2010 – LFC’s year of agony

We have seen better transfer windows than Milan Jovanovic, Danny Wilson and Joe Cole.

I remember 2011 as if it were yesterday. A few days into January, Dalglish was appointed manager after a disastrous seven months in which the managing hero of Istanbul had been replaced by ‘what’s-his-name’, the man fans try to forget. Historians, however, are not allowed to forget, as their job entails trying to be wise after the events. The main problem seems to be deciding the direction in which the arrow of blame should point, as there are so many possible – even probable – targets. The capitalist system, owners, manager, players and (believe it or not) even the fans have all been accused of undermining the team’s efforts on the pitch as our league position fell from a bad-enough 7th at the end of the 2009/10 season to relegation-zone 19th after a defeat at Goodison on 17 October. Newspapers had a field day (both on and off the field), with strikingly similar judgments on LFC’s fall from grace. By the end of September, match reports in the press could spend as many column inches on Liverpool’s parlous financial affairs as on the football itself.

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In 2007, Chairman David Moores had sold his majority shareholding to Americans Gillett and his new business partner Hicks for £174m, plus promises to wipe off a £45m debt and contribute £215m towards a new stadium. Moores’ understandable motive for this transaction was to avoid LFC falling behind the inevitable rise of Chelsea and any other club boosted by a huge injection of foreign capital. It was not long before Liverpool realised that promises of these particular new owners were following a financial model based on heavy borrowing in order to satisfy the manager and the fans, but also to boost the value of the club in order to sell it on at a great profit. Meanwhile, up to an estimated £100,000 per day left the club in interest payments.

We reached the Champions’ League Final in their first year, 2007, and excellent players (Lucas, Mascherano, Skrtel, and Torres) were brought in. Twelve months into their tenure, Hicks and Gillett fell out with each other, unfortunately with the former having a golden share. In 2009 Chief Executive Rick Parry left in despair. Financial pressures caused new managing director Christian Purslow to interfere with recruitment, leaving Benitez with no option but to resign. He had already suffered the rumour that he was going to be replaced anyway by the managerially inexperienced Jurgen Klinsmann.

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So, when Roy Hodgson arrived on 1 July 2010 to take up his 18th managerial job, the parts were already in place for the disaster to happen – owners at each other’s throats; the club deeply in debt to the tune of £350M, and up for sale during a world recession; internal disagreements which had seen off a very successful manager in Benitez after the worst final league position (7th) during his spell at Liverpool; and the recent loss of some good players, like Benayoun and Riera. The club had also failed to plan for the new 25-man squad rule, having only four (instead of a minimum of eight) ‘home-grown’ players – hence some of Hodgson’s early purchases which still left the club with a 21-man squad when the owners ran out of cash.

Even before the first match, fans and commentators expressed doubts about the newcomer, in terms of his managerial experience which was certainly long in years – but in quality? He was believed to be a man of lower expectations than LFC was used to. Yet, he had guided the national teams of Finland, the UAE and Switzerland, and managed Malmo, Inter Milan, Grasshoppers, Copenhagen, and Udinese. Premier League credits were at Blackburn Rovers, and at Fulham which he had recently steered to the final of the Europa League in 2010, a few days after being voted the LMA’s Manager of the Year.

Hodgson inherited from Benitez not only a place in the Europa League but also a sense of Europe as a place of refuge from criticism at home, winning six, drawing four, and losing none of his matches. (In turn, Kenny Dalglish inherited from Hodgson a place in the round of 32, but lost to Braga in the round of 16.) Hodgson’s European successes were nevertheless greeted somewhat grudgingly by the press which emphasised the poorer quality of the opposition rather than our ability to beat them, often without our big names – for example, we held Utrecht at Anfield with no Gerrard, and with Torres an unused substitute.

