BG

I played in a game against him once. We went for a 50/50 and he ended up limping off. Nothing in my time playing football since has given me as much satisfaction.

Put this on a banner for the next home game.

This content is not viewable to guests.

What in that they're two of the wins that Roy's so pleased about or I have missed a deeper significance?

Seems to me that to anyone as seemingly stat obsessed as our current owners this is the key to nailing Hodgson: showing that the away form he's delivering for us is entirely in keeping with his record in English football. By the way in the Dullards Corner thread I put up a brie comparison of our away form last year and this year and while last year was no picnic it was really an awful lot better than this.

Last year we got 21 points away - 9th best away form. Goal difference of -2, equal 6th best. This year after 9 sways we have 5 points - 17th best away form. Only Villla, Wolves and West Ham are worse. Fulham and Birmingham also have 5 points but have goal differences 6 or 7 superior to ours away. We have the 17th best away goal difference. Worth remembering when Roy and Sky are banging on about our away form being poor for a long time.

This should be put up on a billboard.

This content is not viewable to guests.

I remember reading that when Mourinho was first spoken to by Chelsea they were astonished to find he'd prepared a dossier on the general strengths and weaknesses of the club and had an assessment of individual players right down to the youth team (presumably compiled by Boas). Can only assume RH hadn't prepared to this kind of level and was coming to the job 'blind' and hence CP thought this appropriate/helpful. It speaks pretty poorly of Purslow that: 1. He's appointed a manager who clearly was ill-prepared (the RM position issue is another instance of this) and had clearly not demonstrated a detailed knowledge of the club's predicament and its players 2. He's appointed a manager so weak that he thinks he can influence him on who should be in the squad 3. He's quite this arrogant 4. He's unable to judge a player at all

This content is not viewable to guests.

A worse manager than Hodgson on a five and a half year deal.

Kelly would be fine there for the moment. Personally I'd try to get one half competent left back that stays fit before worrying about right back.

If we are serious about that Swiss right back or Fanni it doesn't augur all that well for GJ sticking around.

About to appoint Pardew. A worse manager than Hodgson. Quite an achievement that.

This content is not viewable to guests.

And very, very true.

(for the rest of us)

Given the state we're going to be n we should be after someone with a massive ego and iron self belief**. That'll be needed to persuade our better players to stay, get some others to join and more than anything, to impart belief to the whole club that Liverpool are about to deliver again. Ideally that self belief would be backed up with a substantial record of delivering trophies or massive and reasonably consistent over-achievement at a club of lower stature. For me the standout candidate of those who might be available in the next six months or so and be vaguely realistic (ie not Guardiola, Mourinho etc) is Van Gaal. I like him a lot as he plays good stuff, gets his teams to be more than the sum of their parts, and has Cruyff level self belief and arrogance. He's stubborn as hell, convinced he's always right and at times difficult and unpleasant - the press will hate him. But he's got the right stuff. I like Pellegrini a lot too. Perhaps Deschamps, Rijkaard possibly too. Capello, despite current problems, would do well too IMO. Haven't seen enough of Klopp, Emery, Laudrup and mini-Mourinho but they could be interesting. **Hodgson certainly has a big ego but IMO he's actually sounded pretty insecure and tetchy for most of his time at Anfield - talking about his 35 years experience, how much he's respected, how his methods worked at Malmo etc etc. All this sounds to me like a man out of his depth trying to talk himself up - not just to the media but to himself. He's scared to set targets in case he fails to hit them (the 7 in 9 comment), talks up runs that would be fine for a mid-table club but not for a club like Liverpool and tries to lower the targets to something he can achieve (the top half comment). Ultimately, even leaving aside his limitations as a judge of a player evidenced by his signings and his tactical ineptitude, I don't think he even has the kind of immense certainty in himself which makes him think he can drive a team, and a club, to success. Consequently no-one else paying attention thinks he can either.

One Roy's desperately hoping for so that he can update his philosophy:

Oops. At least it's correct in the text if not the title.

Kind of mental that a country with a population of 1.4m is building 10 or 12 stadia...some of them look pretty impressive that said

This content is not viewable to guests.

Quite like to see the Ronaldo vs Messi stats for the game. The Xavi vs Alonso ones would also be interesting.

Unbelievable stuff really from Barcelona. Nice too that Sky/English press won't be able to spend so much time fellating Mourinho over the next 24 hours which will be frustrating for them. Edit: 4-0. Out of this world.

Modric just ran past Carragher like he wasn't there then.