Roy Hodgson Mega Thread: The Sequel

[fowler9]

Dear Mr, Henry,

 

Give it to Kenny till the summer, he does well, you have a new manager

 

He doesnt, he takes his seat on the board and the albatross over every future boss has gone.

 

exactly I dont see why some are saying "if he does well they'll have no option but to appoint him" erm isnt that a good thing?!

 

Kenny will do whats best for the club and if that means taking a step back at the end of the season I'm sure he would do it

[Xherdan]

So the owners know he's a shit manager who's hated by the fans, but won't do anything about it?

 

Brilliant.

 

 

 

You really are a boring twat.

[Newport]

I don't get this shit about Kenny being too old. He's 59 and he looks healthy to me. He'd be fine for at least ten years unless something (knock on wood) happens to him. He's clearly eager to take the job and he wouldn't want it in the summer if he wasn't up for it. Getting a young manager is great and all, but anyone who's stupid enough to decline a man with a CV like Kenny's are a bunch of tossers.

[Ponz]

Fucking ludicrous he gets another game after last night. Come on, Bolton.

[fowler9]

I don't get this shit about Kenny being too old. He's 59 and he looks healthy to me. He'd be fine for at least ten years unless something (knock on wood) happens to him. He's clearly eager to take the job and he wouldn't want it in the summer if he wasn't up for it. Getting a young manager is great and all, but anyone who's stupid enough to decline a man with a CV like Kenny's are a bunch of tossers.

 

I want Kenny (till the end of the season at least) but I can see why they wouldnt be keen on making him a permanent appointment as its probably for the same reasons I wouldnt (at least until we've seen what he can do as caretaker) as without being seriously involved in football for a prolonged period time we cant really say how much its changed, but its a simple game in all reality and I think he would be up to the task of at least getting us into the Europa spaces

[kop77]

roy out now

Mr Henry and Mr Werner - Please Listen to the Fans and Sack Roy Hodgson - Signatures

[Section_31]

Who are the 5% of Liverpool fans that don't want Hodgson sacked? That's the mystery here.

[Pidge]

A petition really is scraping the barrel. They know. Let them mak etheir decision.

[Section_31]

roy out now

Mr Henry and Mr Werner - Please Listen to the Fans and Sack Roy Hodgson - Signatures

 

Doesn't sit right with me that shit. Parasitic owners yes, on the pitch appointments - no.

[Red Nick]

roy out now

Mr Henry and Mr Werner - Please Listen to the Fans and Sack Roy Hodgson - Signatures

 

Needs ten times the current amount to make any impact

[caracaracara]

Who are the 5% of Liverpool fans that don't want Hodgson sacked? That's the mystery here.

 

there are a couple on here who have blind faith or don't want to lose face.

[Kevin D]

Who are the 5% of Liverpool fans that don't want Hodgson sacked? That's the mystery here.

 

It does raise questions. Pretty sure we're at 99% here.

[Iantn]

Who are the 5% of Liverpool fans that don't want Hodgson sacked? That's the mystery here.

 

Mypost's family?

[Chinandeler Bong]

Who are the 5% of Liverpool fans that don't want Hodgson sacked? That's the mystery here.

 

Dyslexic's ?

[J-V]

Two fucking weeks. Mind boggling.

[James Dean]

Fuck off with those petitions. It's embarrassing.

[billybonzo]

James Lawton: For a safe pair of hands, Hodgson is now painfully out of touch with his club

 

He is a good football man, but in the wrong place at the wrong time, and not able to do much about it

 

Roy Hodgson needs Fernando Torres and his key players to find form

 

Roy Hodgson was already in a terrible place and it was trouble he compounded this week when he appealed for the support of the Liverpool fans.

 

They pay their money and if they wanted to continue to believe in the powers of Rafa Benitez that had disappeared, palpably, it was their business. Blind support is not automatically transferred – and nor should it be. Benitez earned his with a body of a work – and a Champions League win – which was enshrined in the Anfield memory and proofed against every shred of evidence that it had run hopelessly beyond its course.

 

Hodgson's credentials lack any such emotional underpinning in the cockpit he finds himself now, perhaps as much because of a streak of vanity as anything else. They are of an experienced, widely travelled football man who did excellent work at Fulham, made a very good job of coaching Switzerland and held prestigious tenure at Internazionale.

Related articles

 

The vanity surfaced, you had to believe, when he decided that he was up to the job of sorting out the chaos of Liverpool Football Club, a task which someone like Kenny Dalglish, whose name is now being so fervently chanted on the terraces, could have tackled with a vastly greater degree of local sympathy.

 

What Hodgson, who for all his professional virtues has never been a man to catch the imagination of a crowd, needed to do after the appalling performance against bottom of the table Wolves was produce not a reproach to the fans but a degree of candour.

