Pack your bags Roy

[DannyMan2006]

Dream on Craig

[Ben_Itez]

Can't see news of this posted anywhere else but we've got it on good authority that NESV are convening a board meeting this week over here

this is totally independent of the Hodgson/ Henry rendezvous

I'll update if i hear anymore on it

fingers crossed, top of the agenda should be Roys increasingly untenable tenure

Let's hope so*prays*

I won't be able to render any enthusiasm for football until he's gone. He really is the worst of the worst........ i didnt want Rafa gone and i certainly didnt want Roy but i never, ever imagined he'd be this catastrophically bad

[Spanishfly]

Who wants to chip in for a banner... lol. We could do it like a child has done it and put oxfam on the bottom corner. Maybe he'll realise what he's doing to the kids is enough to get most people arrested.

[barnes10]

im utterly sick that this man is our manager.

completely and utterly not suitable to manager our club.

roy 'away loss' hodgeson has to go. zero interest in football since he's been around.

[merlboo]

Tony Barrett in todays Times


Since buying Liverpool in a £300 million deal last month, John W. Henry has been at pains to emphasise that he is still coming to terms with English football, the only area of the game of which he claims to possess extensive knowledge being the much-vaunted “Arsenal model” that he is endeavouring to replicate at Anfield.

If Liverpool’s new owner has done his research — and his knowledge of the recent history of the North London club seems sufficient for it to be his specialist subject were he to appear on Mastermind — he will know that the success of the Arsenal model was founded upon the replacement of Bruce Rioch, a steady if unspectacular manager with extensive experience if not an outstanding record, with Arsène Wenger, a genuine football visionary.

And if Henry is in tune with those supporters whose hopes he has come to represent, he will see Roy Hodgson’s tenure as the Rioch stage.

On Saturday, and for the second time this season, a vocal section of the Liverpool support made their feelings known about Hodgson. Born of frustration, a repeated chant of “Dalglish” emanated from the away end at the Britannia Stadium.

If that was bad enough for Hodgson, the sight of hundreds of seats left empty by departing fans after Kenwyne Jones had scored Stoke City’s second goal should have concerned him more.

Hodgson’s was never a populist appointment, but a fifth league defeat of the season has left him facing contrasting impostors that few embattled managers are ever able to survive — apathy and outright confrontation.

Hodgson’s failure to connect with the Liverpool supporters in any meaningful way is absolute, but it would not be potentially fatal if results and performances on the pitch were better. Unfortunately for him they are not and a aside from a mini-revival that peaked the previous weekend with a victory over Chelsea, he is presiding over one of the Barclays Premier League’s most negative teams, who have so little attacking intent that they have outscored only West Ham United and Wigan Athletic.

In losing so emphatically to Tony Pulis’s enterprising side, with Lucas Leiva sent off late on for a second bookable offence, Hodgson also became only the second Liverpool manager in the past 35 years to sample defeat by Stoke and he can have no complaints about being on the receiving end of that statistic.

Away from home, Liverpool are submissive to the point of outright negativity, sitting deep, inviting trouble and usually getting it. They have won once on their travels this season. Indeed, at Fulham and Liverpool, Hodgson has inspired only one away victory since August last year. Blackpool, by contrast, have won three games away from Bloomfield Road since promotion, the difference being that Ian Holloway’s team play without fear and with a determination to get players forward regardless of whom their opponents may be.

Like Holloway, Pulis has rediscovered the key to getting the best out of his players. The Stoke manager may not have a Fernando Torres or a Steven Gerrard, but he is able to come up with a tactical system, albeit a rudimentary one, built on a combination of using percentages to their advantage and making life as difficult as possible for the opposition, while engendering a team spirit that makes them more than the sum of their parts.
For all the criticism that Pulis’s approach receives — and the chaos theory-inspired opening goal by Ricardo Fuller from the predictable source of an enormous throw-in by Rory Delap will do little to assuage football’s purists — the point is that his job is to get the most out of the resources at his disposal and that is exactly what he is doing.

In the previous transfer window, Pulis signed four players — Jermaine Pennant, who set up Jones’s goal on Saturday, Marc Wilson, Salif Diao and Eidur Gudjohnsen — for an initial cash outlay less than the £5 million Liverpool paid for Paul Konchesky, who, like all Hodgson’s summer signings, is struggling badly. No wonder Henry has introduced Damien Comolli as director of football strategy, effectively a transfer tsar, as he goes in search of the ingredients he believes will help him to recreate the Arsenal recipe.

One thing is for sure, Henry did not buy Liverpool with the intention of seeing them in the bottom half of the table and being easily overcome by Stoke. Only if Hodgson finds a way of getting a great deal more out of the players at his disposal, à la Pulis, will he avoid suffering a similar fate to Rioch and becoming a casualty of change.

[Neil Young]

It's encouraging to see more and more in the mainstream media coming round to the view 90% or more of fans have had for months now.

[Craig_H]

Yeah, it always takes longer for the mainstream mob, but the myth about 'nice guy overachiever' hodgson is being ripped to pieces, at last.

[Rudo]

Yeah, it always takes longer for the mainstream mob, but the myth about 'nice guy overachiever' hodgson is being ripped to pieces, at last.

If he was more humble and honest would you have more time for him?

Maybe still want him out but not so strongly?

[Craig_H]

I would still want him out, because he is useless. I wouldnt hate him with a passion, though.

[dww]

If he was more humble and honest would you have more time for him?

Maybe still want him out but not so strongly?

I would suggest he is if anything too honest. He may believe completely different things about players, tactics and situations that I do but I rarely get the impression he is trying deliberately to mislead.

