Sport Liverpool Football Club

[SMD]

Came off the defender - can't be offside.

[DeNeo]

Today's attendance: 35,400. Say's it all. #LFC

Doesn't surprise me.

[christaylor]

Came off the defender - can't be offside.

Brill.

[SMD]

Doesn't surprise me.

Ticket prices don't help either. Some people were double charged for Wolves and Fulham over Christmas or Everton and United if they qualified so they wouldn't have had money to go.

You could still buy tickets at the ground the last few home games as well.

[DeNeo]

You could still buy tickets at the ground the last few home games as well.

A couple of seasons ago I would've gone if I could get a ticket that easily. But at the moment it's too much money when you're more than likely going to end up with little entertainment. And that's what must be worrying the owners the most. We pay to watch football to be entertained, and that's just not happened recently.

[SMD]

A couple of seasons ago I would've gone if I could get a ticket that easily. But at the moment it's too much money when you're more than likely going to end up with little entertainment. And that's what must be worrying the owners the most. We pay to watch football to be entertained, and that's just not happened recently.

Ironically I'm the opposite - I'm going as much as I can now because it's so easy to get hold of tickets, whereas I know once we improve they'll be like gold dust.

You can still get derby tickets, you know...

[christaylor]

Just watched the goals on 101, great build up, cross and fantastic measured volley from Torres, and it certainly looked like the final ball came off the defender for Cole's tap in. Woo.

[SMD]

Makes a mockery of how we've been set up tactically before, doesn't it?

[Gabe]

Reading that Guardian piece from Roy is actually rather sad; he sounds so lost.

[Reynard]

I don't feel sorry for him in the slightest.

He seemed to view the Liverpool job almost with a sense of entitlement, as if the length of his career was credit. Some have the "Aw, the poor fella wasn't to know that the job was beyond him" view, but I see him more as an arrogant chancer, who only now has managed to convey a semi-humble persona.

[dizogg]

I don't feel sorry for him in the slightest.

He seemed to view the Liverpool job almost with a sense of entitlement, as if the length of his career was credit. Some have the "Aw, the poor fella wasn't to know that the job was beyond him" view, but I see him more as an arrogant chancer, who only now has managed to convey a semi-humble persona.

Its difficult though isn't it. You can hardly go into a job and say "Maybe i'm not up to it, I don't really know what i'm doing!". You've at least got to be confident about doing a good job.

[Reynard]

I'm talking about him taking it, not being in the job and then realising.

There was next to nothing to suggest he could do the job (depending on how you view the Inter Milan stints). If he was honest with himself, he might've come to that conclusion himself, rather than waltzing in, telling us this was his crowning achievement of a glittering career, telling us that he wouldn't be changing any method or approach to the job and then refusing to do so when his approach patently wasn't working.

[ras el hanout]

I'm talking about him taking it, not being in the job and then realising.

There was next to nothing to suggest he could do the job (depending on how you view the Inter Milan stints). If he was honest with himself, he might've come to that conclusion himself, rather than waltzing in, telling us this was his crowning achievement of a glittering career, telling us that he wouldn't be changing any method or approach to the job and then refusing to do so when his approach patently wasn't working.

Fucking hell.

[Chewylegs]

Yeah, i think Reynards being pretty damn harsh there. Arrogant chancer?? He's never come across as that. In the end though, he blatantly aint capable of getting Liverpool playing decent, winning football.

[Gabe]

Yeah, i think Reynards being pretty damn harsh there. Arrogant chancer?? He's never come across as that. In the end though, he blatantly aint capable of getting Liverpool playing decent, winning football.

I'd actually say that Roy has been quite arrogant at times - all his talk about how his methods have served him well for 30 years so he won't change, how he has managed at big clubs and talk about his record over his career and that everybody said he was excellent at Fulham (as in the press).

Arrogance is fine to a degree if you can back it up - and I don't think Roy can outside of Scandinavia, where he's done nothing of real note.

[Chewylegs]

Well he has managed for 30 years, like u said, why shouldnt he be confident in what he's made a career out of? I think its more arrogant that fans proclaim they know better than someone who has spent his life in football. Im not here to defend him, i think he has cocked up at our club, but to say he should never have took the job and hes arrogant for doing so, its taking the piss some what. 95% of managers would jump at the Liverpool job.

