Wednesday, January 26, 2011

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Dalglish – Master of the Game

Posted: 25 Jan 2011 06:00 PM PST

Super performance and a great result for The Reds over Wolves at the weekend. The return of Dalglish has been quite literally like a second coming and on another biblical note, if we were to go back in time a couple of weeks and believed the spin we were hearing from our then manager Roy Hodgson and his media cronies, then surely what we are now witnessing is the greatest return from the dead since Lazarus!

But we all knew we were being fed a phony line by those clowns and the football we have played in the short time since Kenny's return has exposed the myths that those guys were peddling and left them all with a lot of egg on their faces. Anyone who thought that managers were becoming less important in the modern game should have a good look at what's going on at Liverpool these days and think again.

Hodgson often bemoaned the fact that we had inherited a poor squad of players which must have done wonders for the confidence in our dressing room. One of the reasons he put forward for our poor performances was that the squad wasn't his, which conveniently overlooked the fact that when we lost against the likes of Newcastle and Blackburn etc, they had recently appointed managers in charge with squads that could hardly be considered their own and yet they seemed to have little trouble it making the best of things and getting a performance from their team. It's hard to believe that Kenny is dealing with the same group of players. Unlike Hodgson, he hasn't yet had the opportunity to make any signings but he is making the best of the squad he has and, publicly at least, telling the players they are good enough and they just need to believe in themselves. Compared to the confidence sapping statements of the previous manager, this must be like music to the ears of our players and I think we can see the effect it is having on the performances.

Another old chestnut from Hodgson and his cronies that we heard endlessly during his six months in charge was that he needed more time to get his ideas over to the players, another lame excuse that we've seen exposed since Dalglish took over. After barely a week in charge and a couple of training sessions it was evident that Kenny was having no trouble getting his ideas over to the players. There were a lot of positives for us to take from our 1-0 cup defeat at the Theatre of Prawns, even more in our 2-1 defeat at Blackpool, our first half display against our wee neighbours was some of the best football we've played for a very long time and this culminated in our terrific performance in demolishing Wolves at the weekend which stands in stark contrast to our dreadful display when they beat us at Anfield just a few weeks ago.

I know Hodgson is gone now and I wish him well because I genuinely think he did what might be considered his best in a job where he was clearly out of his depth but I just find it slightly annoying that I am still seeing little suggestions in the media here and there that he was unfairly treated and wasn't given a proper chance. The job of a Liverpool manager these days seems to be three-pronged if you want to be successful, you've got to manage the players, you've got to manage the supporters and you've got to manage the media.

In my opinion Rafa Benitez succeeded at two out of three of these but it was his poor relationship with the media more so than the 7th place finish that ultimately led to his undoing and you only have to remember back to Martin Broughton's response to some angered Liverpool fans who confronted him about Rafa's dismissal when he told them "clearly the media don't agree with you." , but that's another blog! Roy Hodgson had plenty of friends in the media but alienated himself from the players and the supporters with his stupid comments and incredibly dull and boring tactics.

But in Dalglish I believe we have a man who is a master of the game, the supporters idolize him, the players are inspired by him and he is brilliant at dealing with the media, as could be seen in the awesome way he dealt with the question about transfers on Sly Sports after the match on Saturday, which was an absolute classic in my opinion. He is very comfortable dealing with the media and actually seems to use it as a tool to reinforce his messages and instill confidence to the players and the supporters. Ok, so I know that it's still early days but I'm delighted that he's here and I think he's done a brilliant job so far and made a great choice in bringing in Steve Clarke to work alongside him.

I don't think any of us would argue that our squad is strong enough at the moment but it is certainly strong enough for us to be doing much better then we were doing under Hodgson. Winning the league or perhaps even finishing in the top four might have always been beyond us but I think we should have been certainly good enough to be around the top six. Thankfully we seem to be moving in the right direction now that Dalglish is in charge and we are playing some good football which the players seem to be enjoying and so am I.

Just before Christmas is the time when I usually start to make my plans to get over for a few games, but this year I didn't bother. These are hard times for us all and I wasn't about to waste any of my hard earned cash travelling over to watch Liverpool playing Hodgson's style of shite football. But what a difference there's been since Kenny arrived. Now I'm looking forward to our games again and I want to get over to as many as I can. The attendance figures were dropping dramatically under Roy (understandably in my opinion) but I bet they'll be getting back to normal again soon and that's sure to please the NESV guys.

