Roy Hodgson: The Saga Continues

Roy Hodgson is still the manager of Liverpool Football Club. A line i fear we may be tortured with for a while longer. Its not what we as supporters want to hear, the media are slowly coming to the conclusion that their managerial champion is out of his depth and continually the supporters of other clubs lambast Liverpool supporters for their 'shameful treatment of a really good manager'. If the shoe was on the other foot they would not be so quick to defend him.


The only person who believes that Roy Hodgson has the ability to turn things around at Liverpool is Roy Hodgson. Past players have in recent days come out in support of Hodgson but this support is unwanted and demonstrates only that such past players are out of touch with the supporters and how they feel. In my opinion the only reason Kenny Dalglish called for supporters to get behind Hodgson and the team is because of the position he is in. Regularly large section of the support both at home and away are calling for Dalglish to take over, hes a club ambassador and made no secret of his desire to take the job in the summer. It would seriously undermine his position at the club and leave him open to widespread criticism from the mass media were he to come out and say 'Hodgson should go, and i'll take over'. Other past players notably Phil Thompson have come out and said that its time the club and Hodgson parted company, a statement which will be unanimously backed by the supporters.


The main defence of Hodgson is that he is a good manager and a real gentleman who has not had time to build a team in his image and who has not had a proper transfer window in which to do business. Only one of those defences holds any merit and that is that Hodgson does seem to be a genuinely nice man, and im sure he is. But, the other two defences are grossly misleading and wholly inaccurate. Despite a stint at Inter Milan in the 1990's the Liverpool job is by far the biggest of his career, a managerial career that began in 1976 in Scandanavia, a part of the world where he did enjoy success most notably amassing 9 major domestic honours with Malmo FF in just shy of 5 years in the mid-late 80's. He has never won anything outside of this region with his last honours coming in 2001 witht the Danish Superliga and Super Cup titles.


He has spent time managing at international level with Switzerland, Finland and the UAE, nations that are regularly contesting for the World Cup crown. He holds the title for the worst away record of any manager in Premier League history. In the whole of last season Liverpool lost 8 away games which was unacceptable and 11 defeats in total for the season as a whole. Only 20 games played this season and already we have suffered 7 yes SEVEN away defeats and 9 in total. So already under Hodgson we have lost almost the same amount of games - both away from home and for the season as whole - as we did in the whole of last season, and there are still 18 games left to play. Quite simply not good enough.


Consider this, manager with a shockingly bad career away record in England comes to Liverpool, a team that had poor away form last year, and pleads for time to build a team in his own image. So far under said manager Liverpool now have what can only be described as catastrophic away form perhaps even relegation form away from home. I would say that he has done a very good job of creating a team in his image.


Now we turn to the issue of the transfer window that Hodgson has not had in order to build his own team. That quite simply is utter dogshit. Hodgson joined Liverpool on 1/07/2010, he had a full 2 months worth of transfer window to work in. He inherited a team that contained both World Cup winners and finalist, European Cup winners, UEFA cup winners and FA cup winners, he inherited a team that contained the likes of Gerrard, Mascherano, Torres, Reina, Kuyt, Agger, Carragher, he inherrited a very experienced team with most of the starting 11 players being pretty much the same starting 11 that enjoyed a fine season in 2008/09, a team which had struggled the season before but a team which undoubtedly contained a talented bunch of players with many that would be welcomed at most if not all of Europes top clubs.


Now im not an expert on transfer fees paid or received and most sources sight different figures, figures that are only marginally different, but for the purposes of getting this post out before Hodgsons out i've taken firgures from LFC site lfchistory.net. Hodgson spent around £23.8m in the summer on 5 players, Wilson, Meireles, Poulsen, Konchesky, Jones, with Cole on a free and Aurelio resigned for free. Now two of those signings have failed to make the grade so far, and one wholly unneccessary when you consider the fact that Aquilani who Hodgson farmed out quite quickly is a far better player and far younger and faster, the unneccessary transfer is of course Poulsen who at around £4.5m has proved thus far to be a bad buy.