[Commander Jameson]

His arrogance wasn't in taking the job, but in assuming his methods that he has used for 35 years are exactly what are required at a club like ours and do not need changing in any way.

A super article by Dion Fanning today:

Grumbling on towards an inevitable conclusion

The establishment's choice to be Liverpool boss, Roy Hodgson has failed utterly, writes Dion Fanning

By Dion Fanning

Sunday January 02 2011

F ootball supporters turning on their club's manager is not new but for a manager to turn on his club's supporters is more unusual.

Roy Hodgson's dismal and utterly predictable time as Liverpool manager effectively came to an end last Wednesday night. Hodgson is just a patsy, one of the last remaining figures from the old regime. The hopes of the Fenway Sports Group that the club could stagger on until the summer vanished with that defeat to Wolves.

Hodgson's contribution after the game, when he criticised the lack of support he has received from the supporters, might have deflected from the defeat but not as he imagined. Once more, he demonstrated why Liverpool is not only too big a club, even in its dysfunction, for him to manage but also a club he doesn't understand.

The chant of 'Hodgson for England' was a hydra-headed beast. It was the first time Liverpool fans had chanted Hodgson's name and they were only doing it to discard him. In the process they were offering him to an entity they care nothing about: England.

Hodgson was the establishment's appointment. It played well among certain opinion-formers, opinion-formers who had been very impressed with Christian Purslow. Last Wednesday night, Liverpool fans demonstrated that these men know nothing about Liverpool Football Club and its otherness.

Those who felt it was significant that Liverpool appoint an English manager failed to grasp the qualities that make the club, in the eyes of its supporters at least, different. Hodgson was coming from middle England. He is a church warden, a desk sergeant, a man whose reasonableness is only matched by a sense of persecution that he has not been given a fair deal. In another life, you could see him complaining if the 7.47 from Clapham Junction was running late.

In this life, he has complained about everything: the players he has had to work with, the number of times Liverpool appear on television and the scrutiny of the media (no manager has had such powerful backing from press and television). His grumbling has confirmed that he cannot do the job. At times, he almost seems to think it himself. "I don't think they [the fans] got behind my appointment," he said on Friday, "and there's no reason why they should."

He was an appointment made in crisis. Hanging over the club in the summer was the ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett (Jose Mourinho let it be known that the ownership would have to change before he would consider the job) but while that ruled out top managers, it was not the conflict that led to Hodgson's appointment.

Christian Purslow fancied himself as a football man. He was considered a financial wizard. "He saw himself as the Fernando Torres of finance," said one who worked closely with him. Purslow would be vindicated on the financial front in one respect: he helped get Hicks and Gillett out of Liverpool.

His involvement in anything to do with the football side of Liverpool was another story. In the last unhappy year of Rafael Benitez's time as manager, Purslow was never slow to offer an opinion. He became a sounding board for influential players, who expressed their dissatisfaction. There was rarely a point during Benitez's time when players weren't dissatisfied -- that was part of his managerial style. Yet, on the field, until last season, results would often mask the dissatisfaction. Victory usually does.

In Benitez's last season, decay set it. The reasons for this would be disputed by all those involved but when Benitez was worn down by the endless feuds and his contribution to them, a different appointment had to be made.

Despite talking to other candidates, Purslow was always drawn to Hodgson. He offered reasonableness and an ability to talk intelligently about other subjects, to mention Philip Roth or John Updike, where Benitez would just want more.

After a manager who saw everything in terms of war, Liverpool wanted peace. It was an appalling reading of the situation. Liverpool imagined a more harmonious club with a manager who would offer hugs and kind words where Benitez would just seek endless, tiring improvement.

Well, the hugs don't work. Hodgson has been defensive, not open, and those who felt he would bring an improvement in Liverpool's style of play had really not paid attention during his career. He was always in an impossible position. A significant minority of supporters mourned Benitez and there is something of the post-Saipan atmosphere at Liverpool at the moment.

The fans who have turned on Hodgson are not, as some suggest, falling victim to modern life's impatience. If they were merely impatient, it would not explain why some remain loyal to Benitez. Sky can dismiss the idea of Benitez returning but they would be better asking why some supporters remain loyal to the former manager and never felt close to Hodgson, except to demonstrate some ex officio loyalty.

