Here’s the thing – I don’t hate Roy Hodgson. I don’t even blame him for where we are. On the contrary, I have respect for him and I wish him well.
Ok, I’ve said it. But I’ll tell you why I feel this way. Roy Hodgson is a man with great integrity and should be respected for whatever he has achieved with other, albeit ‘smaller’ clubs. Like every professional his dream would have been to be at the pinnacle of a premier organization. Please tell me, how could he refuse an offer from Liverpool Football Club? 99.9% managers in the world would not be able to do that and I don’t blame Roy to be in that majority. Like in Godfather, he got an offer he could not refuse; I am talking more about prestige than financials.
Initially, he did most things right. Held on to Torres and Reina, had a great qualifying run to Europa group stages, signed Joe Cole (I know how Joe is playing now, but please raise your hands whoever thought he was not a signing that made us feel happy at that time), the first PL game was good too. Things were not looking too bad. But then Mascher said he wanted to leave and refused to play the Man City game and it was more or less downwards from there. Torres never really fired inspite of the rests from Europa and the leverage that was given to him except the Chelsea game (we all have our opinion about why he played well in that game).
Having said that, in my humble opinion, Roy was not the right choice. But the choice wasn’t made by Roy himself. After a certain point in time, he started feeling the pressure and things were always on a slippery slope. Even when he said that the fans weren’t behind him, he wasn’t entirely lying, was he? To have been selected over King Kenny was never going to be an achievement for him, but something that we would always hold against him. He said things he shouldn’t have, but that was mostly pressure. I am not defending any of Roy’s tactics or statements. Just saying that he wasn’t the right man but his appointment was not made by him.
Roy has been a good manager over ’35 years’ (36th wasn’t as good). He is a good man, an elderly gentleman. He wore the liverbird on his chest (on the pocket of his jacket) and I’d bloody well say – Good Luck Roy! He took up a dream job. Too bad it didn’t work out for him or, more unfortunately, for us.
I hear people saying that had Kenny been the manager from the beginning of the season, we would have been #3 in the table. I differ. I think we would have been on top of the table. Pro-rating points would tell you something, but the magic in football would tell you we would have been better than table toppers. We dropped a lot of points at the beginning of the season and although it is easy to blame Roy Hodgson, I would rather blame people who put him there – Misters Martin Broughton and Christian Purslow.
These gentlemen were to decide a manager who would take LFC into the next era. A manager who would build on what Rafa did until the penultimate year of his managerial stint and better it. A manager who would not only guide Liverpool Football Club into the Champions League but also take us to the top of the Premier League. Or, just select a manager who would help LFC maintain a decent position in the top 6/7 of the table and hold on to the period that sees ownership change hands. With Roy’s achievements I doubt he was the first category and with a reported £3 million severance package, I doubt he was second either.
These gentlemen wrote exit clauses into two of our star players’ contracts. I don’t want to add to the conspiracy theory but one of those star players actually went away to a club that one of these two gentlemen supports for the exact amount of money that his exit clause warranted. That apart, I never heard about exit clauses except here. Reportedly, one of them gave Roy a ‘cull-list’ which included Lucas Leiva, one of the better performers this year.
Mr. Broughton was presumably an RBS appointment made in Apr’10 primarily to overlook the sale of the club. With 3 seats out of 5 in the board, a sale could have been agreed anytime as far as it protected RBS’s exposure which was about £300m. Also of note is the fact that beyond 15th October, the club would have become an RBS property and having incurred a 9 point penalty (debatable, of course) by the PL board, the perceived value of the club could have fallen below the £300m mark – not something that Mr Broughton’s appointment was supposed to have achieved. In all, to sell the club for £300m in the second week of October 2010 would have been the bare minimum that Mr Broughton was required to do. I am not going to give him credit for achieving the bare minimum.
Joe Cole’s signing is another case in point. When current owners aren’t supporting the management with the money in transfer market, there are cheaper players bought. Not players on free transfer with exorbitant salaries. Signing him for £90,000 is akin to a huge signing fee but paying it in weekly installments where obviously most of it would be paid by the next owners. Roy Hodson admitted that Joe might not have been his choice. It’s anyone’s guess whose choice it was. One of the above two ‘gentlemen’ is a finance professional, the other a Chelsea fan.