I think Kenny and Co will milk every drop they can get from the current players but while performances are improving we still badly need some reinforcements. Our NESV owners did well in moving fairly quickly in removing Hodgson and appointing Dalglish but this January window is another test for them ahead of the even bigger test to come in the summer and these are also big tests for Damian Comolli. How much money the owners will put in and whether Comolli can secure the signings the manager wants is the big question that will be occupying our minds for the rest of this month.

There have been interesting names linked with us including a vampire and a member of the Adams Family but our valuations seem a long way off and whether these things can be resolved in the next week remains to be seen. But if we come out of yet another transfer window and once again haven't signed some decent attacking support for Torres I will be very disappointed. Obviously we want to strengthen the side for the remainder of this season but even more importantly we need to integrate some new faces into the team in preparation for next season when a return to the top four will surely be a minimum expectation.

Anyway, I'm happy to say we've got a game on Wednesday against Fulham at Anfield and I'm looking forward to it as I am all of our games since Kenny's return. Our form has been getting better with each game and with Gerrard returning from suspension and desperate to play, we should be even stronger. There are no easy games home or away in the Premiership anymore and Fulham will be a stubborn opponent for us but I can't see past a Liverpool win and I'll put my money on a goal for each of the new faces I expect to see at the club by the end of this window, so a 3-0 Reds win and the Legend continues!

Keep the Faith
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Thursday, January 13, 2011

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The Battle of the Pools!

Posted: 12 Jan 2011 09:10 AM PST

Well it seems like Christmas came late for us this year but seeing King Kenny back on his throne again has me about as happy as an Australian umbrella salesman!

It was a bit surreal seeing Dalglish in the dugout for our game at the Theatre of Illusions at the weekend but I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. Even Howard Webb's impressive impression of Mike Reilly didn't spoil my mood, in fact it only enhanced it even more. Kenny had literally only just arrived to take over the team but already you could see the difference his presence made. Given our fragile state going into the game and then to suffer the injustice of conceding a non-penalty after less than a minute might well have triggered a collapse but Dalglish is in charge now and we just don't deal in self-pity anymore.

I was impressed with the way the team played their way back into the game after the early set-back and we started to look like the better team before we suffered another body blow with the Gerrard sending off. I thought the skipper deserved to go after his unnecessarily heavy challenge on Michael Carrick. It was really very annoying because it was so needless, I mean why bother tackling Carrick anyway? The guy is crap so why not just let him have the ball, it's not as if he's going to do anything with it and the chances are he will most likely give it back to you! So it was a stupid decision by Gerrard that means we will have to do without him for 3 games which is the last thing the new gaffer would have wanted.

But even with 10 men against 12 (including Webb) the team battled on and with a bit of luck might have grabbed an equalizer but it wasn't to be. I thought Kenny did well from the bench and , unlike some managers I could mention, brought on fresh legs when it was early enough to possibly make a difference. So the Dalglish era mark 2 began with a defeat but it was a loss we could take a lot of positives from. I'm actually not too bothered about being out of the cup this season because our priority right now is to focus on the league and getting as many wins as we can to put ourselves in the best position possible and build on that in the next campaign. We already have the welcome distraction of the Europa League, I don't think we have enough about us at the moment to cope with a cup run as well.

Needless to say I'm delighted to see Dalglish back. To be honest, I had reached a stage where I was rapidly losing interest in the team and not really looking forward to any of our games anymore. Everything seemed so bleak and depressing, a bit like an episode of Eastenders! I just didn't want to think about and I for damn sure didn't want to write about it. But now King Kenny has returned and suddenly I'm buzzing again, I'm looking forward to the games ahead and I've even started to plan a couple of trips over to cheer the lads on, something I wouldn't have bothered wasting my money on up to recently. If Kenny can lift the players half as much as he's lifted me we'll really be going places!

Anyway outside of all the romance there's also a lot of work to be done and it all starts with our game at Blackpool tonight. I've got a ton of respect for Ian Holloway and his team, they've done amazingly well since being promoted to the Premiership and it's going to be tough for us to get out of there with a result. They deservedly beat us at Anfield but we've got to try to do the same to them this evening because 3 points, particularly away from home, would be a huge boost and will help to keep the Kenny feel-good factor going awhile longer.