Among his first problems at LFC was recruitment, including tackling the new 25-man squad system brought in for the 2010/11 season. Within days, the club had appointed Joe Cole and Milan Jovanovic (both on a free transfer), followed in August by Brad Jones, Paul Konchesky, Raul Meireles, and Christian Poulsen. The choice did little to impress the Kop, with only the Chelsea and England wizard Joe Cole a crowd puller, title and cup winner. Brad Jones might have been given the #1 shirt, but he was a backup for Reina. Konchesky came from the over-achieving Fulham, with Hodgson. Meireles ominously took the shirt number of Aquilani, who had gone to Juventus on loan – he impressed, but to little avail when played out of position on the wing. Poulsen lasted a whole twelve months with LFC, despite his performances for which he became ‘a figure of derision’ (Echo). With the occasional, exceptional game, none of Hodgson’s new boys came up to scratch, though they were all in the first 25-man squad, the rebel Mascherano having been sold to Barcelona in the summer window of 2010, much to the disgust of the fans. Jones stayed another 4 years at Liverpool, Cole 2, Meireles 1, Konchesky and Poulsen 0.

What must have made matters even worse for Hodgson was the sight of great names from Liverpool’s glorious past watching on (three years later, David Moyes was to experience similar feelings at Old Trafford), especially Kenny Dalglish who had been not only a successful player and manager, but had also had his own application to succeed Benitez snubbed. 

Raul Meireles impressed on occasions.

At the time of the appointment, Hodgson’s reputation for defensive tactics (still evident in his current Watford appointment) did not go down well with the Kop, and was greeted with a double alarm because of what it confirmed about the football knowledge (and LFC knowledge) of the owners. Even Glen Johnson publicly criticised Hodgson’s tactics as ‘boring’. Nevertheless, to Hodgson’s own relief, results carried him through a honeymoon period, using Benitez’ overall tactics, until the sky fell in on 22 September when we were knocked out of the League Cup by League Two Northampton Town. That was far too serious a loss to be attributable only to Hicks and Gillett. Not only had the honeymoon ended – the marriage was already on the rocks (Telegraph) after losing to a side 69 places below them. The elementary error of playing a ‘B’ team, albeit with six internationals among them, without proper first team backup available on the bench for emergencies, came back not only to bite him but also to haunt him. It was neither the first nor by any means the last tactical error noted by an increasingly frustrated and angry Kop, which kept reminding the manager and players that you can’t win games by defending or with players out of position. ‘Attack, attack’ seemed to fall on deaf ears, even against lowly Northampton, and some of ‘the passing from Roy Hodgson’s men resembled a drunken game of pin the tail on the donkey’. (Echo on the Everton game.) The Kop could not, using their normal honesty, even applaud 19th-placed Wolves for winning 0-1 at Anfield for playing well, because they hadn’t.

There was a perceptible sigh of relief at the departure of Hicks and Gillett in mid-October, and Liverpool went on a bounce run of four consecutive wins against Blackburn, Bolton, Napoli and Chelsea, the last performance being alone, among Hodgson’s 31 games, reminiscent of the Liverpool sides of old. By November, however, our results were yo-yoing mid-table (in an uncanny micro-version of Hodgson’s whole managerial career). Hodgson, out of his depth and drowning, came up for air three times by beating hopeless West Ham, Aston Villa and Bolton before finally failing at Ewood Park.

After the first three league matches which potentially distort the whole, Benitez’ average league position for 2009/10 (his worst season with LFC) was 5.9. Hodgson’s to his point of departure, was 12.3, which Dalglish reduced to 7.0 for the remainder of the 2010/11 season.

Why was that Blackburn game on 5 January 2011 (which we lost 3-1) the occasion of Hodgson’s departure? It would be easy to ascribe the timing as ‘Fate’, if you believe in such things. He had been sacked as Blackburn manager in 1998 following a loss at Ewood Park to Southampton which sent them to the bottom of the Premier League. Now, Blackburn had five regular first-team players missing while LFC was sporting Reina, Johnson, Skrtel, Gerrard, Cole, Maxi and Torres. ‘Only Gerrard seemed to care’ (Telegraph) and even he missed a penalty. It had otherwise been LFC’s occasion to celebrate its 3,000th game in all competitions – but crowd revenue now spoke, the away end being only three-quarters full.
The problems off pitch had clearly disturbed our better players, particularly Fernando Torres who, as everyone realised, will have been targeted by many other clubs. Hodgson had a habit of resting him, even for big games. When he was on the pitch, too often he received little service from an inadequate midfield. His feud with Carragher took place in front of an ecstatic Goodison crowd. Even Gerrard, between rescue acts (especially his hat-trick against Napoli on 4 November), was not immune from looking elsewhere for his own future, and was once observed at Goodison as needing a phone call from the Samaritans. Nor was he free from injury during this period.

