4 Mar 2012

Manager claims: Roy Hodgson was the 'right man' for the LFC job. Is he right?

It's no exaggeration to suggest that Roy Hodgson is probably the most maligned Liverpool manager in the history of the club, even more so perhaps than Graeme Souness. Hodgson was personally and professionally denigrated from day one at Anfield, and despite the turmoil at all levels of the club, fans never gave him a hint of a chance. You'll be hard-pressed to find many fans who believe that Hodgson was the right appointment for Liverpool, but Blackpool manager Ian Holloway insists Hodgson was the right man for the job.

Hodgson arrived at Liverpool in the midst of incredible turmoil on and off the pitch:

* Demoralised team after a horrible final season under Rafa Benitez, which ended with failure to qualify for the Champions League.

* Many players clearly unhappy, including Fernando Torres.

* Boardroom turmoil off the pitch, leading to the much publicised distraction of a court case.

Etc

None of this cuts any ice with Liverpool fans though, but if it was Kenny Dalglish in charge at the time, they'd be pushing the same 'excuses' as valid reasons to defend him.

Holloway always has good things to say about Liverpool, and in his column for The Mirror, he came to Hodgson's defence, arguing:

"Let’s be honest, Liverpool were in one helluva mess. The furore surrounding the change of ownership had torn the club apart, but Roy Hodgson never really stood a chance.

"Roy is a top manager. He was the right man for the job – but it came along at totally the wrong time. And in ­football, like life in general, timing is everything".


Hodgson is at West Brom now, and he's doing a great job by all accounts. It's depressing to note that the Baggies are only 4 points behind Liverpool in the Premier League table at the moment, having scored more goals overall and won the same amount of games.

Ultimately, Holloway believes Liverpool made the right choice appointing Dalglish, and he's full of praise for the man:

"Kenny is like Sir Bobby ­Robson was and Sir Alex Ferguson still is. He has football flowing through his veins. I celebrate my 49th birthday a week tomorrow. But even at my age I still have my heroes, and Kenny Dalglish is one of them".

Jaimie Kanwar


36 comments:

  1. PETITION FOR: JOHN W. HENRY, THOMAS WERNER, DAMIEL
    COMOLLI, IAN AYRE


    http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/jose-mourinho-should-replace-kenny-dalglish-as/


    Is it a massive success for this historic club to just
    securing the carling cup and not be able being competitive in the premier
    league? Is it just enough securing the FA cup and not qualifying to the
    champions league? I said it many times, I will repeat it for once more and I
    just hope that John W. Henry, Thomas Werner, Ian Ayre, and Damien Comolli will
    finally after the today defeat to take it seriously: Kenny Dalglish cannot turn
    the fortunes of this club and transmit it to a title contender! Is it just
    enough all the time to be emphasizing, "if you want to gauge it on
    performance then I think we were fantastic?" But fantastic performances
    and points drop do not bring any success! We need Jose Mourinho who has the
    ability to transmit practically and not theoretically the players into real
    winners. We need moving up to the next level and it is the right time for all
    of us that we love this club to finally understand how we can achieve that. If
    not, every season we will be experiencing the same frustrating emotions!

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  2. "Horrible final season with Rafa"?? What do you call this season then? Or the last season?

    You got what you wanted and he was sacked. How are things any better for it now? At least Rafa was able to give us a title push and multiple CL runs. In fact we even won it once.

    Given the dramatic collapse of LFC since Rafa was pushed out; would you now retract your earlier opinion that he should have been sacked? Or will you make excuses for why LFC have been abysmal ever since? "Its the fan's fault." etc etc..

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  3. He wasnt sacked mate , He just left the club due to Lack of Funds provided for transfers.

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  4. I love fans who think they know everything and then are firmly put in their place bwahahaha

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  5. Roy Hodgson had the support at the beginning, but I'm not sure signing Konchesky was the best way to convince us he was the man for the job. 

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  6. Why should there be blame??? Its the first season where we for the first time spent the same as our rivals have been for the last 5 years. Did they even look the part until this year? NO. We should keep this group of players but buy a striker and another quick winger....results will come in time. Its a shame alot of you cannot accept this.

