The New Manager Thread

[Slinky Skills]

Does anyone think that the board are possibly biding their time till the World Cup ends and then they'll start talking to Capello about the job?

[Mattshark]

Does anyone think that the board are possibly biding their time till the World Cup ends and then they'll start talking to Capello about the job?

Sadly, no, we'll get a mid table manager and no funding.

[Fierce]

I wonder if the owners/Purslow/Broughton et al know the strength of fans feelings towards the Kenny vs Roy debate?

You'd think, perhaps naively, that they'd want to garner public opinion?

[Matt]

Does anyone think that the board are possibly biding their time till the World Cup ends and then they'll start talking to Capello about the job?

Very wishful thinking mate, even if we could afford Capello, he's just signed a new deal to take England into the Euro's.

I just pray we appoint someone in the next couple of weeks. If our WC players start coming back and there's nobody running the show then there'll be transfer requests coming in all over the place.

[aa4f4fsd47]

all of them wants roy to manage liverpool, so liverpool will never be top 4 again. get it?

[dww]

I wonder if the owners/Purslow/Broughton et al know the strength of fans feelings towards the Kenny vs Roy debate?

You'd think, perhaps naively, that they'd want to garner public opinion?

I've been wondering for a while whether the word was given out to the media so quickly after Rafa left as a way of seeing what reaction it got. Potentially the same for Kenny. The way the fans react could, potentially, have a significant impact on how they do.

[IN_RAFA_WE_TRUST]

January of this year

Liverpool co-owner George Gillett believes Rafael Benitez is one of the top five managers in the world

Bring one of the other four in then you horrible man.

[peekay]

June 10, 2010
Why Liverpool's next choice must be a wise one

Tony Barrett

Six years ago when Liverpool were last in the market for a manager, the final criteria used to separate the wheat from the chaff was whether or not the candidates being considered had guided a team to championship success in one of Europe’s best leagues.

Gordon Strachan and Alan Curbishley did not survive the cut and Rafael Benitez, who had twice made Valencia top dogs in La Liga, was given the nod. Had Jose Mourinho, who was desperate to take over the Anfield hot seat, won the league in Spain, Italy, Germany or England instead of Portugal, which was considered less competitive than the other four, might well have ended up going head to head with Benitez for the Liverpool job despite his famous touchline dash at Old Trafford which had blotted his copybook in the eyes of the conservative Anfield board.

If the criteria was this exacting in 2004 then it was for one simple reason – Liverpool still had designs on winning the Barclays Premier League back then and they were only in the market for a manager who could match their ambition.

With this in mind, what does it tell us about Liverpool’s pursuit of Roy Hodgson to fill their latest managerial vacancy? If his career record is anything to go by, it is that Liverpool do not expect to be challenging for the title any time soon, as intimated by club chairman Martin Broughton recently when he told Charlotte Jackson of Sky Sports News fame that it will take three years to sort out the mess created by the ruinous regime of Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

The last time Hodgson lifted any silverware was back in 2001 when he guided Copenhagen to a Superliga and Super Cup double in Denmark. Since then, he has won precisely nothing (aside from the LMA manager of the year award last season, a prize awarded by virtue of votes not victories). No titles, no cups, no glory. In the same period Rafael Benitez, the man he could replace at Anfield, has won the European Cup, two Spanish league titles, the Uefa Cup, FA Cup and the European Super Cup.

This is not to say that Hodgson cannot be a success at Liverpool. He is clearly a competent manager who has earned the respect of his managerial peers during a long career in football in which he has never acted with anything other than great dignity and unswerving professionalism.

But even his greatest admirers could not claim that his CV is glittering or a plotted history of club and individual success. In fact, his only other success came in Sweden with Malmo and Halmstads in eras when Liverpool were managed by Bob Paisley and a certain Kenny Dalglish respectively.

All of which points to one thing – Liverpool are going down the “safe pair of hands” route, the ambitions which have underpinned their existence for more than half a century having been dramatically scaled down by Hicks and Gillett and the debt burden they have saddled the club with.