The one and only good thing that these guys have done is find us owners like NESV and more specifically Mr John W Henry. My only complaint from NESV and it’s employees is that Joe Januszewski should have written that email in April/May/June 2010.
Spot on mate !
correction *Martin broughton but a very good article once again YNWA
Tripe!!!
Tell you what lets blame David Moore’s who in turn sold to the 2 cowboys, Who in turn hired Purslow who in turn hired Roy….Get my drift?
It’s history and boring! Lets move on
The person I blame is David Moores.
The hapless Littlewoods heir and failed entrepreneur foisted Hicks and Gillett and their leveraged buyout of LFC on the other shareholders.
The “offer document” was a disgrace and spelled out that anyone voting “No”, would be left with worthless pieces of paper that Kop Holdings would have no obligation to buy.
Moores was the traitor to LFC and he ended my families 115 year shareholding in the club for which I will never forgive nor forget.
Find myself agreeing pretty much everything you’ve written.
A nice article and I think you’ve made some points that should be noted by a few fans of LFC
Joe Cole was not directly signed by Hodgson. I would more or less consider him a signing for the Reds of the English national team. They were the ones that convinced him to leave London.
I don’t hate Roy, but I hate his tactics. The constant use of the ultra conservative two banks of four. Abandoning Benitez’s practice of zonal marking. Long ball. Without major personel overhaul, Kenny has gotten much more out of the same group of players.
Us being third in the league isn’t that far off. Since the new year started the only teams to have gained more points than us are Man U and Arsenal.
Good, interesting view mate, personally i agree with the view on roy but i do disagree on Broughton and Purslow, these men are proffesionals, they must have thought roy would bring success, he took fulham to europa league final, saved them from relegation 2 seasons before, he deserved the chance and i admire these men for taking a risk on a honourable gentleman in roy, also lets not forget that these are the men that got rid of Hicks and Gillette so i salute these men, the reason behind the poor season in my opinion was due to the mediocre signings (not including raul or cole) this was down to the lack of funds also the players peformances, many of our reliable players were playing poorly and started making mistakes, but thats just my view, good read though mate :) keep it up.
I hate Roy. He’s a little man and everything concerning him has “little” stamped on it. And the way he consistently refused any blame for his failings was disgusting. It’s not my team… it’s no one’s team, fool, it’s ours! You just do the best you can with what you have. Or would you rather have more time to find some more Koncheskys and Poulsens and make it your own Lil’Liverpool… It was a hard period for me having to support Liverpool and knowing the longer lil’Roy stayed there the worse we’d be in the long run. I’m glad it’s over already.
I dont blame anyone but Moores. He just sat on Liverpool football club and did nothing to advance the club while clubs like Man Utd,Arsenal even Spurs and Newcastle did. He didnt care for the club and was going to sell to whoever, as long as they paid decent money to him and a handsome bonus to Parry, his sidekick. Without the bumbling Moores, we wouldnt have had Hicks and Gillette, who saw a man to be manipulated and swindled. If Moores had been more proactive, sitting on a club with such worldwide marketability, we wont be having this discussion. As it is, its history. No use digging it all up. We have Dalglish noow and just all have to work together to make Liverpool great again!!!!!
We might say a lot of things about Martin and Purslow…(Purslow is so hard to defend!!!); truth is we’ll never really know everything and it’ll all be conspiracy theories so lets not sully the reputation of good men without proof, shall we? Martin and Purslow, together with Ayres, were the great salvation of Liverpool. They could so easily have sided with the Americans, just one of them being corrupted or having no sense of morality, or being a Judas and Liverpool would have been in the championship and as good as finished. If you want a sense of perspective, look no further than Man Utd with their spineless chief executive, aiding and abetting the Glazers while the Mancs whinge and yelp to no avail!!!! People especially the London Press have been saying a lot of things about ungrateful and unrealistic Reds, following the Roy saga. Lets not give them any ammunition or whip up a frenzy. Lets give honour where it is due. The task of rebuilding Liverpool into a title-winning is going to be very hard indeed, but this is what we all want. It will need all the support and a singular focus of everyone who loves the club with no distractions whatsoever.
