Double or Bust for FSG?

Yesterday was one of the saddest days in my living LFC memory. Still torn between whether the 2007 Final loss was more painful or did I feel worse when we lost the FA Cup final or when I finally conceded the title in 2009 after months of anticipation and years of hope. None are comparable but given that Kenny’s sack is freshest it remains the most painful one.

I was vocal in objections earlier when Kenny’s name was doing the rounds as the prospective manager of the club. Not because I doubted the man. Only because I feared the events of yesterday. The lasting memory of him that I would like the fans to have of him would have been of his pure delight and arms raised gesture towards the dugout when LFC scored a goal. What do you know, I will always remember him by that gesture and his childlike smile.

No parting ever is happy. Probably the ideal case scenario would have been for Kenny to have taken the two year contract and honed an Assistant Manager to take over the reigns when his contract expired. Had everything gone to plan, now would have been the time we would have been looking to appoint the future successor of Kenny. As it turns out, we are now looking at the successor either way. We all love Kenny. We all are so grateful to him for what he did in the past as well as how he rescued us when we were staring at abyss last January. Having said that, it is fair to assume that it is arguable to call 2011-12 a success. Kenny unselfishly served the club when the need arose. I would have liked him to have worked a way out if things did not go as per plan instead of defending what transpired on the field. At the risk of someone who would have wanted Kenny to go, I should clarify it couldn’t be further from the truth. I wanted him to stay. At least one more season. There are two major reasons for that – a. he was our biggest hero in the past season and a half. While that is obviously a testament to how big a man Kenny is, it also points out the lack of other star players, and b. because of the romance that Kenny’s second coming brought to the club. We would have liked it to have a happy ending. Pragmatically, if it had been anyone except Kenny, we would have probably wanted him to go in January, if not sooner.

I was also worried about the ‘Liverpool Way’ of only telling fans about things when there was anything concrete. However, all of us on twitter heard ‘confirmed, not rumors’ news from every media house before club came out with a statement about an hour later. While the way club conducts his business is well respected, the fans appreciate to hear things first from the club than from anyone else. Similar goes for other rumors, like Ayre came out with the statement dismissing reports that he’d been sacked too. The club will do well to understand that sometimes quashing rumors is more important from the fans’ perspective.

I still believe the FSG know what they are doing and in the business of running this club with good intentions. For lack of any evidence on the contrary, I would like to give them the ‘benefit of doubt’. If it’s a business and making money is their aim, it isn’t contradictory to the fans’ goal of success. There’s nothing that sells better than success. For them, it is an opportunity to start afresh. When they’d come in, they didn’t know much about the footballing business. They couldn’t look much beyond appointing a Director of Football and beyond Kenny for Manager. They might be a little more educated now. Still assuming they have noble intentions, what happens in the next two months would define their reign at Anfield. It is an important summer for both LFC as well as FSG’s ownership of LFC. It is all well and good to hear that FSG have a ‘plan’, an ‘ambition’ and that they are ‘winners’. Let’s see how that plan transpires over the next two months or so.

I doubt that they will give Kenny millions in severance pay just to hire someone like Roberto Martinez. It has to be someone whom they believe will take club closer to success. It would also mean that they need another substantial influx into the club in terms of new manager’s players. I doubt they would hire Rafa for they would fear being stuck in a similar situation sometime down the line and wouldn’t like to attract further criticism. I am holding my breath this summer for FSG to demonstrate their ambition. It is double or bust time for FSG. In the meantime, I would expect them to appreciate the fact that fans would be nervy in the next few months and would like them to connect with us better.

If we’re able to climb up the table and get into Champions League football next year, every fan would be over-the-moon. As a fan, there’s nothing that Kenny would want more.

YNWA, Kenny. You’ll forever be King.

Kaushal

Dalglish Deserved More Respect From Americans

Dalglish Deserved More Respect From Americans

Kenny Dalglish has been sacked by Liverpool’s American owners, shocking the Anfield faithful to the core.

Kenny Dalglish like any other manager should have been given more time to improve Liverpool’s league fortunes.

But in this modern era of football and “modern” owners, time is not given to managers and they must get positive results immediately or suffer.

But for Kenny Dalglish not to be honoured more time is disgraceful, for a man who has served this club so well over the years as a player and as a manager, and who has his heart in the club.

Dalglish came to Liverpool’s rescue when he got an SOS call from Liverpool’s new American owners aboard the Titanic’s sister ship SS Roy Hodgson.

Dalglish then transformed the club and brought back a “feel good” factor back to the club and got everyone pulling in the same direction.

Dalglish spent a lot of money in the summer with new signings and big expectations for the new season with expectations of even winning the league.

But the league form was very poor and finishing in 8th position was very poor for a club like Liverpool.

But for Kenny to guide the club to two cup finals was a fantastic achievement and to win one of the finals and bring back a trophy to Anfield was vitally important for Liverpool to get back to winning things after going far too long without a trophy.

But inevitably Liverpool’s league form has cost Dalglish his job.

There has been criticism of Dalglish about some of his signings like Henderson, Downing and Andy Carroll not repaying the faith Dalglish showed in signing them, but some players take time to fit in to a new team.

