Is Hodgson the right man for LFC

[ChowChowTorres]

I can honestly say this is the worse performing Liverpool team I have seen in living memory, no pressing, no penetration, no bite in the tackle, no smiling faces, no industry, no passion, no luck, no beleive, no confidence and no bloody pride. If things do not change quick smart I can see us bobbling around mid table mediocrity this season no where near the champions lg spot let alone the title. Lets hope RBS sell to ChowChow come Oct and we buy all the bestest quality players mother of the bitches

[Rix007]

As soon as the club is sold(praying). we will get a new manager...Roy's time is up, absolutely boring football and tactics worst than last season.

[el matador]

i wasnt convinced from the start and when benitez left and hodgson was in my top 10 potential choices (probably not in the top 20 if im honest).

however, he's here now and needs time. 15 league games is my guide for the season. If we're still near the relegation zone after 15 games then he needs to be replaced.

[The_weatherman]

If it was up to me I'd sack him now and bring in Kenny ASAP. Kenny will not do worse and IMO he would bring a bit of positivity to the table - the "be careful guys we are playing X and they are probably better than you lot". I can say with 90% certainty that things will not improve on the field under Roy, we have seen enough to predict how things will be.

[RedSince1964]

I think Roy has a philosophy and that's that. Given he's spent the vast majority of his career at middling to **** clubs, that philosophy may have served him reasonably well (although 12 jobs in 15 years suggests even 'reasonably well' is giving him too much credit). He's applying this same primitive philosophy with us, yet with a set of players better than he's ever had. I don't see how or why he doesn't think he should embrace a more progressive style of play.

Spot on Shaggy thats why i can't see us moving forward with Roy in charge

I'd tend to give him the chance to change things around? til we get taken over (only a couple of weeks i hope)then, IF no seeable improvment to our style of play or direction we want to be in then, say goodbye to Roy, and if no world class managers are available to come in and take hold of our famous club then, with no disrespect to our King Kenny, give Kenny the reigns and, i'm 100% sure he would take the Club back to where we belong, Kings of Europe

[Pablo]

I don't see how or why he doesn't think he should embrace a more progressive style of play.

I remember in his very first interview he said something along the lines of it's not enough at a club like Liverpool to play solid, basic football, you need a little something extra to succeed at a club like that.

Seems he forgot that in about 10 minutes.

We are Fulhampool (reserves)

[Pablo]

Spot on Shaggy thats why i can't see us moving forward with Roy in charge

I'd tend to give him the chance to change things around? til we get taken over (only a couple of weeks i hope)then, IF no seeable improvment to our style of play or direction we want to be in then, say goodbye to Roy, and if no world class managers are available to come in and take hold of our famous club then, with no disrespect to our King Kenny, give Kenny the reigns and, i'm 100% sure he would take the Club back to where we belong, Kings of Europe

You've just got to love the utterly insane random bold-ness

[JohnDoe]

"I am gonna attack them and see how good their back four is" - Holloway about the LFC game. Says a lot about us.

I wish we had a manager with that kind of mentality.

[badpiggy]

From today's (Irish) Sunday Independent.

Even the men who partied hardest at the K Club would probably agree that Ireland has hardly had a happy day since. And it's been even longer since the fans of Liverpool FC could crack a smile.

Liverpool, too, has been destroyed by the corporate class and the morons who let them do it.

And the football writers of England have also made a contribution. There is now an iron rule that whatever the overwhelming majority of journalists think of the situation at Liverpool, the polar opposite is true.

Thus they said that Liverpool were "lucky" to get Roy Hodgson, that he would bring "stability", that Liverpool would now be "well-organised" (the sort of thing they'd usually say about Charlton Athletic or Brentford), and that Roy's famed man-management skills would liberate the spirits of so many players crushed under the jackboot of Benitez.

And how has that worked out?

I might also mention Roy's legendary eye for a bargain and the fact that Steven Gerrard has again been seen in his "favoured central midfield role", but it is all sad enough already.

Ah, but Roy did such a fantastic job at Fulham, did he not? Building on our golf theme, the fans of Liverpool could see from about 200 miles away that managing Fulham is like playing off a handicap of 18.

The manager of Fulham, for example, is never expected to win a match away from home. Indeed if he doesn't win a match at home either for, say, two months, it's not exactly the end of the world.

And since he is now aged 62, it's not as if Roy was just getting "on the ladder" at Fulham. The man has been playing off 18, so to speak, for most of his life.

