Next Liverpool Manager

[KopOut]

Also, it's significant, that Hodgson could pass for Houllier....

[Captain]

No, stabilising is fostering some team spirit and getting us playing positively. It won't get us CL football but we aren't in a situation to expect that because failing to qualify last season has really put the squeeze on a lot harder.

 

I think this is a bit naive. The new manager will have one hell of a mountain to climb when it comes to having the players lowering their ambitions. The shit ones won't be a problem, they're shit either way.

 

But convincing the likes of Torres, Gerrard and Mascherano they should stay at Liverpool and fight to get CL football? And even if you manage that, what kind of inspirations will they be able to field during the season? I mean, just take a look back at this season to see what a disillusioned Gerrard looks like.

 

Team spirit took a real hit last summer. I'm far from sure that can be rebuilt this summer. Come to think of it, it's probably more likely it can't be.

[zigackly]

I think this is a bit naive. The new manager will have one hell of a mountain to climb when it comes to having the players lowering their ambitions. The shit ones won't be a problem, they're shit either way.

 

But convincing the likes of Torres, Gerrard and Mascherano they should stay at Liverpool and fight to get CL football? And even if you manage that, what kind of inspirations will they be able to field during the season? I mean, just take a look back at this season to see what a disillusioned Gerrard looks like.

 

Team spirit took a real hit last summer. I'm far from sure that can be rebuilt this summer. Come to think of it, it's probably more likely it can't be.

 

Better lock Anfield up now then and all fuck off to Old Trafford.

[StevieH]

I think it is looking increasingly likely that Roy Hodgson will take over as the next Liverpool Manager.

 

He probably ticks all the right boxes for the Liverpool board. He operates with a 12 month rolling contract, it would only cost £2m to release him from his current contract at Craven Cottage, premiership experience, good man-management skills, used to working with a small budget, speaks 6 languages and is non-confrontational.

[Wezza]

I like the fact that Sven has thrown his hat into the ring, that would be the safe pair of hands we need:whistle:

[hamstrung]

Managers are always tapped up prior to getting a new job. Rafa was back in 2004 for one.

 

Makes you wonder why there was such wailing about him speaking to Juve if its so commonplace.

[hamstrung]

I think it is looking increasingly likely that Roy Hodgson will take over as the next Liverpool Manager.

 

He probably ticks all the right boxes for the Liverpool board. He operates with a 12 month rolling contract, it would only cost £2m to release him from his current contract at Craven Cottage, premiership experience, good man-management skills, used to working with a small budget, speaks 6 languages and is non-confrontational.

 

If he does, I'll be down at Anfield burning the Union Jack.

 

Who's with me?

[Josef Svejk]

According to Football 365, Eriksson has declared his lifelong love of Liverpool... to The S*n. D'oh!

[Red_or_Dead]

Some of all these names being bandied about are just too depressing to contemplate.

 

My heart says we should go with Kenny, but I don't think it's going to happen. I mean what happened if he did take the job and fucked it up? It'd be like Souness all over again, who back in the pre-internet days 90% of fans at least were made up we got him when Kenny left. BTW was he a Noel White appointment or a Moores appointment, can't remember now...

 

My head says we should go with Hiddink as he knows the English game well, good in Europe and is tactically astute. However, he's just signed a contract with the Turkish FA (as other people have stated) so it probably isn't going to happen (can't afford him anyway, which leads to...)

 

The wallet says we will get someone like Hughes (god forbid) or Hodgson. The yanks will go for the cheapest option available. Not only are they cunts but they're shit businessmen too; if they invested in the club they'd be more likely to get a better price for the club and then hopefully fuck off. So with some cheapo POMO manager there is not a cat in hells chance of a buyer comeing forward.

[StevieH]

According to Football 365, Eriksson has declared his lifelong love of Liverpool... to The S*n. D'oh!

 

Sven, Sven, Sven-Göran Eriksson

He's a lovely geezer

(but don't forget that he's from Sweden)

[Spy Bee]

In fairness to Sven he probably didn't speak directly to the rag. Also if Sven ever comes near Anfield I will personally chop his limbs off.

[StevieH]

Liverpool Echo - Liverpool FC - News - Liverpool FC deal for Serbian international Milan Jovanovic is still on

 

The hunt for Benitez’s successor, meanwhile, will not have a time scale, despite speculation intensifying and the odds plummeting around a number of names in the betting market.