I'm fascinated to see what Dalglish will do with the team tonight. If the past is anything to go by we can expect to see a lot more attacking so it will be interesting to see how he'll use the players at his disposal, which players he'll select and if any of our youngsters will get a look in, with Pacheco being particularly impressive for the reserves in front of the boss last night. Obviously not having Gerrard available will limit his options but we'll just have to wait and see how he handles it.

The team will be well motivated that's for sure, Dalglish is a master at that just as he is of the media but our squad is limited in terms of quality so he's going to have his work cut out to make the whole greater than the sum of it's parts. It's obviously still very early but we just might get a little glimpse of the direction he wants to go with the team, in tonight's game.

Anyway I've got a long drive ahead of me to make it home in time for the game so I'm going to keep this one short and sweet and sign off now because I want to save the rest for the Merseyside derby at the weekend. So my prediction for tonight in the battle of the "Pools" is the same score line as the Anfield game only this time the points will go to The Reds with a 2-1 win and at least one of our goals being scored by Torres.

Keep the Faith
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Saturday, January 1, 2011

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A New Year, An Old Story!

Posted: 31 Dec 2010 08:50 AM PST

"It was the best of times and it was the worst of times." That famous opening line from Charles Dickens, A Tale of two Cities was beaten into me at school and as we approach the end of another frustrating year it has popped into my mind as a very good description of what we Liverpool fans have had to endure in 2010.

It is the best of times in terms of it being a year that saw us finally get rid of Hicks and Gillett, the club's two former parasitic owners who were bleeding the club dry and pushing us towards extinction, but it is also the worst of times in terms of what we have seen on the pitch over these past 12 months. The year began with Rafa's failed attempts to turn around a poor, injury-ravaged start to the previous campaign and the media with perhaps the assistance of one or two of our own players ensured that he would never see another one so we had to say goodbye to the man who made us believe again.

There then followed an "extensive" worldwide search of Fulham to find his successor and once again the media with perhaps the assistance of one or two of our own players more than played their part in saddling us with Roy Hodgson. Under normal circumstances there is usually at least a little bit of excitement among supporters when a new manager comes in but Hodgson's arrival at Anfield was greeted with almost universal indifference among Liverpool supporters. The media tried to talk the guy up with their usual mix of spin and bullshit but we've taken so much crap from the media over the years, most of us have become totally immune from their influence and developed minds of our own.

I'm not sure what options the club had at the time but no matter what they were, it's really hard to think of a more mundane appointment than Roy Hodgson. Perhaps, with the ownership situation and courtroom battles ahead, they felt Hodgson would be a safe pair of hands to steady the ship while things were sorted out in the boardroom but whatever the reasons, it's turned out to be an absolute disaster and undoubtedly the worst managerial appointment in the history of the club.

I think we all realised from the beginning that this guy didn't have the credentials to manage the club but we tried to support him and hoped that maybe he would rise to the occasion. However it quickly became apparent that he was totally out of his depth and about as trustworthy as an Irish banker. Last night's 1-0 home defeat against bottom club Wolves was the latest in an increasingly long line of embarrassments since he took charge of the side and a perfect example of the mind-numbingly dull tactics and complete stupidity that have become all too familiar to us over the past six months.

I don't have any coaching badges, I was a boy scout for two years and never even got a poxy merit badge, but Shankly once said "football is a simple game over complicated by idiots", and I don't think there has ever been a better description of football so it's the way I've always tried to view the game as a fan. Take the situation with Steven Gerrard last night. While he was out injured we had Meireles and Lucas developing an understanding and doing well in the centre of midfield. We also had Maxi doing well on the left side and Kuyt getting stuck in on the right. Maybe not a brilliant midfield but it had balance and it looked like it would get better if allowed to develop over a few games. But then Gerrard becomes available again and Hodgson throws him into the side like a hand grenade!