If he was more humble he might recognize things need to change one way or another. Other than that I can't say I his demeanor would affect whether I wanted him to go. It would lessen how viscerally I felt it but not that the right decision to have a manager who believes in attacking in away games and uses modern tactics.

[DannyMan2006]

If he was more humble and honest would you have more time for him?

Maybe still want him out but not so strongly?

Hell no. I'd be more respectful to him but I'd still want him out just as much. The football is appalling to watch. It's embarrassing.

[banditos]

I would suggest he is if anything too honest. He may believe completely different things about players, tactics and situations that I do but I rarely get the impression he is trying deliberately to mislead.

If he was more humble he might recognize things need to change one way or another. Other than that I can't say I his demeanor would affect whether I wanted him to go. It would lessen how viscerally I felt it but not that the right decision to have a manager who believes in attacking in away games and uses modern tactics.

Not to himself he's not. Some of his reviews of our performances (Everton and Stoke spring to mind) have bordered on the delusional.

[Kenneth]

Well done Tony.

[Lecter]

Nicked off RAWK from the same poster that did the puece I have posted this evening in the Comolli thread

Do you think they will sack Roy soon

Personally I do. It might not be this week or next, but I simply can't see him hanging into the January Transfer Window.


Here's my rationale for what it's worth :

• [li]NESV know that what Hodgson walked into was not close to being ideal. They might not be futbol guys historically, but they are sports guys and great businessmen, so they will be able to figure out the next bullet point.[/li]
  [li]At our recent best (first half of the 08/09 Season) we were a team drilled in possession tactics that played a possession game and played a high-defensive line and pressed aggressively all over the pitch. Great formula. Fast forward a year later and we were a team drilled in possession tactics that could no longer effectively play a possession game (i.e. Alonso gone) and played a defensive line and pressed aggressively all over the pitch (with now aging players). The formula was broken. Then fast forward to this current year... Roy sees what's going on. The guy is many things but one thing he isn't is stupid. He sees that the formula that once worked is now broken. So what does he do... He tries to cobble together some tactics to fit this squad. In his interview for the job he likely told Hicks/GG that he wanted to use what Mourinho very effectively set-up @ Inter (non-possession tactics, low-defensive line, and AM who came back deep for the ball, and strong wing counter attack. Sounds good. Unfortunately he has ushered in the Fulham-version of that so we are stuck with a team drilled in possession tactics playing a non-possession game with a very low defensive line who only gets the occasional counter attack if the CF can out-muscle 2 CBs to the ball.[/li]
  [li]The results are one thing. Sure everyone is going to have a hiccup here or there (especially new managers). Look no further than what Rafa is doing @ Inter for more proof of this.[/li]
  [li]But more importantly these new managers need to show that they are (1) asking the right questions with their team selection & tactics and (2) when things didn't work out as planned that they are making the necessary changes. It's hard to argue either of these points in Hodgson's favor. So those are a couple of things.[/li]
  [li]The bigger issue for me is that if we can believe some of the reports, Hodgson has managed to divide the clubhouse. Maybe it was the Spanish Mafia taking it out on the Scouse Mafia, this time around, but the bottom line is that Hodgson is in the middle of it and he has no recourse from it. He can't fix it. This is a problem, the biggest problem in my opinion, and the one that is going to get him fired.[/li]
  [li]If Comolli/Henry/Werner/CEO/Segura are going to build something substantial here, which I think we can all agree that they 100% are determined to do, they are going to need a few good youngish (mid-to-late 20s) superstars to build the team around and to hold up as examples to the Academy. These superstars will be the core of the team. If two of those guys are fighting with 2 other aging veterans it's not going to bode well. At a minimum NESV will need to get a manager & style of play that everyone can more or less agree on. Then after that, they can deal with any bickering between the Spanish Mafia & Scouse Mafia, either by moving players on or by diminishing their roles.[/li]
  [li]Under that scenario it's difficult for me to see Hodgson ever having what it takes to bring the Spanish Mafia on board...[/li]
  [li]Hopefully it doesn't get too testy, but if push is going to come to shove, it's going to be a fairly simple decision for NESV regarding which clubhouse faction to back... Expensive but younger Torres & Reina or expensive but older Carragher & Gerrard. That's sort of a no-brainer. Then mend any fences after.[/li]

Also just a quick timeline to what happened when NESV took over the Sox in 2002:

• [li]Acquire the Sox in Jan 2002[/li]
  [li]Name a new CEO/President in Jan 2002[/li]
  [li]Name a new General Manager (i.e. DoF) in Feb 2002[/li]
  [li]Name a new Corporate Structure in Feb 2002[/li]
  [li]Sack the existing manager who was hired only 5 months earlier in March 2002[/li]
  [li]Name a new manager in March 2002[/li]

It's fair to say that these guys act and that they have proven that they set up the structure first, get the top guys in, and then get the manager that they want on board. Again, it might not be the big name manager that everyone wants (Hiddink, Beneitez, Van Gaal), but IMO it will be the best guy to fit the system longer-term.

[peekay]

An absolutely great thread on ynwa.tv: Great Moments in History with Hodgson

http://www.ynwa.tv/forum/index.php?showtopic=150983&st=80

Need to log in.



We shall fight on the beaches, but I think to expect us to never surrender would be wildly optimistic.



That's as good as Goliath has played all season.



Sure the lad did well but to be fair he was up against a very tired persian army..... anyway I dont want to talk positives.



It's a shame that after such a smashing war people only want to talk about the result