And the Liverpool fans know it in their bones, which helps to explain the mysterious lack of warmth they have shown to him, and this from fans who traditionally revere the manager.

Not that his media allies have noticed a bit of this, as they ponder the size of Roy's task, given all the average players that Rafa left behind him.

Interestingly, Rafa found a fair few average players left behind by Gerard Houllier -- that would be Houllier whose departure from Liverpool is still quietly mourned by many journalists who saw him as a personal friend and a civilising influence up there -- and Rafa won the Champions League with them.

A long, long time ago.

[alunevans]

I still feel people are jumping the gun massively. In my view, we will finish higher up the league than we did last season. Only time will tell.

[Lecter]

Roy Hodgson is the worst managerial appointment in Liverpool's modern history.

Worse than Souness. At least when he was appointed there was unanimity that he was the right man for the job, ultimately that faith was found to be misplaced.

The most uninspiring and unpopular managerial decision ever. Not doubting his integrity, or his best intentions - just damning his unsuitability and seeming ignorance of what is required of a Liverpool manager.

Its a shame his tactics are ****, because he talks well in the press conferences.

[dww]

I still feel people are jumping the gun massively. In my view, we will finish higher up the league than we did last season. Only time will tell.

Do you see some green shoots of a revival under Roy or simply have faith in him and/or the players?

Personally I think it is possible for us to finish in the same position or higher than last year and our future still look bleaker. The league is getting worse and we are moving in that direction faster than those around us as far as I can see. Last season while things were terrible there were mitigating circumstances - split between manager and board, injuries etc. This season we have had a fit squad and Roy seems in harmony with his immediate superiors.

The problems are not all of his own making in that he did inherit a squad whose backbone required changes and little cash to do it and an unhappy key player in Mascherano but my feeling is that in general Roy has exacerbated rather than ameliorated the negatives with a lot of his decisions. If I could see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of him having a clear plan that would deliver a cohesive, balanced side then I could put up with the current poor results - at present I don't see it.

Before making a real judgement he deserves at least 10 league games in charge but so far he doesn't seem to have got to grips with the job. A sad fact is that first impressions count in a lot of ways and those made by Roy have not been positive so to get the mood around the team better and get confidence up he will have to do an exceptional job for a period of time.

I guess the early days of his reign at Fulham offer some hope (they were both dull and ineffective at first but then blossomed into being merely dull).

[Exiled_red]

I still feel people are jumping the gun massively. In my view, we will finish higher up the league than we did last season. Only time will tell.

This is the thing I'm struggling with (in terms of judging Roy), last season we finished 7th (7 points from 4th, 4 points from 5th and 1 point from 6th), I think it's fair to say that last season we had a disproportionate amount of injuries many of which were to key players. Now if this season we were to have our key players fully fit and available for 30+ PL matches and we finished 6th, would you consider that progress? - because I wouldn't.

[alunevans]

I am not saying anything is progress. I'm predicting where we'll be at the end of the season which is a better place to judge than 6 games in.

For the bulk of while Rafa was in charge the club should have been hitting 4th place every year because there were 3 other clubs with more to spend on wages than us, and like it or not that's how it works.

Now I reckon that's down to 5th place with City being in the mix with money.

So a manager being basically competent gets us to that position.

Roy Hodgson got a "13th" placed team into 7th, and then got that same team pretty much where they should have been in 12th but with a European final to boot.

For all I'm disliking us at the moment, I'm tending to think he falls in the "basically competent" group of managers rather than the "special" or the "disastrous" group, so I'm making a basic judgement that he'll get us pretty much where we are "meant" to be given the resources the club has at it's disposal.

And that's 5th. But seeing as we were 7th last year, saying I think we'll do better than last year gives me predictive leeway for him to be a place short and that still be true.

I don't think the league is weaker by the way. In recent times there's been Chelsea and Man U and Arsenal with a higher wages spend than us. Now Man City are higher too. That means our "expected" position has fallen from 4th to 5th making any LFC manager's lot more difficult.

I'd be interested to know Spurs wages these days too as they must be sniffing down our necks also.

[Fernandinho]

I think the league is definetely not as good. Chelsea's squad is getting older and a lot thinner now, their bench isn't better then ours now. Utd have lost Ronaldo and Rooney isn't banging them in, also their defence isn't as good. Arsenal are about the same, but they always are... City are the only team better