It’s been a strange old season so far for Liverpool. The fans have certainly had to put up with a lot already, even more than usual in fact. Roy Hodgson came and went, but not before making some questionable decisions, like Paul Konchesky for example, who is now playing Championship football. And now Kenny Dalglish has finally taken the reins and brought some much needed normality to the club. But what is King Kenny doing that Hodgson wasn’t?
On the face of things, he has pretty much the same squad, minus Konchesky who has hardly been missed, and of course Fernando Torres. Surely, Hodgson must be sat at home feeling pretty let down watching players like Raul Meireles smash goals in and Maxi Rodriguez actually offer something positive.
Admittedly, Dalglish has made a few changes which most of us were crying out for the former boss to make a long time ago. Christian Poulsen was getting in ahead of Lucas and Jonjo Shelvey, Sotirios Kyrgiakos was often preferred too over Daniel Agger and the less said about Konchesky the better – especially with Martin Kelly proving to be such a talent. But other than that, should we just put the turn in Liverpool’s fortunes down to the fact that he’s a man motivator? I know that ‘King Kenny’ breathes the club and is as close to the club’s all-time cult hero as Anfield is ever likely to see, but wasn’t Roy Hodgson quite good at getting the best out of his team himself? We shouldn’t forget that he took a very ordinary Fulham to the final of the Uefa Cup not that long ago.
Liverpool have had their critics – I’m not ashamed to admit that was one of the biggest, but I still felt that Hodgson was dealt a bad hand. He inherited an average squad with a couple of underperforming gems and was expected to work miracles. Yes he made some bad signings, but doesn’t every manager? Surely the rest of the team who are now playing for their shirts the way Dalglish and co would have done, should have been doing it for Hodgson as well? It takes a lot more than a club icon to make better normal players better.
In terms of Meireles, it just looks as though all he needed was time to adapt to life in the Premier League. So the fact he wasn’t doing a job straight away, does that make Hodgson a bad manager? What it says to me is that he recognised a good player, but won’t get credit for bringing him to the club because he wasn’t given the chance to see the Portuguese star settle into life at Anfield. Instead we attribute his new found quality down to Dalglish getting the best out of him.
There is no doubting that Kenny Dalglish has done a marvellous job at turning the club around so the decision to replace Hodgson seems vindicated, especially as his 6-month spell wasn’t exactly successful. But I hope within the realms of football management, his ability to coach a side hasn’t now been tarnished. He has proven pedigree and his ill-fated reign at Liverpool wasn’t all down to his bad spending and tactical naivety. The players simply didn’t want to play for him and the fans soon turned on him – a brutal combination.
King Kenny will continue to motivate the troops at Liverpool, but I hope Hodgson will be back doing the same thing at a club who want him there, sooner rather than later.
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