 

He might have said that as a coach he had never authored quite such an inadequate effort. He could also have said, with unchallengeable justice, that if there had been errors in preparation, and a failure in motivation, they were perhaps only matched by the shocking impression created by the performance of Fernando Torres.

 

Hodgson explained his decision not to pull off the plainly disaffected Spaniard in the least convincing way. He said that you do not remove the quality of a Torres from the field when you are in a tight corner. You do the Torres who announced himself on Wednesday night. You get him out of there because he mocks everything you are trying to achieve.

 

The case for Hodgson of Liverpool was always a modest one. He was safe hands, a man who might not be able to rise to the challenge of making a broken team – and a dysfunctional ownership – great again, but someone who might just gain a little time, a little respectability.

 

Under new ownership that immediately became the limit of his potential. John W Henry didn't win the world series of baseball without understanding that dynamic leadership from the field manager would always be a most vital ingredient.

 

What does Hodgson do now, assuming he retains the capacity to shape his own destiny? Reality suggests he cuts his losses. He certainly shouldn't negotiate away any more of his dignity by futile rallying calls directed at anywhere other than a dressing room which seems never to have been in more desperate need of healing.

 

He is a good football man, unquestionably, but he is in the wrong place at the wrong time and without, it seems increasingly obvious, any striking ability to do much about it. Fans are fans, no more, no less, and he should have realised that when he made his desperate appeal. Fans only help managers – in 99 per cent of cases, anyway – who prove that they can help themselves.

[G Richards]

Agree that the petition thing is unnecessary. The owners know the score, and they will do what they need to do. We should show a bit of faith in them.

 

The campaigning played its part in ousting G&H, and it is something we should be proud of. But when the new man is appointed we need to recapture a more patient and respectful tone, as I fear that something of the Liverpool Way is in danger of being lost.

[billybonzo]

Roy, It Really Is You And Not Them

Posted 30/12/10 11:11

 

Roy, It Really Is You And Not Them

 

Being a decent chap in a harsh world is a worthy ambition. Being a decent chap is a noble attribute and one which we should all appreciate.

 

But being a decent chap isn't necessarily a qualification to be a top class manager as both Aston Villa and Liverpool fans are currently finding out.

 

Both Gerard Houllier and Roy Hodgson are dragging their clubs down the league from decent positions in recent seasons, with looks of weary bewilderment on their tired faces. Both have largely the same players who achieved much more under their previous managers. They both seem responsible for their own malaise.

 

Both men are clearly cut from fine cloth in terms of character. But both looks astonishingly out of their depth at their clubs.

 

Houllier's admittance that the club are in relegation scrap, while at least realistic, must surely be met with some astonishment given the fact that the squad is almost identical to O'Neill's. It looks, at least from the outside, that he has taken a decent side and wrecked it.

 

Some of the young players show great potential but as many others seem to have just given up already. Houllier himself cuts an unconvincing figure pitch side, and this may be part of the problem. He has always looked slightly more like a university lecturer than a football manager. This is OK when the club is doing well, but at times of difficulty it makes you appear disconnected and weak. Physical presence should not be under-estimated in a manager. If you are huddled in the dug-out looking for all the world like an old man waiting for the overdue number 42 at a freezing windswept bus stop, you project weakness. Footballers are by and large simple souls, they need strength to be demonstrated with body language as well as words. As it stand, their manager simply looks like a figure of pity.

 

Similarly at Anfield, Hodgson has been transformed from the genial elder statesman into a sad, crumpled, tired old man, understandably weary from the constant pressure and criticism. When he rubs his face with his hands during a game - and he seems to do it a lot, it looks as though he is actually exhausted and is merely trying to stay awake the way we might all do if we'd pulled an all nighter and had gone numb behind the eyes after a night of intoxication.

 

It is a sad sight and one which its easy empathize with but it is not what is needed as manager of a great club like Liverpool, again it just looks like there is no strength or energy at the helm.

 

Liverpool's utterly abject performance against Wolves was as clear an illustration of a side that has no self belief, no inspiration, no energy as it is possible to see in football. A manager can't make a player play well all the time, but he can motivate them to at least play with some commitment. Even that is lost to Liverpool now. They play as though they are depressed. Yes, they owe the club more energy and commitment but something seems to have robbed them of even the basic necessities.

 

As Wolves closed the back four down, they looked puzzled, unable to work out why they couldn't play the ball out to the midfield. At one point Kyriakos held his arms out wide in despair, having no-one to pass to other than his goalkeeper. It is at such points that the manager gets off his backside and makes changes to counteract this problem. No such change was forthcoming. It was hopeless.

