Miracles do happen. Honestly, they do. But this whole season doesn’t need saving, it needs repairing. Nobody expected us to do anything with regards to challenging for the title when Roy came in, and if you did then you were deluding yourselves I’m afraid. As for those of you/us that expected things to change immediately when Dalglish came back in,well we were right to an extent. Things against Blackpool were much different to what we have been used to under Roy this season. Alright Lucas, Kelly and Reina apart we fell to pieces in the second half, but on the whole there were some encouraging signs, not to mention some decent passing on the floor. Both goals we conceded were the result of some shocking lapses in defence, something that Agger and Skrtel have to sort out because it was alarming at times. But overall, there were some signs of change. What really annoyed me after the match were people (not LFC fans necessarily) complaining that Roy should have got more time, and that the Liverpool fans would never turn on Kenny and of course the notion that we always seek someone to blame. Those of you on Twitter would have no doubt seen the ‘#DalglishOut’ hash-tag that was doing the rounds, spread by fans of other clubs and some journalists who no doubt smugly considered themselves the height of wittiness.
Firstly, the idea that Roy was not given time is absurd. He was given plenty of time, which is indicative of his time in management at Liverpool that ‘plenty of time’ equated to half a season. Liverpool and Roy could not continue. Secondly, the appointment of Dalglish, people should remember that he is a Care-Taker Manager. Ergo his appointment is not permanent (not yet anyway). Barring relegation, is a win-win scenario for NESV. If Dalglish does well, great. If he doesn’t, then they’ll thank him for his commitment to taking the job at a very tricky time of the season, and appoint someone else without having to sack him. That and the fact that there will be more of a feel-good factor around the club. As for the notion that Liverpool fans are forever playing the blame game, well, that has some truth in it. Unfortunately fans will always want someone to vent their anger at. But who is there to blame? NESV so far have said all the right stuff, and been shown to be progressive in appointing Comolli and Clarke, and they gave Hodgson enough time to ‘make his mark’ on the squad. You can’t even blame Hodgson really, because if you did so, the counter-argument would be ‘well LFC should have seen whether he could turn it around’, in other words we should have given him time to see if he could make the club finish anything above or below 12th place. The only real thing you could point at Hodgson was for signing Konchesky, Poulsen (who had a decent game on Wednesday) and turning us into Fulham-on-Mersey. Then of course there is Rafa for leaving us a squad that was capable of finishing 7th/2nd and leaving a squad with hopeless duds/talented individuals like Skrtel, Agger, Lucas, Rodriguez etc.
My point is what use is blaming people? All our problems right now is on the pitch, and not in the corridors of Anfield like it has been before this season. Like Kenny eluded to in the press conference, nothing that happened in the Blackpool cannot be ironed out in training. Likewise, anything that happened in the first half of the season is not something that is going to linger and can be erased, and reset, and I think that is Kenny’s main job in the eyes of NESV at the moment, to smooth things out, get the mindset of the team back on their feet, and get them playing, and enjoy doing so, so that whoever comes in during the summer truly has a clean slate and won’t have to deal with any of the emotional debris that might be left behind.
nice little article but i think it goes in roundabouts.
the fans have to blame someone, we havent gone from 2nd to 7th to 13th without something going wrong.
A story for you. I was at the liv v Blackpool game earlier in the season which was the last of the protests i believe. ANyways, we were obv losing 2-0 at half time, i see a friend of mine who was really anti H&G and we got chatting. I said to him about the score and cant believe how badly we are playing, he just shrugged and said he didnt care, as long as H&G were out of the club. I couldnt believe it. I still cant believe it now. No way would any fan want that to happen. I havent spoken to him since then because i found his views irritating.
Yes the previous ownership was a load of rubbish and built on a bunch of lies but still… So now the old owners have gone, we have something else to shout about and thats Hodgson and his dodgy tactics. SO now he has gone. In comes King Kenny.
I think that im glad we are in this position with KK in charge.
But NESV have got to flex their muscles in the transfer window and go and buy a couple of good players and state their intent for the summer. I really wouldnt mind if we had to pay over the odds for a couple of players.
Otherwise they are jus like our previous regime, a load of hot air. God i wish i had a couple of billion spare!
But surely blaming people is of little help? Even though I don’t particularly subscribe to your friend’s point of view, I’d much rather our problems be on the pitch than behind the scenes if you get me.
Right now, the fans are cautiously optimistic whereas before Anfield was so depressed. The last match I went to was the Utrecht match, and even though it was a dead rubber match the fans were so quiet and they had every right to be.
And I don’t think NESV are going to throw money at the team. The way they’ve set things up with a heirachy with the manager and Comolli suggests that any expenditure will be thought out and that is they way it should be imo. It isn’t in NESV’s best interest not to invest and I think they know this.
While I don’t think blaming helps the team directly, it’s useful in the sense that it played a part in removing what was clearly one of Liverpool’s obstacles – Hodgson.
It’s not that I particularly like to see someone losing his job, but it’s clear that he really was to blame for much of the team’s drastic decline this season. Who else chooses the tactics? Who chooses the team? Who makes the decisions during matches? Who has the chance to inspire (or sap confidence from) the players?
Sure it’s great to say that this is a team and we all have to take responsibility for our collective malaise etc. But in fact many times there is one or two people much more at fault than others. For Blackpool’s second goal, it was a team lapse, but also mainly Skrtel’s wrong positioning. For Gerrard’s sending off against Utd, say what you want about the bias of Howard Webb and why he didn’t apply the same treatment to Rafael seconds earlier, but basically it was Stevie’s fault for giving him the chance to brandish the card at all.
And so, very often there is someone to blame, whether fans search for him or not. And we’re not talking about a scapegoat – we’re talking about someone who truly is majorly responsible for a decline. And if blaming that person helps to rectify the cause of that decline, then certainly it’s a useful exercise.
Makes sense.. Good little read that..
“It’s not that I particularly like to see someone losing his job, but it’s clear that he really was to blame for much of the team’s drastic decline this season.”
But how can you still believe that? While Roy certainly was not part of the solution, saying that he really was to blame for this season is absurd.
The team is 0-2 under Kenny. The second loss against a bottom table club. At some point, the players on the pitch have to hold some responsibility. At some point, Comolli, NESV, and Kenny have to give a serious look at the makeup of this squad and make some real changes. A real investment needs to be made not only into the transfer market, but into the youth academy so you have cheap, young options to fill in around your main core of players.
I was from start agaisnt sacking Benitez and wanted Dalglish right after him, however i think giving a manager six months and sacking him is not right and is something we should avoid.
to writer of this article, i ask one question if you ideal manager got the job, wopuld you sack him after six months if he didnt get the result?
it s time us liverpool fan to go back to our past ethic and stick with our players and manager and go through this torment together. otherwise we will be laughing stock and will be in same group of big clubs such as leeds and newcastle.