Kaushal
It is getting boring, good or bad what the hell, they have all F’d off. Lets talk about the positives like beating manure & Chelskis & how we are going to get back into CL & win the PL.
Beginning to sound like a bunch of bored housewives.
Just remember once they have left they are not a part of us anymore, agent Woy will “simply love it” if he beats us at Hawthorns which just might be the possibility of getting into CL or not. So please save your sympathies for when we are all on a beach in summer time looking at the idiot with a sun burn!!
Nothing would give more pleasure to the Homesick boy than to score against us or for Chelskis to win a cup. Get my drift?
Once you are no longer a part of us you can bloody well walk alone.
YOU NEVER WALK ALONE
i dont like roy hodgson and i dont think he is a nice guy either,(his uncalled for remarks about frank rikaard prove that) he was disrespectful to the fans, he had no understanding of what liverpool are about, he wanted to get liverpool to play the hodgson way, when he needed to get hodgson to play the liverpool way, he never tried to learn the liverpool way or change and he still will not admit he was wrong, this is what i dislike most about the man, he thinks he was hard done by.
Hodgson reminds of Benitez in some things..he got stuck with a 4-4-2 formation all the time with an misfiring Torres and an average Ngog upfront..he also got stuck in play Meireles in right midfield..Benitez’s mistake was when we was playing both Lucas and Mascherano..yet we were good defensively,we never had attacking threats up front,and if we had it was too consistant on Torres and Gerrard lifting the team..for me the 4-2-3-1 formation is good for us but not with two defense minded players..yes to Lucas-Gerrard,yes to Lucas-Meireles,yes to Spearing-Gerrard/Meireles,NO to Lucas-Poulsen/Spearing..also Joe Cole said the first day at Liverpool that he wants to play behind the striker…so why did he play only 3,4 times behind the striker??i can remember watching him at the wings and get lost,while behind the striker he was good passes to support the attacker.point is,a manager should never get stuck with his ideas but always trying something new.Kenny’s played 3-5-2,3-6-1,4-2-3-1,4-4-2 the last month..he also tried a 4-3-2-1 with Poulsen-Lucas-Spearing Dms which proved bad.After all these i say that Kenny of course knows way better than me,but my suggestion against Braga would be this:
Reina
Johnson Carragher Skrtel Wilson
Lucas Meireles
Kuyt Cole Maxi
Carroll
Just a guess..No Poulsen,No Kyrgiakos,No Ngog,No Jovanovic please!!even Maxi is average but we aint got anyone better there..come summer he’ll be gone but since we cant do anything else now,play him..obviously Babel would have his chances if we didnt sell him and i would have him any day from Ngog!!…
YNWA
re previous posts, i too have been amazed how david moores has got away with what he did without getting much stick, at least we dont see his mug in the directors box now.
who cares now??? that was then…
results like the whu one and Blackpool are proof that any manager would have struggled at LFC this season(similar traits last year too). We have more room for optimism now but without the likes of Sg and Suarez playing then we struggle. Thank goodness Carroll is getting fit. We certainly need to spend well this summer. But yes, let’s move on.
good article and very much as I saw things even before Rafa got the sack, when the press was getting briefings against our then manager which were clearly coming from within the club. The first time I witnessed such disgraceful behaviour by officers pretending to be red.
ok we get the message you’re a good egg and it wasn’t roy’s fault. the negative tactics and boring playing style were nothing to do with him, konchesky could have worked out in the end and just wait poulsen is an investment. To be perfectly honest i have moved on, the hodgson day’s were the worst i remember. the excitement of now has blanked the pain of the xmas run in from my mind, it is articles such as this that force me to reflect that nearly every decision he made has been shown to be poor, which includes signing cole on 90k a week, regardless of the initial euphoria. all balanced reporting at the time suggested it was a risk and more important symbolically than in actuality, such a judgement now laid bare shows that hodgson’s appointment was most definitely a false dawn of redemption for liverpool and it would not be unitl the king returned that weight upon our great club began to be lifted. furthermore I don’t hate broughton, he held firm against hicks and gillett and insisted on selling to our new owners, who have so far proved the right choice, and who were such a breathe of fresh air on their arrival. he acted with dignity being a declared chelsea fan he did the best anyone can do. to accept roy hodgson’s bollocks that it wasn’t his signing suggests that your judgement is as dubious as his.