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  7. He's got to be kidding about Woy. Kenny might not currently be giving us the results we want and it is pretty obvious from our major overhaul we would never get very far ahead this season, although our loss against Arsenal shows we are almost there. We played like a top side. We may have defended like a top side thus far, but for me, from the start of the season till Cardiff, our team displays and attacks have been woeful. Our new crop is only beginning to 'get' some of the fluidity we saw when Kenny took over last season.

    Hodgson is indeed a brilliant professional in that I believe he can take any hopeless to average team and secure top flight football for them. With more than 80 teams across all divisions, you'd have to be pretty good to seat a team comfortably in the top 20. Roy definitely knows how to manage a Premier League team and knows what the league is all about, but his style, while very secure, puts a cap on what exceptional talent can do. The likes of a Wenger or Dalglish side, Barcelona, the Dutch and Argentinean teams all play a brand of football that allows players to play to their potential - the downside being poor form of some players or a lack of chemistry can mean a bad day.

    I will agree our squad isn't doing as well as they can and I certainly don't expect them to yet, but they won't get that opportunity to get there playing Hodgson football. However, watching the game against Arsenal, I was reminded why I became a Liverpool fan in the first place - back when Dalglish was manager the first time around. That IS the 'beautiful game'.

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  8. Retract my view on Benitez? Why? He had to go; his final season was atrocious, and what came after doesn't change that.

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  9. Roy Hodgson was the worst manager i have ever seen at liverpool ever, this is a fact, he was bad, very bad, the football as bad and his management was bad. We may be not in the place we should be as we have lost games and drawn when we should of won but i remeber what KK has done for us in the past and if we can give houllier 5 years and benitez 6 then i can find it in my heart to give KK the benefit of the doubt and do at least 3 years. if at the end of the 3 years we look back and we have won nothing and are no better than when he took over thne i will say it was a good go but a hurdle to far. At present KK is trying to rebuild our shattered club, we are moving in the right direction. in 2 years do i thikn we will be challenging for titles under KK, yes i do!!

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  10. Graeme Sounness was the worst of my lifetime, mainly because we stuck with him long enough to destroy the club. Hodgson wasn't too far off. Things would've (probably) improved slightly if he had been able to stick around for the whole season, but he was never going to be the right man for the job

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  11. Just because the club decided to hire even worst managers to succeed him, that doesn't prove that the club was wrong to get rid of Benitez.

    The simple fact is that Benitez had his time and he failed. His successors have failed also, which proves that they weren't the right men to replace him, not that Benitez shouldn't have been replaced. 

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  12. If Hodgson had more than a £100 million to spend on new players, he can't be doing any worse off than the so-called king.

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  13. I'm not actually a Benitez fan, the thing that always bothers me are the excuses made. I didn't like the excuses made to justify Rafa's failings and I don't like the excuses made in this article for Roy's failings. Roy did not improve anything for us. No amount of excuses in the world will change that.

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  14. Roy just depressed me to no end.  Fact.  Can't stomache the man regardless of how good he is which by the way I didn't see any evidence of while he so-called managed Liverpool.

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  15. id dlaglish gets another year after this then I've lost all hope, after 47 years of support im off to hotspurs or arsenal. Just cant bring myself around to manU.

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  16. You forget Souness! He was on par with Roy. There's also no chance we'd win nothing in 3 years under Kenny because we've already won something! And we're still challenging for 1 more title this season.

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  17. When you look at Roy's record what was there to say he could manager Liverpool long term he has no long term managerial qualifications at a big club or country. Roy is in the same bracket as Warnock, McCarthy and Allardyce good at managing smaller clubs/countries and getting promotion. My be the owners at the time were expecting us to get relegated!

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  18. He'd have bought 3 Championship starting elevens!

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  19. It saddens me to see fans who can so easily switch clubs like this. Having a manager they don't like for a year can make them leave.. Probably best to be rid of them.