Throughout last season Benitez kept banging on about how unrealistic it was for Liverpool to live up to their expectations. His argument was that it was highly unlikely that his team would be successful at a time when the owners, board, finances, stadium or overall set-up were geared for success.

If it felt like he was getting his excuses in early then that’s because he was. Once a manager gives himself a justification for failure then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as the obvious lack of belief filters through to the dressing room and onto the terraces. Little wonder then that Liverpool ended last season with nothing to celebrate besides the fact that their pain on the pitch had reached a merciful hiatus.

The same principle applies to football club boards, however. Real Madrid appointed Jose Mourinho because he is one of the few managers in the game who almost guarantee success. Chelsea dispensed with Luiz Felipe Scolari in circumstances not too dissimilar to the ones which saw Rafael Benitez depart Liverpool and replaced the Brazilian with Carlo Ancelotti, who arrived at Stamford Bridge laden down with some of the game’s biggest prizes and went on to deliver the double.

Even Benitez’s recent problems at Liverpool did not put Inter Milan off from trusting the Spaniard with maintaining their recent run of success. They looked at his medals and decided he was fit to follow in the footsteps of Mourinho.

Whatever their detractors may claim, the records tell us that Mourinho, Ancelotti and Benitez are winners. Whatever his qualities, Hodgson’s own record does anything but guarantee success, which is probably one of the reasons why Dalglish (four English league championships and two FA Cups) has thrown his hat into the ring and it also explains why his apparent accession to the Anfield throne has left the red half of Merseyside distinctly underwhelmed.

At some point in the future, history and hindsight will determine whether Liverpool’s next managerial appointment was one which steadied the ship or one in which they aspired to mediocrity and got what they deserved. Roy Hodgson hasn’t even got the job yet and he is far too decent a man to be subjected to any criticism before he has even taken on a role but the Liverpool board has to realise that a decline in the standards that determined their last managerial appointment will mean that it will be they, and not the manager they eventually opt for, who will be held responsible for what follows.

What a great article from TB. The last line nails it.

[Nicey]

To be honest, I'm finding it very difficult to get past losing Rafa and I can't see beyond the issue of the owners.

We Love you Inter We do ...at least I have Champions Lg football next year

[fin7]

Rafa has only signed a two year contract at Inter....do you think he wants to come back after the yanks have sold up? seems very short or is this the standard in Italy?

[Exiled_red]

Rafa has only signed a two year contract at Inter....do you think he wants to come back after the yanks have sold up? seems very short or is this the standard in Italy?

It's standard in most of the big leagues in Europe to give managers 2 or 3 year contracts, we're more the exception.

[kingfunk]

How do you categorise someone who wouldnt be a yes man?

End of the day, no matter who the boss is, they are powerless if the yanks decide not to release funds or if they decide to overrule the manager and accept transfer bids from other clubs for our players.

This is pretty much exactly what I was talking about:

OFF THE FENCE: Liverpool FC hierarchy fear how powerful Kenny Dalglish would become

Jun 11 2010 by Ben Thornley, Daily Post

KENNY DALGLISH is the only candidate on Liverpool FC’s managerial short list that could persuade Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres to stay.

It’s one of the many pressing reasons why the Anfield legend should be installed as boss – but, sadly, also why he won’t be.

Not when the decision is being made by a banker (Christian Purslow) and a Chelsea fan (Martin Broughton) on behalf of American owners that have piled an unsustainable level of debt onto Liverpool.

Debt reduction not trophy gathering has long been the priority at Anfield.

And that is reflected in the emergence of Roy Hodgson as the board’s number one choice to replace Rafa Benitez.

They want a man who knows that under normal circumstances he wouldn’t get the chance to sit in one of the game’s most prized hotseats.

Someone to steady the ship for a season or two while the club is sold, who won’t quibble when his two outstanding players are sold for a combined fee of over £100m – even though he’s unlikely to receive even half of that to reinvest.

Of course, the rest won’t go on reducing debt, we’ll be assured. Just like the fees for Xabi Alonso and Robbie Keane.

Hodgson – whose only title triumphs arrived in Scandinavia – is certainly the man for that job.