Now, flashback to the summer of 2004, the arrival of Rafa, the dawn of the rafalution an all that. The team Rafa inherited had experience but did not contain even half the quality in the starting line up as the starting 11 he left. He inherited a team that contained the likes of Gerrard, Carrgher, Hyppia and Hamann but also a team in which Diao, Traore, Cheyrou and Biscan were regular staters. Rafa made 4 signings that summer, Josemi, Nunez, Alonso, Garcia, spending around £20.2m in doing so. Now two of those players can be considered bad buys but they combined only cost around £3.5m - less than Poulsen. And the other two had a huge impact on the clubs fortunes in the following seasons. Rafa made 3 additional signings in the January market, Pellegrino(free), Morientes(£6.3m) and Carson(£1m). This squad that Rafa assembled was certainly not in his image with a huge overhaul coming in the following seasons, but he took a largely inherrited squad, supplemented with a handful of transfers to European Cup glory. I dont think there is any manager past or present who would say that they would rather have inherrited the team that Houlier left rather than the one left by Rafa. Short line is, Hodgson has spent more in his first transfer window than Rafa did, brought in more players and has performed very poorly so far with no sign of that changing.


Much has been said of the silence from NESV. My view of it is that they are in a very awkward situation, one which i do not think they envisaged they would be in so soon into their time at the club. They took over at a very awkward moment in the clubs history and let us not forget they have removed the debt saddled onto the club by Hicks and Gillet. They arent new to sports club ownership, but they are new to football and to the way in which the game works. They are Americans unused to the way we do things over here. They are still learning. If this was happening 4/5 years down the line i have no doubt that the manager at the time would have been relieved by now. They are still conducting a search for the right CEO to join the club, they have set out their plan to bring in the best young talent to the club to ensure that the future is a bright and secure one, they have said they are willing to supplement the squad in January with the right players who can make a difference to the current personnel. They have said they are willing to listen to supporters views and thus far they have. The next move is a crucial one and i feel that they do not want to be hasty and rush into things. Both Henry and Werner have expressed disappointment with results prior to the new year, so it can only be assumed that the way things have turned out since those comments has not gone unnoticed and is from their point of view wholly unwelcome.


Hodgson himself is not making it easy for them, he will not walk, he needs more time, he needs money, the press have his back, hes like a dying dog that no one has the heart to put out of its misery. The situation is not an ideal one. Silence on their part is not good news for Hodgson, previously the owners had been quick to voice that they had faith in Hodgson but now there is only silence and that silence must be haunting Hodgson. It would be impossible to say that they have not heard the supporters frustrations, they have heard, and they are very competent, experienced businessmen, and they are dealing with the situation as businessmen and it is my opinion that they already know what will happen over the coming days and i suspect the silence will not last for much longer and i also suspect that should this situation ever arise in the future that following on from this experience they will know exactly what needs to be done and will act alot quicker.


So for now the saga does continue, there has to be, by now, zero fan support for Hodgson. It has been said that supporters calls for Dalglish to take charge, echoes the calls of Newcastle supporters calling for Shearer to save them, but anyone who has watched MOTD over the last few years will know that Shearer whilst being an exceptional striker in his day, has all the personality of a goal post and would never have saved Newcastle from relegation even if he had been playing FIFA on amateur mode. He isnt a manager, he had no managerial experience, it was never going to happen, as the Kop said, he should have stayed on the telly. Dalglish on the other hand has managerial experince, ok so hes been out of the game for a while but he is Liverpool, he is an almost ever present on match days he knows the predicament the club is in and more importantly given his standing at the club, he commands the respect of every player, supporter, official, everyone at the club down to the cleaners, he commands their respect without ever asking for it - he earned it.


Hopefully the situation is resolved soon, its getting more and more painful to watch. Im sure Roy is a nice man but he wasnt hired to be a nice man, he was hired to win games and push on back up the table not drag us down to Fulhams level so he feel comfortable, he might be used to being closer to the tables foot than its summit but we are not. NESV removed the last obstacle saving him from getting both barrels from the supporters, things have not improved, do not look like improving and actually things are getting worse and it is time for a change, time for the last remnant of the old regime to part ways with the club, we need a truely fresh start all round.