 

Mark Hughes and Martin O’Neill, for instance, have been heavily linked in different areas, as has Fulham manager Roy Hodgson; the latter remains the early favourite at this stage, as he ticks a number of the boxes that the board are looking for.

No formal approach has been made to Fulham for Hodgson as yet and the Europa League finalists would not welcome a move for their manager, who has a £2.5m release clause in his 12-month rolling contract at Craven Cottage.

[gkmacca]

This is like someone in the Sahara pondering whether to drink Evian, Buxton, Volvic or Perrier.

[diamondjoe]

Hodgson, Hughes, fuck me pink. Why don't we just get Fat sham and be done with it if this is the shit we're after.

Hodgson makes Rafa and houllier seem positively gung ho.

Get Hiddink in. What the fuck are we playing at?

[Mark M]

Hodgson, Hughes, fuck me pink. Why don't we just get Fat sham and be done with it if this is the shit we're after.

Hodgson makes Rafa and houllier seem positively gung ho.

Get Hiddink in. What the fuck are we playing at?

I agree we should do everything we can to get Hiddink in, I dont think I could stomach the football we would play under Hodgson

[RobbieOR]

Yeah I know that mate, and that is a big concern. I think a few of us who didn't want Rafa to go were in the 'better the Devil you know' camp given the current fucking Maelstrom at the club from top to bottom.

I see no point at all in sacking Rafa and then appointing Hughes, The Goblin or any fucker else who isn't up to the job.

 

Thats exactly it.

 

Under O'Neill we would get to the last 32 of the Europa League and then he would rest everybody for an upcoming Fa Cup 5th round tie against Port Vale and we would go out. At least with Rafa you knew that if you were in a European competition no matter how bad the players were we always stood a chance of going far.

[Anubis]

Hodgson, Hughes, fuck me pink. Why don't we just get Fat sham and be done with it if this is the shit we're after.

Hodgson makes Rafa and houllier seem positively gung ho.

Get Hiddink in. What the fuck are we playing at?

 

It's called reality. And it's beginning to set in.

[Anubis]

I think it is looking increasingly likely that Roy Hodgson will take over as the next Liverpool Manager.

 

He probably ticks all the right boxes for the Liverpool board. He operates with a 12 month rolling contract, it would only cost £2m to release him from his current contract at Craven Cottage, premiership experience, good man-management skills, used to working with a small budget, speaks 6 languages and is non-confrontational.

 

No doubt the very quality the board prize most in a candidate.

[billybonzo]

Rafa Benitez leaves Liverpool as a legend so could critics please stop rewriting history?

 

Right to the end the professional pundits failed to understand why so many Liverpudlians stayed loyal to Rafa Benitez.

 

As 500 fans marched on Anfield after his departure, chanting the Spaniard’s name, heads shook at a footballing sub-species bracketed somewhere between romantic die-hards and mawkish morons.

 

To the “expert” eye, these deluded fools had been conned by Benitez’s cunning and blinded to his failings by the glory of Istanbul and the criminal incompetence of the American owners.

 

Liverpool fans they said, once among the most knowledgeable in the world, had clearly lost touch with the modern reality, and were now a sad throwback to the days when sideburned men kicked orange balls.

 

Well, I’d argue one of the saddest aspects of modern football is too many pundits, including ex-players, have not paid to watch a game since those orange ball days. And they’ve lost touch with the fan.

 

I’m not saying Benitez had to stay. The results and the football last year were shocking, he’s been a major player in Anfield’s destructive civil war, and the number of fans disillusioned with his style and methods was growing.

 

But to paint his six-year reign as an unmitigated disaster, sustained only by the over-sentimentalising of Istanbul, is analysis at its most skewed and cringeful. By 2004 Liverpool had been relegated to the status of European also-rans. Benitez made the club a genuine world force again.

 

It wasn’t just that 2005 Champions League win (which is shamelessly downplayed as a fluke despite beating Fabio Capello’s Juventus, Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea and Carlo Ancelotti’s AC Milan). Or reaching the 2007 Champions League final and the 2008 semi-final. It wasn’t even UEFA elevating Liverpool to Europe’s top-seeded club due to results under Benitez.

 

It was beating Real Madrid and Inter Milan at the Bernabeu and San Siro (which the Reds had never before done) and Barcelona at the Nou Camp. Magical victories at the very top of world football, which restored long-overdue respect to Liverpudlian hearts.

 

Ah say the experts, but he didn’t win the league. True. But he got closer than any Liverpool boss in the past 20 years. A season ago he was a whisker away, taking the highest number of points by a runner-up in a 38-game season and the club’s best points haul since 1988.

