As details emerged of more player unrest at Liverpool, calls increased from Reds fans for Roy Hodgson to be removed from the position of manager.
Liverpool lie nineteenth – or second-bottom – in the league; very much in the relegation zone and no signs of improvement to that situation can be found in the words or actions of the manager.
Today Anfield Road has learned that two of the club’s most valuable assets – whether looked at from a financial or football perspective – have become sufficiently disillusioned with life under Roy Hodgson to be seriously considering their futures.
It hasn’t yet been described as a refusal to play, but it is understood that Fernando Torres has made it clear that he no longer wishes to play for Roy Hodgson.
It has also emerged that Pepe Reina has become equally frustrated, also finding changes to the goalkeeping coaching methods to be so frustrating that he is now weighing up where his future lies.
Today the club announced that temporary MD Christian Purslow was to stand down from his role. He would be staying on in a non-executive capacity, as an advisor to the owners, but his influence has been cut and his control removed.
Another update – although unofficial – revealed that commercial director Ian Ayre was to stay at the club after having his offer of resignation turned down. According to the Telegraph NESV assured Ayre he was a valuable member of the executive team and that he had a future at the club.
What fans are now waiting for is a decision on the future of the manager who has failed spectacularly to do what he was brought in to do.
On the day he was unveiled to the media, Roy Hodgson was billed as the man to “steady the ship” by chairman Martin Broughton. Liverpool’s start to the season is the worst since the 1950s. One more defeat would make it their worst start since the nineteenth century.
For many fans that makes Hodgson’s position untenable.
On top of claims that Liverpool’s two World Cup winners are finding it impossible to work under Hodgson is of course the evidence that Hodgson has got problems with Danish defender Daniel Agger. Hodgson recently made comments suggesting Agger was faking illness or injury. Agger was previously quoted – although he tried to retract the quotes – as unhappy with Hodgson’s tactics, tactics the quotes suggested were more like the Wimbledon of the 80s than the Liverpool of the 80s.
Hodgson’s summer transfer deals – that he said he was pleased with – have weakened the side considerably. Alberto Aquilani and Emiliano Insua were sent out on loan, leaving Liverpool with neither the benefit of their services nor the benefit of their transfer fees. Javier Mascherano was sold for a fee in excess of £20m but it was so late in the window that little if any of the fee was used on replacements or squad strengthening.
How much of that is down to Hodgson and how much is down to the outgoing MD is unclear. But the replacements have been far from inspiring.
Meireles is a good signing – but has been played out of position since he arrived. Poulsen isn’t even up to the standard of Lucas Leiva, let alone Mascherano. No cover was bought for Torres, a signing most Liverpool fans felt was vital this summer. Hodgson was more focussed on bringing in an average left-back in the shape of Paul Konchesky. Insua’s loan move and the re-signing of injury-prone Fabio Aurelio were also baffling decisions.
Not only have Liverpool been embarrassed in the league, they were completely shown up in the League Cup. As if going out to fourth-tier Northampton wasn’t bad enough, Hodgson went on to describe them as “formidable” opponents, leaving many a Red with head in hands.
That’s not unusual after Roy speaks. His view on each game Liverpool have failed to win always seems at odds with the vast majority of Liverpool supporters’ views of the game
Tonight, ahead of what many hope is his last game in charge of Liverpool, he was asked what he thought might happen if Manchester United (about to lose Wayne Rooney) were to make an approach for Fernando Torres.
Instead of responding with a morale-boosting “hands off” he suggested he’d have to have a think about it: “I think I’d have to say we’d cross that bridge when we come to it,” he told reporters.
Perhaps oblivious to the financial problems Manchester United are said to be facing, and Rooney’s suggestion that those issues have played a part in his decision to look for a move, Hodgson went on to suggest Liverpool’s biggest rivals outside Merseyside would be able to have their pick of targets.
“I am pretty sure when a great player like Wayne Rooney is looking to leave his club,” Hodgson said, “Manchester United will be in a position to target an awful lot of players around the world. I don’t think Fernando Torres would be the only player they will be targeting or we’d be the only club worried their star striker is going to be a target.”
After all those years waiting for Hicks and Gillett to get that shovel into the ground in Stanley Park we now find Roy Hodgson digging far bigger holes: “They will have the opportunity to replace him with many star strikers around the world, so all I can say is I am not naive to the situation. I am not naive enough to think there is no danger we will ever lose a player like Fernando Torres.”
What Hodgson is unwilling to admit is that the biggest danger to Torres remaining a Red of the correct variety is Hodgson himself: “I can only hope we won’t and I will make certain I do everything in my power to keep him happy at the club, help him improve his current form and to get him playing for Liverpool as he has in the past.”
