KopTalk.com Forums Football Liverpool FC Forum If pigs were to fly.......

Now, I am not one of those that calls for managers heads after a few poor results but I am also not stupid enough to let a Carling Cup win/ FA Cup Semi cloud what has been a disastrous effort as far as the league is concerned.

I don't think we have a divine right to be challenging for the title every season as, much as I hate to admit, we are not the force we once were. We are living in the past. At the start of every season the same words are said "this is going to be THE year!". Quite honestly no, it isn't. With this season in mind, all Liverpool fans had high hopes given the form we had shown towards the back end of last season. But my fears then had been realized now in that there was no pressure on the players then as there is now which makes me question, do the current players have the fight and bottle to mount a serious challenge for the title in the seasons to come. Maybe.

I have been reading several topics on forums recently and there has been some serious criticism for "King" Kenny.

Net spend this, woodwork that. I've heard it all. Now, the latest from Kenny is that the players are "tired". I'll try continually performing poorly at work, tell my boss that I have worked a few hours extra that week and that I'm tired. Yes sure, that will cut it.
I have also seen articles published focusing on stats trying to justify our league position/form. Games with/without Carroll, chance conversion, times hit woodwork etc. The only stats that matter are our league position as far as I'm concerned. Now that we will not finish fourth we will not be attracting the names being mooted. People come back with arguments like "players still want to come and play for Liverpool". Why? Oh that is correct, because we have a right to win competitions. Or maybe its because we continually overpay for average at best players.

I know people will respond to this post telling me to "go and support another team that buys success" or "how dare you question the King". Others will respond saying "if this was Hodgson...." or "bring Rafa back!"

Quite honestly, I do not know what is the answer. But what I do know is that the likes of Henderson, Carroll, Adam et al will NOT make us a force to be reckoned with. To this we have gone from a midfield trio of Masch/Alonso/Gerrard to Spearing/Adam/Gerrard. Gerrard's favourite emoticon must be

One point that really grates on me is that "our NET spend has only been £40m". Yes only, try telling that to Newcastle/Spurs/Arsenal. All higher than us without spending that last summer.

That may be our NET spend figure but we still went out and spent £35m on Carroll! Please, who on earth sanctioned that buy!?? Put a decimal point in between those figures and I'd still question his worth to the team. I really feel sorry for Andy I really do. By us paying that much we have put far too much pressure on him and also the fact that he doesn't get the right balls played into. He will never fit the style of play that Kenny is trying to put in place so it questions the future planning of the likes of Commolli as to where he thought Carroll may fit in.

On Kenny's managerial credentials:

"Kenny knows how to win titles at Anfield as he did it in his first spell"
Look back to Kenny's first spell as manager, we were THE top dogs in the league so it was hardly an uphill task in getting the team playing well.

"He won the title with Blackburn"
Kenny was bankrolled heavily at Blackburn and again paid over the odds for British talent. Yes it was a good squad but they hardly pulled up trees the following seasons did they? Also, not many teams were buying players for the price Kenny paid for most of his transfers so he could get his man no matter what. Nowadays we will have up to 10 teams all vying for the same player which almost certainly blows Liverpool out of the water now. Quite frankly, our transfer policy of only buying British players under the age of 25 is pathetic. Never going to work, football has moved on since Kenny's title winning side at Blackburn!

"Kenny is Liverpool through and through"
Yes he is. But it doesn't automatically mean he is going to bring the title back. This is where, like Dunc said, Rafa had the right idea in bringing him back to the academy.

What people should really be concentrating on is what Kenny did at both Newcastle and Celtic. Not such a rosy picture now is it?


My final point is that, if pigs were to fly and we were to finish 4th, does Kenny possess the tactical know-how to make us progress in Europe? Could he cut it on the biggest stage of all in the Champions League? This is where I feel Kenny would come undone personally. I just do not feel that we would get past the group stages, perhaps not even the qualifiers.

As a romantic I hate seeing one of Liverpool's greatest ever players managing our team on the touchline when we put in performances like yesterday. I want him to succeed as I feel it would be great to see the King "lead us to the Golden Sky" as someone put it. But with the current cloud settling in over Anfield, I fear this storm is not for passing so easily.

To Summarise:

Is Kenny the right man for the job, if so, can he REALLY cut it in the champions league?

Are his credentials really what we are looking for? Will the owners have the bottle to get rid?

Could the likes of Mourinho really be persuaded to take over the helm?

Is Rafa waiting patiently for Kenny to make a complete balls up before making a return?

Should success in the cup(s) buy Kenny more time when John W Henry himself said that 4th spot was minimum?

I look forward to your responses as this is my first proper post.

Kind regards,
Adam.

Adam all your points are valid.

I watched every game home and away in Dalglish's first reign football is all about opinions here is mine. Dalglish destroyed Liverpool he took the best club in the world and left us a side barely capable of top six. He quit just before it collasped leaving Souness to pick up the damage. At Blackburn he had short term success then quit before it collasped again. He was a failure at Newcastle and Celtic then out of the game for over a decade. How anybody in their right mind thought he would be a success in 2011 is beyond me. The damage he is doing today in 2012 could be terminal. We might look at todays mid table position in a year or two and think this is a golden age.

I hope it doesn't come to that in a year or two. I think FSG will not be taking this lightly and that they will be making some serious decisions in the weeks ahead as something needs to be done.

Who is actually in charge of the squad/transfers Kenny or Comolli? Why the need for 2? Surely the decision should lie with the manager?

I would ask Kenny to resign and retain Commoli. Commoli's job is director of football what we used to call chief scout. Whether Commoli is up to the job of chief scout will be decided but the main appointment is the manasger and we have not had a proper manager since Rafa in my view. Hodgson was better than Dalglish but still not of the calibre to manage Liverpool.

Would another manager want to work alongside Commoli?,I don't believe to many managers want someone looking over their shoulder.

When Redknapp came in the front door at Spurs,Commoli went out the back one,managers believe in their own ability and ego,could be a test of FSG prefered setup.

Stanley - You have a massive hang up on Dalglish from his first period in charge and you need to get over it. It is clouding your normally well constructed arguments. those comments about Dalglish and Hodsgon make you look more like RED4LIFE than a long time LFC follower.

CP1972 my long standing hang up about Dalglish is not without foundation. I know you are a long standing supporter like me who attends at Anfield. We all have our opinions and on this we disagree. But the main damage Dalglish did to this club was in 89/ 90 / 91 from which we have never recovered even to this day. And yes I do know we won the league and FA in those years. But once he left in 1991 the club was a train crash from which we have never recovered. In terms of Dalglish today I see the same only even worse and as for comparisons with Hodsgon why is Dalglish better than Hodgson I see no clear difference and I firmly believe Hodgson would have spent that huge transfer money more wisely than Dalglish.

Cant tell it's your first post, as it's well written and you talk a lot sense. Please try to make it slightly more insulting, force your opinion on people and generally talk rubbish. It's the "koptalk" way

He's right though, Hodgson is better than dalglish so I'm not sure what your problem is.