OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW
The last Liverpool manager to win the English First Division title was Kenny Dalglish back in 1990. Since then, the club has seen a succession of managers (including Dalglish a second time around) fail to emulate this achievement. Now, after a middling season that saw the once-great club win the Carling Cup, place as runners-up in the FA Cup but finish below arch-rivals Everton in the Premier League, the club has sacked Dalglish and installed 39 year old Brendan Rodgers.
What has Brendan Rodgers achieved that suggests that he has what it takes to bring back to Anfield the Holy Grail that the likes of Gerard Houllier, Rafa Benitez, Roy Hodgson and Kenny Dalglish could not? So far, Rodgers has had just one season in the Premier League, a season in which his Swansea team punched well above its weight. Let’s look at a similar appointment that failed miserably – that of Andreas Villas-Boas (AVB).
AVB came to Chelsea as the golden boy of European football having won the Portuguese league championship and Europa League double with Porto before he even turned 35. Unfortunately for AVB, he was not able to win over the Chelsea vets (like John Terry, Frank Lampard or Didier Drogba) and lost the dressing room and ultimately his job.
Will Rodgers be able to convince the older players at Liverpool like Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Craig Bellamy and the like that he is the man to take Liverpool forward? That is the key question – would he be able to command the kind of respect that the players gave unconditionally to Dalglish – will he have to deal with the fallout of the players who felt disgruntled with Dalglish’s sacking?
It does seem like Liverpool has taken a gigantic step backwards. Rather than showing ambition and taking on an established manager with pedigree (Louis Van Gaal comes to mind), perhaps the Liverpool owners have elected to take on someone less experienced (and less costly?) that maybe they can find easier to ‘control’, someone who will be more amenable to their decisions in relation to new players and the like. Considering that most Liverpool fans are supportive of this appointment indicates that expectations are low and perhaps confirms the fact that Liverpool is no longer the big club it once was.
In any case, Liverpool fans – what do you think of the new strip?
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