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  20. Chelsea will hire Roy Hodgson as their new manager and will be given 10 years to rebuild the team

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  21. Roy may not have had £100m to spend but look at the players he inherited;

    Reina, Carragher, Skrtel, Agger, Johnson, Lucas, Gerrard, Kuyt, Aquilani, Babel, Kuyt, Maxi, Torres. He brought in Meirieles & Cole yet he still couldn't do anything with them. We played terrible, terrible football when he was in charge. As soon as Kenny came back the whole place got a lift and the players had the freedom to express themselves.
    Under Kenny, he has brought the best out of Agger, someone Roy didn't give a chance. Kelly has come on, as has Spearing. Flanagan and Robinson have both made their debuts and will be ready when given the call.
    I have a feeling Kenny will now start to give some of the youngsters their chance in the first team now that 4th spot is looking out of our reach.
    This could also give an indication of how the summer's transfer dealings will unfold. If we can find what we need in our reserve & youth ranks, the club won't have to go out and find many players so they will be able to use what cash is available for more of a 'marquee' signing.

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  22. 5 5outh Paraide, Ch3w Magnna
    Ban me!!

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  23. Closethecomments3:04 pm, March 04, 2012

    5 sth pairade, chhew maggna, Br1stol
    Ban me too!!

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  24. Laughing my head off here

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  25. You think you can ban every single IP address in the world?
    What a futile task!!

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  26. Think of this as a golden period.
    You won't even have a website soon enough.
    Once the legal letters start to arrive through your front door.
    Unless you have a few hundred thousand pounds to pay all the lawyer fees & fines.

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  27. Hodgson was given a chance by most fans at the beginning but after a dozen games playing sterile and direct football (worst than Benitez's defensive tactics), with poor results he had to go. The man was clearly out of his depth.  

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  28. davewestausregularguest4:03 pm, March 04, 2012

    Most of us LFC fans would have RAFA back tomorrow,regardless of YOUR constant criticisms of him! Dalglish will be gone at the end of the season.

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  29. Hodgson might have done better if he brought his own players in, and most certainly he would have chosen similar players to Kenny, you know, Enlgish, fit and strong and with little technical ability. Problem was the fans and the players were not happy with his defensive, very English type of football, and may may never have been happy with it, even if it brought success.

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  30. hotspurs or arsenal, brilliant at least you could of picked a club tht has won more than us

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  31. i remeber he said judge me after 10 games, so i did, i judged him to be rubbish!!!

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  32. Souness was left an ageing squad by Dalglish. Yes, Souness went about things the wrong way (with the sales of Haughton and Beardo), in terms of changing things but Dalglish/the club barely did anything to evolve the squad just prior to Souness' reign, as well as signing some dud players like Speedie. Rather naive and petty the way people use Souness as some sort of pantomime villain. Bit like Chelsea really, the lack of evolving and refreshing the squad over time and now its come back to bite them in the backside. They had a young lad called Borini on their books but because of the lack of faith in bringing in youth into the side, he left...guess what, now a full international player for Italy. Really been good to watch for Roma, lively and hard working.

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  33. I don't make excuses for any of them - Benitez had his time and failed. Hodgson only had a few months, but that was more than enough time to prove that he was taking the club nowhere. Dalglish has had enough time and money to deliver far more success in the league than he has done and has failed also.

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  34. Fingers crossed...

    Not likely though. Liverpool are the only traditional top 4 team linked with British managers for any hypothetical vacancies. Chelsea have been through 5 managers without giving such mediocrity as Hodgson a second look...

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  35. Spot on. I think Benitez would have done better with Dalglish's funds, but was not sad for him to move on when he did. Thought the time was right. Now it is time for the club to move forward, not keep looking at past managers.

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  36. Hodgson had us in the relegation zone for a while. That alone should bring the sack. He's better with teams and players with less ambition and expectation. Level of expectation makes a big difference in football and Hodgson did not understand the level here and was unable to translate it into putting out a team that showed any ambition. The players he bought in were poor, except Meireles, but I agree that 100 million makes a big difference and both Hodgson or Benitez wouldn't be doing any worse with the kind of money spent. That is how disappointing the team's league efforts are at the moment.

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