Kenny’s tactics have also been criticised during his time, and his persistence in playing Jordan Henderson was highly criticised.

Dalglish’s biggest mistake was his handling of the controversial Suarez affair which could have been handled a lot better, but Dalglish always showed great support for his players, rightly or wrongly.

Dalglish never handled the media very well and in this era of scrutinised media attention made Dalglish look very uncomfortable.

But Dalglish provided more positives than negatives to Liverpool Football Club and that should not have been understated.

Dalglish has brought the club together and made the squad stronger with the signings he made.

Dalglish has produced a very young team with great potential and towards the end of the season we have witnessed some of Kenny’s underperforming signings start to perform, like Andy Carroll and Henderson looking far better players than they did at the start.

The impressive structure of youth coming through at Anfield that Dalglish should receive great credit for with the likes of Sterling, Coady, Morgan, Wisdom, Silva, Robinson and Flanagan on the verge of threatening for first team action.

But the progress and structure that Dalglish has been building could now be dismantled.

It is a massive gamble to bring someone new in, when Liverpool were making progress under Dalglish, but it seems that Liverpool’s owners are looking for instant title winning success from their manager, regardless of how much of a mess they were in not so long ago.

Liverpool has always been a club that has shown great patience with their managers but this act of impatience by their owners towards a “legendary” figure like Dalglish shows that Liverpool could be turning into a “managerial merry go-round” club like Chelsea which is very worrying.

Far from a disastrous season Dalglish was summoned to America to be professionally executed, the Americans could at least have conducted their calculated business at Anfield, and faced the supporters and media, in what is a massive decision for the club, it is ridiculous treatment for a man who answered their call for help not so long ago.

Time will tell if the Americans have made a very brave decision or a very big mistake, because whoever takes over the Anfield hot seat will have to be very good and hit the ground running.

Redmen TV : Kenny Dalglish Sacked as Liverpool Manager

Liverpool have sacked Kenny Dalglish as Liverpool manager following poor Premier League performance in the 2011/12 season. The Redmen TV bring you the official statements from John W. Henry and Tom Werner, as well as Liverpool fans from around the world. Who should replace Kenny? Who are the Favourites for the job? What financial backing will FSG give the new man?

POLL : Do you think that Roberto Martinez would make a good LFC manager?

With Kenny now gone the word is that Roberto Martinez has been approached to take the Liverpool job.
What do you think?

Kenny has stepped down

The club should be making an announcement shortly but Kenny Dalglish has resigned (or was fired) from L.F.C.

Very sad day for Liverpool Football Club.

Thank you Kenny.

LONG LIVE OUR KING.

 

 

 

Reality check

Whoever is Liverpool manager in August (I hope it will be Kenny) has a daunting task ahead of him.

Liverpool F.C. haven’t won a league title in 22 years; Graeme Souness, Roy Evans, Gerard Houllier, Rafa Benitez, Roy Hodgson and now Kenny Dalglish have all tried and all have failed. Yes we did collect a few trophies on the way and some were very nice especially big ears however the league keeps eluding us and the competition keeps getting tougher.

I am usually an optimist however I just can’t see how we can pull this off without spending big or else hope that we get three or four world class players out of our academy. As far as us spending big that is not going to happen with our current ownership, they have made it very clear that Liverpool FC will not be burdened by crippling debt anymore and none of us want that. There are fair play rules that will be imposed soon however sugar-daddy clubs like Chelsea and Manchester City will find ways to bend those rules by funding their club via subsidiary companies (like City did with the stadium sponsorship).

We simply can not compete financially with the likes of Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal. As much as it hurts it is the truth. Even if we had Champions League football we wouldn’t have been able to pay the salaries of the likes of Aguero, Mata and Silva. OK the big argument is “but Kenny spend £100 million last summer on players like Downing, Adam and Henderson”. First and foremost we don’t know who spent that money, I believe that Comolli was responsible for negotiating the prices. Secondly the net spend was around £35 million when you take into consideration the amount of money we saved on wages. Please look at the wages because that is the driving factor and don’t get distracted with the amount of money paid for the transfers. Don’t know how true it is but someone told me that Sergio Aguero makes £300K a week in salary. Even Fernando Torres makes three times more money than Andy Carroll however he didn’t score three times as many goals.

Rafa Benitez (I still love him dearly) did an excellent job in using the money from players sold to buy new ones however our wage bill kept increasing. I am sure that Rafa would do well under FSG however you will be surprised on the kind of players he might have to sign. No matter who the manager is next season he deserves some time, we can’t be screaming for his head after just one season. So before you yell “Kenny Out” and “Bring Rafa Back” stop and think. Should Rafa come back you might be the first one screaming “Rafa Out” at the end of next season.

Here in the States we have an expression “Champagne taste on a beer budget” which quite frankly sums up most of us Liverpool fans. We are a big club, we have a huge following, we have more silver than Buckingham palace however as they say in Spanish “No Tengo Dinero!”.

YNWA

-Antoine

Follow me on Twitter @empireofthekop

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