As in so many things, they misread the club when they say it is unlike Liverpool to turn on a manager. Liverpool has never appointed a manager like Hodgson before.

Before the game against Wolves, Hodgson once again defended himself and insisted he was the right man for the job. "I know that I am capable of doing this job, but maybe the expectations and ambitions of the club were too high and weren't lessened by the fact that I came off the back of such a good season." In other words, he could manage a club like Liverpool if it wasn't a club like Liverpool. If it was, say, Fulham. Other managers have battled with the expectation of Liverpool supporters but none has gone about setting the bar as low as Hodgson.

After a win against Aston Villa, Hodgson was asked by his friends at Sky, Andy Gray and Richard Keys, if this was title-winning form. The friends dissolved in laughter. The Fulham manager was laughing. Liverpool challenging for the title wasn't always as preposterous.

Nobody expected Liverpool to do that this season, but there has been a dismantling of expectation. That night, two friends and bullshitters met. Hodgson and Houllier. Houllier made his own disastrous misreading of Aston Villa supporters when he waved to the Liverpool fans but not his own at the end of the game. Last week, he backed Hodgson to get it right. It could have been the kiss of death. In fact, he might have kissed himself to death.

A few weeks ago, Hodgson spoke about how he had to overturn decisions made by Purslow about players the then managing director felt should leave the club.

It was another astonishing glimpse into the summer's chaos. Purslow, it turned out, was no judge of a player. He pursued Joe Cole for his signature when other voices who were then at the club described the player as "brainless".

Hodgson explained how he had kept some players Purslow didn't rate. A few pointed out that Purslow had appointed Hodgson too.

Those who defend Hodgson by saying he has not changed as a manager since last summer when he won the Manager of the Year award are getting close to the truth. Hodgson hasn't got any worse, he was never good enough in the first place.

On Wednesday, as he talked about a lack of respect to Wolves if people expect Liverpool to beat them easily and droned about the result not always matching the expectations of the supporters (his expectations were clearly different), he sounded again like a man drained of ambition.

He believed his achievements in the past year entitled him to the Liverpool job. He has the bureaucrat's mindset: he works slowly and methodically and eventually becomes an assistant secretary. "To some extent it was a reward for the work I had put in, not just at Fulham but in the years before. It was a recognition of my competence."

Hodgson used to compare his record to Alex Ferguson's if only people would take the Scandinavian leagues into account. "Those of us who work in the game and have been working in the game a long time know that the magic wand doesn't exist," he said last week.

Again it is a reasonable position but the managers who make a difference at Liverpool, Manchester United or Arsenal believe they can change everything. They believe in their own magic. Hodgson's strength is making mediocre teams slightly less mediocre and of never expecting too much.

The chants for Kenny Dalglish that were heard again on Wednesday do not necessarily mean that the fans see him as the saviour. This is not Newcastle, longing for the return of Kevin Keegan. Simply, Dalglish represents everything Hodgson is not and, in fairness, everything Hodgson could or would not hope to be.

Dalglish watched people die supporting his football club and then felt it was his duty to allow this tragedy to consume him. If he could be a temporary appointment, it would at least have the benefit of unifying the club. Dalglish, however, may no longer be interested in a caretaker position.

Liverpool will need to look for a man of ambition after that. Those who suggest the senior players at the club should be consulted are in danger of making the same mistakes again.

Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher felt they could work with Hodgson when their relationship with Benitez had broken down. One of the new manager's biggest tasks will be to confront the problem of Gerrard, who has lost his explosiveness, and gently ease Carragher, who is past it, out the door. Carragher signed a new contract on the last day of the old regime which was another curious decision in a summer when many were made.

Hodgson's appointment was the most calamitous of all. In six months, he has dragged Liverpool into a relegation battle and, in his own way, remodelled the club in his image.

If part of his job specification was to shatter the expectations at Liverpool Football Club, then he can walk away with his head held high.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/grumbling-on-towards-an-inevitable-conclusion-2480857.html

[Yiggy]

Indeed it is more arrogant for fans to say the job was too big for him when your squad is pretty bloody awful and you havn't won the league with half a dozen managers in the last 20 years.

