by Bhaskar Upadhyay
Mr. Hodgson has been the manager of our beloved club for one third of the season now. It’s been a strange season with the highs and lows we have experienced. Mr. Hodgson, in his time as the LFC gaffer, has not impressed many fans and their have been PR gaffes almost every week since the start of the season. I will try and focus on some of mr. Hodgson’s transfers and youth policies that i have observed in the one third season gone by.
The first thing that strikes me is a decidedly more english approach to squad consolidation. Bringing in more english players while this has been partially done to meet the home grown players requirement but there is a definate leaning towards more british players. In this more british approach some of the better foreign players have been given the short stick by Mr. Hodgson. Take the interesting case of Alberto Aquilani, who has been loaned out to Juve when he was ready and fit again to give his best for LFC. There has been till date no logical explanation given by Mr. Hodgson on sending Aquilani on loan to Juve, on top of that juve have an option to purchase him in the summer transfer window at a very cheap price which will most definitely result in a loss to LFC. From whatever i have been able to gather from AA’s interviews he was prepared to stay at LFC till the penultimate day of his loan and after featuring regularly for Juve AA doesn’t want to come back to LFC. was there any logical reason for making such a loan or was it just Mr. Hodgson’s bias towards foreign players.
Another example of Mr. Hodgson’s bias towards foreign player was the virtual freezing out of Emiliano Insua from the squad before being sent on loan to Galatasary, again there was no logical reasoning to the loan move and his replacement is Paul Konchesky an englishman. Other such instances have been the continuous promotion of Jonjo, jay spearing and nathan ecclestone to the first time over one of our most talented youngster Dani Pacheco. In fact he has been asked to play on the right side of the midfield so that he can be accommodated in the first team. To make matters worse he has not seen much action at all in the europa league also. Again yes jonjo is a good player but that still does not justify dani nat being given even one opportunity to prove himself. The other such instances are not giving ryan babel proper opportunities after promising him so and his reportedly fragile relationship with peep rein.
So what do you fellow reds think, does Hodgson have an English bias and is it good or bad for the club?
YNWA