most knowledgable and fairest supporters in history then it’s their loss and ours. his only hope of winning the fans around is to get torres running and chasing like other centre forwards berbatov apart, or hasnt he got the bottle, torres needs a rocket to get him back to being the worlds best striker.