[Commander Jameson]

Indeed it is more arrogant for fans to say the job was too big for him when your squad is pretty bloody awful and you havn't won the league with half a dozen managers in the last 20 years.

Strange how this "pretty bloody awful" squad got 86 points, scored over 100 goals only a couple of years ago...

[Yiggy]

It wasn't as awful a couple of years ago. You had Alonso. And a lot more enthusiasm.

Perhaps awful is too strong a term. 'Ordinary' might be a better choice.

Anyway I was merely trying to say that it would take a Mourinhio to get your current lot performing well enough to comfortably be making fourth.

[Commander Jameson]

Yes, "ordinary" is a better description. Fourth would be great. I'd say our squad is 5th/6th best. Benitez overachieved for many seasons to get consecutive top four finishes and only underachieved last year, albeit with exceptional circumstances. It will take a great manager to elevate us back into the top four and potentially higher (especially given how this season is panning out at the top).

[DeNeo]

I'd love to know what some people's definition of awful is - especially those in the media.

Again - this squad we have is not in any way 6-points-above-relegation standard. Where we are is down to the manager's negative tactics and team selection. And his constant lowering of expectations is annoying to say the least.

That article is brilliant.

[tenrou]

The Liverpool squad isn't a bad squad. There are a core of 5-6 very good players but we've needed a 2nd striker and pace on the wings for years, Benitez tried to buy a few players to fill the gap but unfortunately didn't really get any of them right. We're in Tottenham under Ramos mode, the squad could be good with some work but the manager doesn't know how to use it and we need changes to improve all round.

[ras el hanout]

I'd love to know what some people's definition of awful is - especially those in the media.

Again - this squad we have is not in any way 6-points-above-relegation standard. Where we are is down to the manager's negative tactics and team selection. And his constant lowering of expectations is annoying to say the least.

That article is brilliant.

Negative tactics. I love that. Read it on the internet did you? That we now employ negative tactics? Yeah, he sends them out to lose. I hate to see this thread if we lost.

You want him to guarantee 4th?

I don't think we were negative yesterday. Are you saying the games in which we lose as the negative ones?

[ras el hanout]

Yes, "ordinary" is a better description. Fourth would be great. I'd say our squad is 5th/6th best. Benitez overachieved for many seasons to get consecutive top four finishes and only underachieved last year, albeit with exceptional circumstances. It will take a great manager to elevate us back into the top four and potentially higher (especially given how this season is panning out at the top).

Overacheived? In his first four years he was the second highest spending manager, yeah, scraping 4th or 3rd was really overcheiving. He underacheieved in the premiership every season he was here.

[lampkin]

Overacheived? In his first four years he was the second highest spending manager, yeah, scraping 4th or 3rd was really overcheiving. He underacheieved in the premiership every season he was here.

Am I tripping or did you just change your entire comment?

[ras el hanout]

His arrogance wasn't in taking the job, but in assuming his methods that he has used for 35 years are exactly what are required at a club like ours and do not need changing in any way.

A super article by Dion Fanning today:

Newspaper stories are 'super' when I agree with them. When I don't only stupid fans post them!

See, I'm not over the moon with how Roy's doing. But it's really fucking stupid, like REALLY fucking stupid talk like you do.

Roy's method yesterday worked. What the fuck are you on about? You don't think Roy meant he's got one way of playing and won't change it? You literally can't be that backward. His management methods he thinks have served him well so he won't change them, nor would you expect him to. Oh and he hasn't done anything in his career. Who has? Owen Coyle? What's he done and how is it relelvant? So Roy's methods worked yesterday but I guess the good results are flukes and the bad ones are the ones all ROy. Or is this where you claim he found Rafa's book of tactical genius.

[ras el hanout]

Am I tripping or did you just change your entire comment?

I don't know what that means.

[lampkin]

I don't know what that means.

I must have taken something, I thought you'd edited your whole comment. It says though, doesn't it? When posts are edited?

[Guest]

?

I don't think we were negative yesterday. Are you saying the games in which we lose as the negative ones?

No it's the ones where the team play shit. It is clear that the manager can't get them to play consistently well no matter the system employed.