 

I, along with many others, thought Hodgson was a good signing for Liverpool; a steady hand on the tiller at a time of crisis. A man of experience and a level head. It seemed sensible. But there is always an unknown factor at play in such appointments, especially to big clubs with big reputations; will it just be too big for him to cope with? You just can't know in advance. But so it has proved. And by trying to lay off some of the blame for poor performances onto the Anfield crowd, you really are signing your own death warrant. In this relationship Roy, it really is you and not them. The end can't come too soon, now.

 

Two lovely blokes, I have no doubt, but sadly, that is just not enough. I suspect both are decent enough to realise this for themselves and are wise enough to recognize a quick and dignified exit would be best for all parties.

[billybonzo]

OFF THE FENCE: Liverpool FC can rescue season by sacking Roy Hodgson

 

Dec 31 2010 By Ben Thornley, Daily Post

 

ROY HODGSON and Liverpool FC - not since Jan Molby squeezed into skimpy shorts in the late 1980s has there been such an uncomfortable fit in football.

 

If Anfield supporters were baffled by their board's decision to appoint Hodgson as Rafa Benitez's successor in the summer, they find it harder still to understand how he has lasted this long.

 

Nothing the Londoner had achieved in his past indicated he was the man for the Liverpool job. Less still in his disastrous six months in charge, which culminated in Wednesday's humiliating defeat to Wolves, suggests he should be allowed to continue.

 

On and off the field the 63-year-old has continually fallen way below expectations. Calamitous performances against the likes of Blackpool, Northampton and Everton have been as regularly matched by clangers in the media room, with each press conference bringing Hodgson another opportunity to lower expectations, demotivate players and trumpet his reputation as"one of Europe's most respected managers".

 

He is the anthisis of what a Liverpool boss should be, his manner and approach to the game completely at odds with Anfield's traditions.

 

Given his claim that he doesn't believe in innovation and his wretched track record with transfers, he also appears to be an ill fit with everything John Henry and his fellow owners represent.

 

Reviving Liverpool may be a long-term job, as the owners have claimed, but that task is becoming larger with each match Hodgson takes charge of.

 

If he is given until the end of the season as has been suggested, then the next man's job will be all the more difficult. Particularly without several of Liverpool's key players who are unlikely to hang around while Hodgson blunders through the final months of the campaign.

 

Far from steadying the ship, he is doing unspeakable damage to the club's standing and future.

 

And yet this awful season can still be salvaged, if Henry and his fellow board members move quickly to install a new manager, even on an interim basis.

 

The Premier League is so poor this term that it is not inconceivable that with the right man in charge and a host of quality signings that Liverpool could challenge for a Champions League place.

 

The top half is the limit of Liverpool's ambitions should they stick by the former Malmo coach, however - something Hodgson would probably salute as a triumph.

 

Despite what his friends in the media may claim, Liverpool's squad does possess great quality, but it would not suit their agenda to admit it.

 

However, if you keep telling a group of players how mediocre they are they will begin to believe it.

 

Instead the press talk of Hodgson having inherited issues - without ever specifying what they are, mind - and of the team being destabilised by the ownership issue, in spite of Liverpool having been sold two months previously.

 

They also credit him with overseeing a revival in recent months, yet ignore that Liverpool have taken just seven points from their last seven games.

 

While you expect the likes of Richard Keys to support his chum, it was particularly disappointing to hear Reds legend John Barnes claim that "sensible" Liverpool supporters still backed him.

 

Even before his disgraceful attack on the Kop on Wednesday he had lost even the most moderate of Liverpool fans.

 

Now it's time for him to lose his job.

[billybonzo]

Hodgson lumbered with old problems

In this section »

 

* Ljungberg in line for Old Firm debut

* Liverpool's owners are running out of patience

* Ferguson recalls loan players from Preston

 

PAUL HAYWARD

 

SOCCER: WHEN PAUL Konchesky joined Liverpool this summer a rival Premier League manager invoked the ghost of Julian Dicks, another bald English left back from central casting.

 

“He’s not a Liverpool player,” said the manager of Konchesky, who was jeered from the pitch in Wednesday night’s 1-0 home defeat to Wolves, days after his mother had allegedly called the club’s fans “Scouse scum” in a hastily erased Facebook post.

 

“A Liverpool player” is an instantly evocative title that calls to mind legendary talents such as Dalglish, Keegan, Souness, Lawrenson and Rush.

 

The question of who is and who demonstrably is not a candidate for this deification has exercised the minds of Liverpool supporters since Graeme Souness handed the shirts of living saints to several comparative journeymen in his three-year reign from 1991-94.

 

Konchesky’s acquisition from Fulham by Roy Hodgson was an attempt to solve a positional shortcoming and is cited here only because Liverpool’s deep structural weakness is easy to identify.

