By Mark Sproule
Just six points off Spurs and nine behind Chelsea in a quest for a Champions League spot you have toask the question of our former Chairman (a self confessed Chelsea fanatic) and Chief Executive Christian Purslow, what were the pair thinking when they choose to overlook Kenny Dalglish for themanagerial post when it became vacant last Summer?
When the pair of execs made it known publicly that Kenny was joining them in their sifting through a list of appropriate candidates asopposed to being one of them, Dalglish didn’t have to look at the list too long and hard to realise he himself was better qualified than anyone on the Liverpool board’s radar at that time.
Kenny quickly put his own name into the hat which was promptly removed by the duo, citing his more important ambassadorial role as the only job for him. On the appointment of Hodgson, Broughton was quotedas saying “Kenny put his name in for the job and we appreciated the fact he wanted to do it but hewas never a candidate. He is happy in his current ambassadorial role” Never a candidate? Why was that Mr Broughton, because he hadn’t managed in ten years, because the game had changed so much or because he was out of touch with the modern “beautiful game” and didn’t know how to handle the modern footballer. Tell that to the millions of Liverpool fans around the globe who jumped in delight at the destruction of Manchester United a fortnight ago, or who watched a month earlier when KD engaged great tactical foresight to hoodwink Carlos Ancelotti at Stamford Bridge,beating Broughton’s beloved Chelsea.
The appointment of Roy Hodgson and his subsequent reign asmanager proved to be what most Liverpool fans had feared. The wrong job at the wrong time at aclub too big for a man who made his name making average players play well in effective tactical systems, stopping the other team from playing, a system which failed to produce many victories particularly away from home in his short Premier League career as Blackburn, Fulham and now Liverpool’s gaffer. Broughton and Purslow knew best and chose to ignore the “sentiment” of millions of reds around the globe last summer who hoped and prayed that this was the moment their messiah would return.
The fact that LFC at that time needed to bring in an ardent Chelsea fan as their chairman, to oversee the sale of club and in turn make one of the worst managerial appointments in recent Liverpool history was a testament to cowboys Gillett and Hicks underpinning their charade as owners which had at that stage thrown LFC onto the front pages of every national newspaper. It is clear for me that Martin Broughton had an inability to fully comprehend the historyand tradition of Liverpool Football Club and the part which Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish played and could yet play, simply because he was not a Liverpool fan.
Christian Purslow apparently a life-long Liverpool fan either didn’t believe Kenny was the man for job either or didn’t have enough clout to persuade Broughton otherwise. Perhaps we will never know. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the turnaround both on and off the field since Kenny took the reigns points to a massive error of judgement on the pairs behalf. Errors of judgement which most likely will have caused us another season of Europa League football when it could have been oh so different if King Kenny had havebeen taking the team-talks since August.