I think Hodgson was the best man for the job at the time, he was, and still is, the current manager of the year and was seen as a safe pair of hands in what was a turbulent time for the club. There are many reasons why that didn’t turn out right, but hindsight is 20/20.
People seem to think that we had the choice of any manager in the world, but those willing to sign up with the previous owners, and the accompanying lack of money was not that long. Yes, Dalglish was there, but do you choose the manager of the year or a man that hasn’t been a manager for 10 years? Sense says Hodgson, sentiment would have said Dalglish. That Hodgson wasn’t a success has a lot to do with the fans sentiment for Dalglish and the majority not backing the Liverpool manager (never thought I’d see that). There were other reasons, but that was the biggest reason for the failure imho.
I think the only way to get some players to sign on for longer was to agree to clauses. What were they to do, say no? I’m all for not giving in to player demands, but there has to be compromises. Saying yes to the £50m clause for Torres may not have been a good idea at the top of his form, but on current form seems like a good idea. A £20m clause for Reina just doesn’t seem like a good idea full stop, not when Buffon went for £32m nearly 10 years ago.
Rick Parry is to blame.
Kenny, I’m surprised you didn’t blame Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Pepe Reina and Dirk Kuyt here.
Some of you really think that I support Roy’s tactics or signings. All I said above is that he is a good manager but was in the wrong job. His tactics, signings, ambitions and comments all suggested that. All I am saying is that Roy taking over Liverpool’s managerial post is not his fault but of those who put him there.
Broughton did the ‘bare minimum’ that he was mandated to do by RBS and didn’t do it for LFC or fans or anyone else. To give credit where it’s due, I think the eventual choice of buyers turned out well.
Moores did a terrible job at selecting buyers and hence all the more credit to the screening that the British team used for NESV.
With all due respect, it was pretty much Hodgson’s fault.
I don’t blame him for taking over. Didn’t think he was the right man, but was optimistic anyway. Torres himself has just said that the club was not allowing players to leave in the summer due to the board-room troubles, and so that is why he stayed.
Hodgson’s tactics of anti-football got us into this mess. We weren’t one of the top sides in the league, but we sure as hell was not a 12th to 15th place side either. Hodgson got us there and effectively ruined our season.
He often came out and said the wrong things as well, not to mention not hitting back at Ferguson when he labelled Torres a ‘cheat’ because the two of them are friends.
Having said that, I do still respect the man. He plainly tried to do his best but his best was nowhere near good enough. I hope he finds a club that he can really go good club, and so far it seems to be going well at West Brom, but to take away blame from him for what truly were arguably the worst performances at the club since Souness, is just shirking the issue I’m afraid.
Kaushal, don’t bad mouth Broughton or you’ll end up in court ;) Seriously, he did put the club and its supporters first.
Moores is the self-serving buffoon that did irreparable damage.
Thanks Billy. Will keep that in mind. You take care about Moores too. :-)
In my defense though, ‘good job’ for club and supporters would have been to find owners before the season started since he was asked to do this in April. What he did was just about getting across the line.
Kaushal, the difference is I’m a former shareholder and I KNOW what Moores did along with his incompetent poodle, Parry.
If you knew what you were talking about, you’ld realise the October deadline was Gillett and Hicks’ Achilles heel. Do you think it was easy for the board to negociate a sale when the incumbents didn’t want to sell? Please stick to what you know…
Billy, I meant the Moores comment as a joke. Apologies if it felt otherwise.