 

In the 20 years since they last won the league title, an ocean liner of substandard or underachieving footballers has disgorged its human cargo at the Mersey docks and sent it up to Anfield.

 

Hodgson saw that Liverpool’s first- and reserve-team squads were suffocating under the weight of mediocre and unused personnel.

 

A reader of highbrow fiction, the former Fulham manager used a fine phrase to describe the surfeit of drifters he came across while Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Dirk Kuyt did most of the hard work. Hodgson called them “purposeless”.

 

Critics will say he has added to their ranks by signing Konchesky, Christian Poulsen and Milan Jovanovic (Joe Cole and Raul Meireles are of a higher calibre and still have time to assert their talents). But, equally, Hodgson could point to his excellent rebuilding work at Fulham and his shrewd eye for a hidden jewel.

 

He could also say Liverpool are deluded by old glories (Carol Konchesky said that, too) if they think the budget exists to spend like Manchester City after so many expensive blow-outs in the transfer market.

 

Liverpool have recruited dozens of duds over the last 10 seasons while Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea have signed very few.

 

The Kop, the team’s best players and Hodgson himself are toiling against this debilitating imbalance, which has become manageable only in bursts – first when Rafael Benitez’s team won the 2005 Champions League and then when Gerrard, Carragher, Pepe Reina, Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano gelled to propel the 2008-09 side to second place in the Premier League with 86 points.

 

Any professional footballer will tell you a trophy-winning team needs a decisive ratio of gifted players and committed winners. Benitez’s best side possessed that magical half-dozen.

 

But when Alonso and Mascherano left, Torres lost interest and Gerrard and Carragher were hampered increasingly by injuries, the mediocrity all around them again became Liverpool’s defining characteristic.

 

There is no memory game on red Merseyside quite like the recitation of nearly-men and no-names – starting with the forwards. Sean Dundee, Erik Meijer, Fernando Morientes, Titi Camara, Ryan Babel, David Ngog and Andriy Voronin demand inclusion.

 

In other wide or attacking midfield positions room would be found for Anthony Le Tallec, Albert Riera, Mark Gonzalez and Bruno Cheyrou. Defenders worth a mention are Philipp Degen, Sotirios Kyrgiakos and Andrea Dossena. The vast scale of waste is a huge rolling problem for a club once renowned for precision in the scouting department.

 

Each wave of mistakes creates a new challenge of culling and dispersal, restricts budgets and overloads those players capable of vying for titles with the responsibility of carrying passengers.

 

The home-grown Liverpool contingent have complained privately for years about this influx of substandard punts. A scattergun transfer policy has conspired with the failure of the academy system to produce heirs to Gerrard, Carragher, Owen and Robbie Fowler.

 

Under pressure to correct the slide of Benitez’s last campaign, Hodgson tries to perform major surgery on a bloated workforce while bad results whip up a wrecking gale.

 

The emotional disengagement of Torres bites at the hopes of supporters because he is the one world-class foreign import, unless Pepe Reina creeps in.

 

Called to the stand, Gerard Houllier and Benitez would defend themselves with weighty evidence. Houllier won a domestic and European cup treble in 2001 and Benitez took them to two Champions League finals from 2005-07. Neither, though, could bounce the team any higher than second in the Premier League.

 

Both surrendered that momentum straight after building it. Houllier spent €23 million on Salif Diao, Cheyrou and El Hadji Diouf in the summer before Liverpool fell back to fifth (2002) and Benitez went from second to seventh 12 months later.

 

The reason, in both cases, was a dilution rather than a deepening of the talent pool.

 

So, an exasperated Anfield crowd mock the manager while Liverpool arrive in a new year with their worst points total since Don Welsh’s team were relegated in 1953-54. The club’s new American owners, who have no experience of football matters, must calculate whether to back Hodgson’s cull or transfer a chronic structural problem to another manager.

 

In the past 10 years major transfer miscalculations by Arsenal, Chelsea and United have been minimised. At Liverpool they cram the picture. The Noughties were an age of mass auditions and experimentation, and culpability extends to owners and directors.

 

Unveiling Ron Yeats, Bill Shankly invited journalists “to walk around” the “colossus”. Yeats was “a Liverpool player” in the intended sense. Not just good, but special. There are too few now.

[fowler9]

a lot of articles coming out today, he must be on the brink of going

[ngogswilly]

Paul Hayward seems to be stuck on the "Squads not good enough" carousel that the rest of the media(bar Captain Picard) are beginning to abandon.

 

Everyone knows the squad isn't world class. Nor is it relegation zone contenders which Hodgson has done his very best to edge us towards.

 

Thats the fucking point Paul.

[Wee-bey]

I'd love to know which manager said "He isn't a Liverpool player".

[Chocoholic]

Whatever it takes