He played him in the centre of midfield, moved Meireles to the right, Kuyt to the left and dropped Maxi. The result was chaos that totally unbalanced the side. Kuyt kept coming inside which meant we had no width on the left except for Konchesky, which definitely meant we had no width on the left! Gerrard and Meireles seemed to be switching positions throughout the game and at times seemed confused about where they were supposed to be playing and Lucas was left back peddling trying to plug the gaps as best he could. Surely it would have been far simpler and more sensible to leave the midfield in place and let Gerrard take Eggnog's place instead of disrupting half the side to accommodate him.

There are times when you can blame players for not performing but our problems on Wednesday and in many of our other games this season have, in my opinion, been mainly caused by bad management or at the very least bad judgement by the manager. If the team is set up correctly and doesn't perform then you can perhaps look at the players but when the team is poorly set up, as it was on Wednesday and in other games, then you've got to look at the manager. Hopefully we will be active in the forthcoming transfer window but bringing in new players will not compensate for having a manager who is about as much use as a chocolate teapot clearly isn't up to the job either on or off the pitch.

Much has been made of the crowd reaction on Wednesday the chants for "Dalglish" and "Hodgson for England" etc. I've never heard the Kop chanting such things towards our own manager before but on the other hand I don't think I have ever seen such an inept display by a Liverpool team at Anfield before either so I think the crowd were perfectly right to vent their frustration and Hodgson only has himself to blame. Afterwards he made the situation even worse by hitting out at the crowd and has since tried to row back from his comments but it's too late for that, I think he burned his bridges with the fans a long time ago and I have no sympathy for him.

His comments after the game were all over the net and in the media but his condescending remarks towards Liverpool supporters, known as the most knowledgeable fans in the game, go back much further than that. As I recall, he referred to the fans protest against Hicks and Gillett "a distraction" and in various other interviews he has said that Liverpool fans expect the side to win every single game or it's a disaster, he's also said on a number of occasions that we have unrealistic expectations and recently said that we are expecting someone to come in with a magic wand etc. Comments such as these make it sound as if he regards us as a bunch of kneejerk morons who don't know our football and our opinions are unimportant. It makes you wonder if this guy has ever even met a Liverpool fan.

Like football supporters of all clubs we do have a kneejerk section of fans but 90% of us are pretty far-minded and most certainly do know our football. For the record, I don't expect the team to win every single game but I do expect us to win most and at least put in a decent performance in the ones that we lose. My expectations are that a team that finished second two seasons ago and 7th last season with a crippling injury list for most of the campaign should at least be capable of challenging for a top four position with a largely fully fit squad and not be sitting three points off the relegation zone, I don't think that's unreasonable! And I don't expect a manager to arrive with a magic wand but I would like a man in charge who knows what he's doing, respects the fans and can take the club forward playing a decent brand of football because we certainly haven't got that at the moment!

So my number one wish for 2011 is that we get a new manager in as soon as possible. Hodgson might make it at a smaller club but he knows as much about being a Liverpool manager as a hedgehog knows about crossing the road and if he was a dog he would have been taken out behind the barn and put out of his misery a long time ago! As for who should come in, I don't really know. The romantic in me would like to see King Kenny back in charge until at least the end of the season but he's probably been out of the game too long. I don't think a Rafa return would be on the cards either. I doubt he'd be happy working with Comolli and his relationship with some of the players might make it difficult. One of his big problems last season was that there were too many personalities in our dressing room, and most of them belonged to Steven Gerrard!

So maybe a fresh start with somebody new would be best for all concerned. There have been a few interesting names mentioned but one man I would hate to see in charge is Moaning O'Neill. He is another media darling who will be sure to be pushed forward by his press buddies if the position becomes available but I think he would be just as bad as Hodgson. Ironically the only British manager I would have any interest in seeing taking over at Anfield would be Owen Coyle, the manager of our next opponents Bolton. I think he is doing a great job at Bolton and if we were looking for a bright young footballing manager, he would certainly be an interesting choice, although I think it's more likely we would go for someone a bit more established such as the much touted Rijkaard.

But I suppose its pointless speculating about it until the NESV guys bite the bullet and get rid of this waster Hodgson before he does even more damage. Anyway I'm off now to celebrate the New Year with my old friend Stella so a Happy New Year to you all and I suggest you go out tonight and consume large quantities of alcohol because I've just looked at our upcoming fixtures and I think we're all going to need it!

Keep the Faith
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