The October deadline was for loan repayment with no surety that it would or could not be extended. Of course there was a difference in the ask price and what people would offer and this more more apparent as October loomed since most prospective buyers thought that if they could buy the club for £300m, why pay more. Obviously there are a lot of things that I don’t and won’t know. But my only grievance is that without taking the club into administration, whatever happened in October could have happened sooner as well.
Got a feeling KG and JK are one and the same……
Kaushal: Kuyt 7 goals in 29 games (very impressive goal return for a player who spends so much time in the attacking third-one goal more than Huth of Stoke a central defender). Reina (36 goals in 29 games-he is only as good as the defence in front of him). Carragher (too small to be a centreback and too slow). Gerrard (his best days are behind him).
In all fairness our season is now little more than a dead rubber as most of us know.It’s all about next season now.Hopefully we’ll make some good signings such as CSKA’s Honda who I’ve been monitoring for a few seasons or more now.The guy is quality and would be an excellent addition to a rapidly improving squad and would provide excellent service cutting in/going wide on the wings and could provide the strikeforce with plenty of chances as well as scoring a few screamers.His free kicks are ridiculous.I’ve been a massive fan since I saw what I can only describe as a purely magical free kick that just beggars belief.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RfWXGAbZOw
Unfortunately after an excellent World cup his stock has soared making him the most popular player in Japan.He’s like royalty, (posher than poshes’ fella so they say) so in order to prise him away from CSKA it’s going to cost a bundle.Any such deal would see shirt sales explode in Japan which would offset the cost of the transfer plus wages.If we don’t qualify for the Champions league you can add £10 Million to even be competitive in the transfer market regarding such players as we’ll pretty much have to do a City and virtually bribe players to come.Fortunately the King has returned and with him has arrived an air of optimism.This is a massive positive in terms of transfers as any player worth a kick in the shin knows our Kenny! With everyday that passes comes renewed belief in and around LFC.
I’m also glad the management are adopting an attitude of ‘stealth’ regarding signings and hopefully Kenny will get a nights sleep this time with dealings being carried out swiftly and surely.Adams is another player I feel optimistic about.From what I’ve seen he fits the profile.A captain of his club and a player that would benefit massively from Gerrard’s experience and the scintilating prospect of playing with ‘manimal’ and ‘the nipper’ Another wide man,a left back and a mid-price striker who won’t mind a few pints of bench on a Saturday and then out with the dead wood, no names, no negativity.The season isn’t ‘quite’ over yet maybe someone wants to raise their game a few nothches,(where you goin’ with that gun in your hand ?) maybe a legend with a little magic left and a dream or two up their sleeve.Raul for a season perhaps, someone to bring the little stars out.Just a thought.I know it goes against their age policy but it’s bloody good business (shirt-wise) and a player with his technique and experience can’t be sniffed at by anyone with a football brain.Who could forget Gary Mac’s impact on the side who were in a very similar situation but without two young proven strikers of such pedigree champing at the bit …?
The King needs to ready his troops for the League of Champions and who better help than fellow royalty ?
Stranger things have happened.
There’s my two studs in…
It might also be enough to keep Pepe smiling too…
I think it is time to move on. While Roy, with the benefit of hindsight, wasn’t great appointment I think Broughton did a good job to remove the American scumbags. The end result is no Hicks, no Gilette, no debt and Kenny back in charge surely all steps in the right direction. Lets just wish Roy well and move on.
drivel
the rot began when souness took charge.
he broke up a winnig squad- we failed to in the championship and the rest is history….
I think Broughton did a sound job in slugging it out with Texas Tom and his toad. I cant imagine theres any conspiracy in Torres’s transfer ( good riddance to bad rubbish) The finger should point at ‘for a few dollars more’ David Mooores who sold us out
harry, you are a voice of sanity on this site but most lfc fans saw no hope of a dawn under hodgson, it was never there to be false.
if anyone thinks roy hodgson was anything but a complete disater for our club then they like him know nothing of the liverpool way.
I think Broughton is alright Purslow i suppose had good intentions but Moores set this club back 10 years.