 

And he did so despite having the 5th highest wage bill in the league, the 5th costliest squad, the 5th biggest stadium capacity and a net annual transfer spend of £15million. Which should have made experts ask why Liverpool were ever considered a nailed-on top four side under Benitez, especially when the boardroom was mired in anarchy.

 

Ah, they say, but he’d long lost the players and the board. So why have Steven Gerrard, Fernando Torres, Daniel Agger, Dirk Kuyt and Pepe Reina signed new long-term contracts within the past year? Why last August did managing director Christian Purslow do interviews purring over Benitez and how he was integral to the club’s future?

 

Ah, the experts say, but that was before he let Xabi Alonso go, which everyone could see was a calamity. These would be the same experts who, for the previous couple of seasons, claimed Liverpool were a two-man team. With Alonso (on whom Benitez turned a £20million profit) never being mentioned as one of those two.

 

Ah, they say, but Torres apart, he only signed sub-standard dross and ended up with a shockingly-weak squad. Really?

 

Liverpool are sending 12 players (13 if you count Milan Jovanovic whose Bosman signing is going through) to the World Cup. Or an entire team: Reina, Carragher, Agger, Skrtel, Johnson, Babel, Gerrard, Mascherano, Rodriguez, Kuyt, Torres. Subs: Kyrgiakos, Jovanovic.

 

Eleven Chelsea players flew out to South Africa, the same number as Arsenal, and Manchester United sent eight. Does that look like he’s left Anfield bare of talent?

 

The truth is Benitez leaves a squad worth many times more than the one he inherited, despite spending less in the past three transfer windows than he’s brought in.

 

I don’t seek to rewrite history or airbrush Benitez’s failings. I saw last year’s football and it stank. I felt the growing anger among players and fans at his bloody-mindedness and knew something had to give.

 

Which is why it may be best for all concerned that he walks on. But now he has, let’s do him the honour of getting his legacy right.

 

Rafa Benitez was many things at Liverpool but unlike every manager since Kenny Dalglish, he was not a failure. Indeed a majority of Liverpudlians will remember him as a legend.

 

Because like Bill Shankly, on more days and nights than those expert pundits ever care to recall, he made the people happy.

[PaulMcC]

I don't like the fact that kne of the main things were looking in aanager is that he's non confrontational.

 

Basically they just want a yes man.

 

All top managers would confrontational at our club

[Original202]

Thats exactly it.

 

Under O'Neill we would get to the last 32 of the Europa League and then he would rest everybody for an upcoming Fa Cup 5th round tie against Port Vale and we would go out. At least with Rafa you knew that if you were in a European competition no matter how bad the players were we always stood a chance of going far.

 

You mean like he did when he was at Celtic? The only reason he did that at Villa was because his squad was too small.

 

He'd still be the wrong choice mind, though he's not as objectionable as a lot of people are making out.

[RobbieOR]

You mean like he did when he was at Celtic? The only reason he did that at Villa was because his squad was too small.

 

He'd still be the wrong choice mind, though he's not as objectionable as a lot of people are making out.

 

One season wonder with Celtic. I know they knocked us out that year but we werent exactly good that year.

 

I still think it was disrespectful to play the kids in Moscow that year. He was chasing 4th place in the league and he was resting his players for a league game against Chelsea. But what happens if they had of qualified for the Champions League and got to the last 16. They were playing someone like Sevilla and he decides to do the same thing. That would make a mockery of finishing fourth. Their squad then had more strength in depth than us now but we still fought for 4th place and to win the Europa league.

[Antynwa]

According to the Mirror Louis Van Gaal has thrown his name into the ring, along with Sven.

 

Big names not wanting the job eh?

[t1971]

I agree we should do everything we can to get Hiddink in, I dont think I could stomach the football we would play under Hodgson

 

hiddink is a no go. Not going to happen for a number of reasons. Getting in Hodgson would mean we have paid out £8.5m to get rid of Rafa and bring in an inferioe replacement. What a mess this is.

[t1971]

According to the Mirror Louis Van Gaal has thrown his name into the ring, along with Sven.

 

Big names not wanting the job eh?

 

Lets wait and see if thats actually true? Also dont forget that in talks about a contract any new manager will be told about the fact that we have no money, so they may well walk away at that point, if they are even interested. Dont see why Van Gaal would leave that squad at Bayern to come here.