Pack your bags Roy

[Rudo]

There's a radio presenter in Belfast who i listen to every morning and he was adamant Hodgson would be gone by Thursday evening.

He's a Liverpool fan himself but he didn't say where he got the info from or anything. He could be talking bollocks for all i know.

[Rudo]

Can't get carried away yet, there's been too much of this.

****ing sure dude - there's too much ****e spouted on facebook/twitter/football forums and all the rest to believe anything until it is officiallly confirmed.

[Vermilion]

Not one media outlet running with the rumour yet either, even though i'm sure via their various twitter and facebook sites they will have heard about it.

They are bound to be checking it out now though.

[Fredo]

It's going to spread like wildfire now, the club will either deny this or stay silent. I can hardly see Hodgson on the bench tonight if this is true though, wouldn't make any sense.

[Fredo]

Hodgson's just denied the rumours.

royhodgson_lma The Hodge
Rumours of me leaving are wide of the mark. I'm here for a while longer yet. @T14WSH

[Fosterbloke]

I just posted to Twitter -

http://twitter.com/ErikReagan/status/22648311504707584

@skysports_bryan Have you heard anything on Hodgson's impending departure from #liverpoolfc?

[Glenn Hysen]

I'll get myself a bottle of whiskey on my way home from work, IF it happens!

[Fosterbloke]

Hodgson's just denied the rumours.

You need to read the Twitter page for that account -

LMA Manager of the Year 2010, 35 years of top managerial experience and manager of Liverpool FC. (Parody account)

[Fredo]

You need to read the Twitter page for that account -

LMA Manager of the Year 2010, 35 years of top managerial experience and manager of Liverpool FC. (Parody account)

No **** man.

[Lecter]

I just posted to Twitter -

http://twitter.com/ErikReagan/status/22648311504707584

@skysports_bryan Have you heard anything on Hodgson's impending departure from #liverpoolfc?

FLMAO asking Sky to clarify a rumour

[souliv]

Someone actually thought Roy knows and is able to use Twitter

[Skrtelmania]

Roy saying

"I will be doing my best during the time I am working here to justify my selection and trying to get the team playing the sort of football we played against Bolton."

suggests to me that he knows the game is up and it's just a question of when not if he's pushed. Could just be clutching at straws but as soon as I read that either he's realised there is no coming back or the hierarchy have told him he's off.

Fingers and toes tightly crossed, can see tomorrow been another constantly pressing F5 day.

[Dutte]

I think so.

Is this the bloke from LFC.no ?

He's not from LFC.no. He lives on Anfield Road, runs a B&B/small travel agency for LFC fans, and he's been to 375 LFC matches in a row on latest count. I think he's pretty well connected and certainly knows quite a few ex-players as he hires them as guides aroudn the stadium and in Liverpool etc for his travel agency.

[Tribute]

He's not from LFC.no. He lives on Anfield Road, runs a B&B/small travel agency for LFC fans, and he's been to 375 LFC matches in a row on latest count. I think he's pretty well connected and certainly knows quite a few ex-players as he hires them as guides aroudn the stadium and in Liverpool etc for his travel agency.

...he could get Roy to do the next few weeks after tonight then.

[Lecter]

Very interesting to read this in hindsight, was written and published on 20th of july 2010.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/wr....gson/index.html

Roy Hodgson arrived at Fulham in 2007 without much fanfare. He was regarded, probably largely because of an unhappy spell at Blackburn Rovers, as a mediocre manager who'd had reasonable success abroad with a string of mid-ranked countries -- Finland, Switzerland, Sweden -- but who couldn't really cut it at the highest level. His two years of rebuilding work at Internazionale in the 1990s, in which the Italian club finished seventh and third and reached the final of the UEFA Cup, was broadly ignored.

In his first months at Craven Cottage, Hodgson improbably saved Fulham from relegation. Then he took the club into Europe and, last season, led it on an unlikely run to the Europa League final, beating such luminaries as Shakhtar Donetsk, Juventus and Wolfsburg. Frankly, it wasn't going to get any better than that. A major vacancy opened at just the right time, Liverpool appointed him and, finally, at 62, Hodgson has his chance with one of the giants of the English game.