The Londoner is a fine coach who has excelled at Craven Cottage. But Liverpool will just be a chance to add another big name on his CV to go alongside Inter Milan, where he performed a similar role to the one he will be asked to undertake at Anfield.

His appointment, though, will be viewed by most as a significant reduction in ambition at Liverpool.

Not least by the Reds’ star players who will flee through the Anfield exit doors.

But it’s not in the interests of the owners to keep Gerrard and Torres – despite their presence in the Reds’ squad making the club more attractive to buyers.

Liverpool lost a club-record £50m last year as they went £351m into the red.

That was with Champions League revenue and Benitez trading at a profit last summer. As well as being an awful competition, the Europa League also offers little financial reward.

With Tom Hicks’ outrageous £800m valuation stalling the sale of Liverpool it’s unlikely the club will change hands any time soon, meaning the blundering Americans will have to find a solution to their rapidly growing debt.

Now that Benitez is out of the way, there’s no-one to stop them asset stripping – by the time they’ve left, they will probably have ripped out and sold on Anfield’s lead piping, lighting and heating system.

No-one that is except Dalglish – the only living man to have won top-flight English titles at two different clubs – and the Liverpool board probably fear how powerful he would become if made manager for a second time.

King Kenny is the only man in the Anfield hierarchy who has the club’s best interests at heart. If he feels he is the best man to take charge, who are the board to disagree?

Naming Liverpool’s greatest ever player as Benitez’s successor would give the club the lift it needs after a wretched season. He’s the overwhelming popular choice, with a poll on the excellent Reds website, the www.theLiverpoolway.co.uk, showing 93% of supporters preferring him to Hodgson.

More importantly, though, it would reassure fans and players that they mean business and are not happy just to drift further into mid-table.

Perhaps the game has moved on since Dalglish’s last managerial role at Newcastle, as some doubters have claimed.

But it is still a sport played by two teams of 11 men – despite some coaches, not least Benitez, making it unnecessarily complicated.

Forget Pro-Zone stats, blood tests and zonal marking, what really matters is the ability to read the game – as Harry Redknapp proved at Spurs this season.

And no amount of time out of the sport will dull a football brain as brilliant as Dalglish’s.

l RAFAEL BENITEZ was guilty of some howlers in the transfer market as Liverpool manager, but his record was nowhere near as bad as some critics have claimed.

Almost 90% of players he purchased increased in value. Momo Sissoko, Craig Bellamy, Peter Crouch were all sold for a tidy profit, while Xabi Alonso fetched three times the fee paid for him.

Pepe Reina, Javier Mascherano and Fernando Torres were bought for a combined sum of around £45m. It is not inconceivable that trio would fetch £130m in today’s market.

Liverpool have previously rejected bids of £14m for Dirk Kuyt (who cost £9m), while even flop Ryan Babel (£11m) was generating offers of over £12m in January.

http://www.dailypost.co.uk/sport-news/liverpool-fc/2010/06/11/off-the-fence-liverpool-fc-hierarchy-fear-how-powerful-kenny-dalglish-would-become-55578-26631191/

[Exiled_red]

Good article

[Taxi]

Has the game of football really changed that much that Kenny wouldn't be able to cope, or are we guilty of arrogance about the modern game? Football is a simple game made complicated by many, but whilst the modern game is definitely as much about profits and survival as it is about scoring goals I cannot help but think that Dalglish would settle straight into the game as we now know it.

Dalglish respects the european game (not that the Europa League is what we were hoping for) but he also understands the english game too which would be our highest priority this season, and of course he understands the fans and the club better than anyone else. As an interim manager until we manage to bring in new investment, I really don't think that there is a better alternative. When the club finally changes hands and things have settled down, we have a transfer budget in place and we have stability, that is the time when we need to aim to bring in a lonterm replacement...and bring back Rafa.

Lets not take a risk with a temporary manager alien to life at Anfield. Now is the time for Kenny to return and take us through this difficult period, hopefully short time for his sake as much as ours.

[Nicey]

Anybody other than Gus, Jose or Kenny and the Anfield faithful will ****ing explode .. two of them are out of the running ... those two fat *******s are good at doing the Math