Torres was on his way out and Hodgson didn't see the best of him

Joe Cole disappointed, sent off in his first league game, and benched four times in Hodgson’s last six games. Yet he remained staunchly supportive of his manager in public. Hodgson’s pronouncements did little to improve his credibility. The nadir was probably after the Goodison game, on which the Times reported that, at the press conference, the manager thought his team played well, [that] this was their finest performance of the season and that in no way, particularly in the second half, were they either lacking in confidence or inferior to their hosts. With this interpretation of the game, it is difficult to know whether he was deluded or simply lying to the fans and to the new owners watching on in the stands. (See for yourself on YouTube.)

Watching Benitez during a game, always self-controlled, studiously making his notes as if personally indifferent to the action on the pitch, was acceptable to the fans so long as the teams were winning. Hodgson clearly felt and showed the passion, though often with idiosyncratic gestures and (literally scratching his head) giving the impression that he did not know how to correct what was going wrong on the pitch. If you need any reminder, have a look at the GIF from the game at Newcastle in his lfchistory manager’s entry.
The fans reacted to Hodgson as they had to Hicks and Gillett. The chanting of Dalglish’s name started on 3 October as we were being beaten by Blackpool at Anfield, repeated at subsequent losses, and replaced by the even more offensive ‘Hodgson for England’ at the last game in 2010. In turn, Hodgson dared to criticize the fans, accusing them of affecting performances through the negative atmosphere being created. Until the end, however, fans had remained loyal at the turnstiles, our home gates for league matches being steady, compared with the equivalent game the season before, until January.

Benitez (2009/10)           Hodgson (2010)
Arsenal 43,853 44,722 (15 August)
WBA n/a 41,194 (29 August)
Sunderland 43,121 43,626 (25 September)
Blackpool n/a 43,156 (3 October)
Blackburn 42,795 43,328 (24 October)
Chelsea 44,375 44,238 (7 November)
West Ham 37,697 43,024 (20 November)
Aston Villa 43,667 39,079 (6 December)
Wolves 41,956 41,614 (29 December)
Bolton 43,413 35,400 (1 January)

The people were speaking with their feet against the man put in charge by the usurpers of one of footballing royal houses. We remember the ritual, ‘the king is dead, long live the king’. Hodgson, whose forename means ‘King’, was succeeded by King Kenny, much to the delight and relief of LFC fans around the world. Thus began the reign of Dalglish the Second. 

Dalglish was a popular replacement for Hodgson

How should we remember Roy Hodgson? Certainly not in the light of the Guardian’s reaction to his first match - ‘A new, exciting, chapter might just have begun at Anfield.’ Asked to comment on the ups and downs of his first months at Liverpool, he wryly replied, ‘What ups are you talking about?’ Yet Liverpool had just avoided bankruptcy and beaten Chelsea in a rejuvenated performance following the departure of Hicks and Gillett. It had prompted the Chelsea manager Ancelotti’s suggestion that LFC could even challenge for top four after all. At the other end of a long scale of performances was the loss to Northampton Town from League Two, who knocked us out of the League Cup on penalties in front of the Kop, with no Cole, Gerrard or Torres in sight. At least as depressing was losing to Everton at Goodison, when the onlooking new owners, Henry and Werner, were asked by a Blues fan if they’d kept the receipt. The look on Henry’s face suggested that he still had to come to terms with scouse humour.

Hicks and Gillett had affected the fundamentals of LFC, and the club floundered like a fish starved of oxygen, unable to buy suitable new players (possibly except the disappointing Joe Cole). They had appointed a manager whose style was simply alien to Liverpool’s attacking traditions. Even Dalglish could not win any of his first three matches, but now at least his stature in the game allowed Liverpool to sell a generally mis-firing Torres and, in a statement of attacking intent, to buy Carroll and Suarez in the window of January 2011. Torres continued to mis-fire at Chelsea, but Suarez was mesmerizingly and unforgettably Suarez at LFC.