That Hodgson is a far better manager than he was given credit for in England until about 18 months ago is indisputable, but that is no guarantee he will be a success at Anfield, and not just because of the boardroom problems that continue to afflict the club.

Only four men have managed two different sides to the English league title: Tom Watson (Sunderland and Liverpool), Herbert Chapman (Huddersfield Town and Arsenal), Brian Clough (Derby County and Nottingham Forest) and Kenny Dalglish (Liverpool and Blackburn Rovers). Which, among other things, suggests that managerial skills are not easily transferable, that a manager who functions well with one group of players in a particular environment may not be equally successful with different players in a different environment. It's worth noting, given the impatience of modern football, that Watson and Chapman were in their fifth seasons before winning a trophy, Dalglish was in his fourth and Clough's first season at both Derby and Forest ended with the club in mid-table in the Second Division. Adjustment takes time, and Liverpool -- both fans and board -- must afford Hodgson the same patience it showed Rafa Benitez.

And then there is the issue of the change of level. Just because you can successfully manage a moderate team on a budget does not mean you can handle superstars and their egos.

"You can be a very good manager of a corner shop," former Manchester City player and director Dennis Tueart said, "but that doesn't mean you can run a multinational. It's a different skill set."

Hodgson, with his gentlemanly manner, gives the impression of being old enough and wise enough to make the change, but the concern must be that his style of play is rooted in organization. He was an early devotee of Allen Wade, the technical director of the Football Association who revolutionized coaching in England in the late 1960s, breaking down the game into its component parts and systematizing it.

Since he first took charge of the Swedish club Halmstad in 1976, Hodgson's method has remained essentially unchanged: 4-4-2 with zonal marking, looking to counter with long diagonals out of defense, and a profound belief in maintaining a disciplined defensive structure. Everybody, of course, talks about keeping the shape, but what has made Hodgson's teams better at doing it than most is practice.

"We work on it every day," Fulham midfielder Simon Davies said last season. "Every day in training is geared toward team shape. I've been working with the manager three seasons now and every day is team shape, and it shows."

The problem is, it's boring.

"We have a little laugh about it now and again," Davies said, "but when he [Hodgson] came in, we were fighting relegation and [he took us to] the Europa League so you take it. If you're going to play for him, you've got to put a shift in and perform, work to a system and be tight defensively. I don't want to give any secrets away, but he gets the 11 that he wants and he drills everything in that he wants. We've got the ball -- it's never unopposed. It's certain drills defensive, certain drills attacking and we work very hard at it. There are no diagrams, it's just all on the pitch. We do a lot of work after every game on analysis, sorting the bad things out, sorting the good things out."

Which raises two issues about Hodgson at Liverpool. First, assuming Steven Gerrard stays, how will Hodgson cope with a player who has always been frustratingly carefree, always prone to attempt the Hollywood pass, always bombing on rather than holding his position?

In watching Germany's Bastian Schweinsteiger during the World Cup, it was hard not to see the player Gerrard could have become with a little more tactical discipline. Benitez ended up despairing of him to the extent of turning him from box-to-box midfielder into a forward.

And second, will players at a club like Liverpool be prepared to put in constant grinding work on the training field? They reportedly chafed at the controlling nature of Benitez's personality; how different will Hodgson be? At first, probably, they will respond, partly because of the novelty of a new manager and partly because they remain chastened after a seventh-place finish last season, but the long term is less clear.

Fulham's players, as Davies admitted, succumbed to Hodgson's regimen because for them the Europa League was unimagined glamour; Liverpool's players may start wondering whether it may not be more fun at Manchester City or AC Milan or Valencia. And that's without even asking the question of how far disciplined football can take a side. To seventh, yes, as Fulham proved; to fourth, perhaps? To second, to first? It may be that to reach highest rungs, the discipline must be leavened by the sort of flair Fulham conspicuously lacked.

Then again, Hodgson is an astute man, and must be aware of the potential problems. Whether he can find solutions, though, is unclear, and that is the gamble Liverpool has taken. With a restricted budget, boardroom turmoil and a manager feeling his way in a new environment, though, nobody should expect results too soon.