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November 3, 2009 Kenny Dalglish to ride to the rescue? Bad idea Matt Dickinson Should Liverpool’s season get much worse — and that could be as soon as tomorrow evening — even those supporters who revere Rafael Benítez as a cross between Einstein and Bill Shankly, even those still drunk on Istanbul 2005, will start to question whether the right man is leading their club. But doubting Benítez is the easy part. We can all do that. We can all cite his duff signings, point to the aloofness that has alienated him from senior players and have a go at his maddening bloody-mindedness. We can all say that six defeats in seven games, particularly if they are followed by an early exit from the Champions League and more Barclays Premier League angst, should put him on the brink. The real challenge is to work out what to do as an alternative, to make sense of a post-Rafa landscape. Because it is then that you realise that, for all his obvious failings, sacking him any month soon could land the club in even greater strife. Let us consider first who you appoint and, in particular, the whispers for Kenny Dalglish that may become a clamour should Liverpool lose to Lyons in the Champions League tomorrow. Already employed at the club as an ambassador and to oversee the academy in Kirkby, “King Kenny” would certainly command the acclaim of the Kop and, in doing so, buy the club’s American owners some breathing space. But the right man for the job, even on an interim basis? The evidence is scant more than a decade after he stepped on to a training pitch at Newcastle United. A short-term uplift could be expected, particularly from those local players who were in awe of him as youngsters, but it would represent a huge leap into the unknown to employ a man whose greatest managerial achievement, at Blackburn Rovers, was almost 15 years ago. Could he joust with Arsène Wenger, Sir Alex Ferguson and Carlo Ancelotti? Consider for a moment if Arsenal, Manchester United or Chelsea would put Dalglish on their shortlist the next time they need a manager. Were Benítez to be ousted and the offer to come along at Liverpool, it would surely be one that Dalglish could not resist, whatever the risks to his iconic status. The blemishes on his CV at Newcastle and Celtic still rankle and having personally called into question Dalglish’s stature as a manager of the highest calibre — and felt the lash of his tongue — I know just how much he would love to have the last word in that particular argument. If only to experience the Kop at its most raucous, I would love to be at Anfield for Dalglish’s first match back, but Liverpool have enough problems without allowing sentiment to cloud their judgment. So if not Dalglish, then who might be available in the short term? Jürgen Klinsmann, once courted by the American owners, is out of work but also not long moved on from a calamitously short spell at Bayern Munich. Klinsmann is bright and innovative, but hire him and you do not just get a manager but a whole West Coast philosophy. He would cost a fortune, which is the one thing Liverpool do not have. They would have even less money by the time they have sacked Benítez, which is another complication. Whether they would have to pay the Spaniard the full £20 million owing on his contract would depend on the lawyers and whether Liverpool could mitigate if he walked straight into another job, but it is a measure of the chaos at Anfield that Benítez even has the contract in the first place. It was a deal agreed in the midst of power battles in the boardroom, one that must almost have been handwritten by the manager, so favourable were the terms. Regrets over the size of the deal may be the one thing that unites Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, and their continued inability to work together — to make sense of the stadium project, to provide a united front — is another reason why any manager from the top drawer will be interviewing the owners, rather than the other way round. Would Fabio Capello or Martin O’Neill even want the job in the circumstances? A maximum annual transfer kitty of £20 million (and that is not factoring in lost revenue from potentially missing the Champions League) is better than most clubs in Europe, but it is not going to convince José Mourinho that he will be able to take on Manchester City, never mind Real Madrid and Barcelona. It all leaves Liverpool in the position where they are better with the devil they know, at least until the end of the season. But while Christian Purslow, the managing director, may know that, the fans tend to be rather more emotional. Defeat in Lyons may just provoke the first King Kenny chant.