What Hodgson has in his power, and what he must use if he has any self-respect, is the ability to contact the club’s owners and offer his resignation.
Without that offer, or without swift action from the club, the scenes at Anfield this weekend may well be unprecedented as vocal demands for Hodgson’s head seem to be inevitable.
Antlfc – good performance from the team. Hope Lucas gets credit for a very good performance, Meirales looks good when played in the correct position and Maxi had his best game.
Worried about Roy tactically. When he removed Cole for Ngog made a complete tactical mess of the team with Maxi on Left, Meirales on Right at a time we were holding on to the lead.
The team stopped pushing forward after about 65 mins which was a worry. Could/should have scored more. After all this was a Fat Sam team.
Roy Hodgson 25-10-10 “I don’t think we can play a lot better than we did against Blackburn”
God help us!
Don’t get me wrong, I was pleased as punch with the win and the fact that we controlled the match, but I know for a fact that this team can play better than they did yesterday. And even if we couldn’t play any better, then why on earth would say it out loud? What depressing thoughts must be going through the player’s minds when they hear this shit from the man who is supposed to leading and inspiring them?
Lets not get excited here, we beat a struggling Blackburn team that had two stand in centre backs 2-1 at Anfield.
The performance was much better but lets face it no team can consistently be as bad as we have been so we were due a good performance.
For me it doesnt change anything, we still have 9 points from 9 games, roy is still out of his depth and never going to win anything major with this club.
We can let the charade go on and on and eventually sack him in a year or 2 down the road and possibly have to start this whole sorry sequence with another new manager again or we can face facts that Roys not up to it, hes never been up to it and its time to get someone in who is. Give them a chance to see whats needed and let them spend what cash we have for January. Hodgson can take himself and that failed excuse for a centre midfielder Poulsen back to his usual mid table roles where he can at do his usual excel at winning nothing.
Hes never won anything of significance and he never will yet he managed to end up managing LFC. He was even touted for the England job. I often wonder would Benitez have been deemed as such a failure were he English? Hes already won majors honors, cups, champion leagues, spanish leagues and in fraction of Roys career yet Hogson is deemed to be a better man to lead this club.
People would want to wake up and realise that they have been mugged by this club during the summer and a rolls royce of managers has been replaced by a f*cking fiat uno.
People will argue with me otherwise until 6 months down the line when they are screaming for that two bit no good tactically incompetent water carrier of a manager to go. By then though it will be too late because Torres and Reina will be off.
Well said Juan. Those who research the game will realise that the english concept of management is out-dated and most of the time incompetent. You need multiple degrees just to become a manager in Itlay for example and now the same in Spain and Portugal, Why is this so? Because its like what Macello Lippi said, You have to prove you are competent in all departments before you embark on the big job of management. I would even say someone like Ian Holloway is not in the COMPETENT bracket.
Roberto Di Mateo is proving to be in the “Competent” class of managers But still has alot to prove. Weather one likes it or not, More often than not, Competent and well trained managers are the winners most of the time (Please Note the Brazilian managers of the past, All highly competent and analytical). Because they have the training to spot problems an untrained fool like Harry Redknaap can’t fix. All Harry does is buy players to solve problems! Thats a fact, All you have to do is look at every club he has managed. He is an imcompetent buffoon who heaven forbid might become the next England manager?
There is rumour circulating that QuiQue Sanchez Flores might be the next Liverpool FC manager. If this is true, I would not complain. Because lets face it, for the Rafa supporters, Rafa won’t come back. We must move on.
So if Flores does happen to be true, I would be happy to be honest. He would finally join a club with a new stable owner, given the freedom to work and come up with new ideas he has been trying to do at Athletico Madrid. Now Athletico is notoriously unstable off the field and on it (Just ask Mr Torres!). If he comes to Liverpool he will be given the mandate to rebuild within the parameters that NESV will lay out. For once for Mr Flores case he will be in stable working enviroment (Note: Valencia was not stable, they were facing bankruptcy at the time he was there, Benfica was transitional and Athletico is a steady the ship job).
Hi Jim,
I’m surprised you haven’t followed your last report up with more news. Do the problems still exist in the camp and if so how do you think they will pan out in the weeks to come?
Are we realistically looking at the departure of our brilliant goalkeeper and star forward? Surely not now that the ownership is resolved.
Hope you can find time to update us soon.
Just a quick reply Ray – it doesn’t seem to me that the reported problems between Roy and the two World Cup winners have gone away. I don’t personally see how Roy can stay if the club realistically want to start winning league titles and getting into late stages of the CL again. And if that’s what the likes of Torres and Reina feel they want then I don’t see them sticking around if Roy does.