The walters step over

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It was always going to be like that, it will be worth watching that journalist show tomorrow just to see how they contort themselves into absolving Hodgson from most of the blame for this season. Barclay in the Times today tries to equate criticism of PFK as us wanting Roberto Carlos or Maldini! In other words, we're unrealistic in our ambitions (except for last season when the journalistic line was that Rafa should've been easily qualifying in the top four with the same squad of players.. ) If anyone bothers to reply to Hayward,Barclay or winter ask them a simple question - do they still want Roy Hodgson to take over the England job from multiple title winning Capello?

Jesus f*ckin' Christ! The conspiracy theories are getting beyond the joke. Something like that gets said, with no basis in reality - another person replies "well, if that's true I'll.." - and the circle just keeps on spinning. Fact - it was widely reported in every news outlet that our board don't have any confidence in Hodgson and are looking for a replacement, this hasn't been denied by anyone 5 days later which is as good as admitting that it was leaked by the club to reassure fans that something is being done. Fact - Kenny, who many people want to take temporary charge is away on business, so why does anyone think it'll happen tonight with Kenny unavailable for interviews with the media? It's getting hysterical, Hodgson needs to be gone a.s.a.p but it's a case of be careful what you wish for - if the next appointments rushed and they get the wrong man then it'll set us back years, never mind the chance to win the F.A bloody cup. I've seen Henry genuinely being compared to the two c*nts because he wants to make absolutely sure that he's doing the right thing. It's childish "I'll scream and scream until I get what I want" b*llocks - if you think that the very real possibilty of going into administration and having £300m worth of debt is roughly comparable to having a manager that's out of his depth then you're an idiot. Either that, or your in competition to be more outraged than anyone else at Hodgsons use of the 4-4-2 system. Something IS being done, but it's being done behind the scenes - you know, the way that we've been asking for club business to be done for the last 3 years . No one has any idea if Kenny is up to the job and pretending that a decade out won't have any effecty on his ability to do the job is just extremely wishful thinking. When Keegan went back to Newcastle the other year there was a thread on the Genny that amounted to two pages of "LOL - Newcastle are dumb feckers aren't they? " It's entirely reasonable for the owners to have wanted to give Hodgson time, the alternatives being - install a legend as a stop gap (and does he get money to spend? ) that hasn't been at the sharp end this decade, hire a permanent appointment from whoevers available and maybe not get the guy you want or wait for the summer, have a wide range of options and try to make the best decision with the best information available. The owners have come into a situation that they obviously didn't want, they're not trying to sabotage the club and just because they're not appearing on sky every five minutes to tell you what's happening doesn't mean that they're not doing anything. I've read a lot on here about Hodgson not getting "the Liverpool way" but I tell you what, jumping up and down screaming "I WANT IT NOW!!" and calling for "fan action" isn't what I call "the way" either - it's just makes us look small time.

Hopefully you're right, it's strange that he hasn't responded to the stories that the board are looking for a replacement, we know he rates himself and he was quick enough with his put downs when Rijkaard was mentioned. Hopefully it goes something like : Stories appear that the board don't rate him. He asks for assurances/money for transfers - doesn't get either. Agrees to leave after the match and picks up his severance thereby knowing that he'll have enough people in the game/media that will defend him for not having enough time and that he'll probably be at another club before seasons end. New manager announced Friday. Sounds alright to me..

If that is true then I think all it shows is that they don't trust him to spend any decent amounts, if they save whatever funds they have for the new guy in the summer then I would say that's a pretty smart thing to do. Presumably, they DO trust Comolli so if he prints off a list of players not for sale and says to Hodgson "you can spend what you bring in from the rest" whilst he (Comolli) tries to sign up any exciting youngsters then I don't have a problem with that at all.

That bit in bolds spot on and it never gets mentioned by anyone in the media. One of the problems we have over here is "big name" players just assuming that they have a right to try management as soon as they stop playing, their main qualifications being "I played under...for years and if I do half as well as him..". It also hardly ever gets mentioned that Mourinho,Benitez,Wenger and Houllier have won about a dozen trophies between them in the last decade but if they were British/Irish they wouldn't have received an interview for theTorquay Utd job because they never played the game proffessionally. Back on topic,in the Times even Barclay sort of admitted that he'd got it wrong in predicting success for Hodgson although he intimated that the fans were expecting someone to come in and turn a 7th place finish into a title challenge overnight.

But again, the assumption is that we'd improve. If Kenny had been working solidly up until a year or two ago then they may well have made the switch, going by the press it looks like they think that he's been out the game too long and will never appoint him. To be honest, the fact that they're not going for the easy way to get fans on their side makes me optimistic for the future. They've got 3 choices - see which managers are available now and appoint someone from a very short list, keep Hodgson and give themselves enough time to get the man that they absolutely believe in or roll the dice and hope that Kenny gets better results. There's been posts on here comparing Henry to G+H because he hasn't sacked Hodgson yet but to me bringing in Kenny would be an insanely irresponsible gamble to take. He would be virtually sack proof and if things didn't improve (or even got worse) - and there's no evidence at all to suggest that he's up to the job - we could be well and truly fecked. edit - just seen the piece above, he must be off soon. That's a bit of a kicking they've given him and I can't see why they'd want to burn their bridges unless they had some info that it's over.

Every Liverpool fan is frustrated and wants Hodgson out and wants the board to act but no one knows - certainly nobody on any fan site - what timescale they've been working to. To get rid of Hodgson and his staff would cost what, £10m-ish? add on the cost of hiring the new guy and his staff, and maybe compensation to his club if he's under contract then they'll be easily looking at around £15m - £20m in total. In other words, roughly our record transfer fee goes out the club and can't be spent on improving the squad. If we're going to make that commitment I would much rather have Hodgson until the summer because if they get it wrong then we could very well see ourselves in the same boat in 18 months time.

I see it as being the complete opposite. They've come into a sport that they're not familiar with, and will need time to asses their options - that's what they're doing. It is pretty obvious that they don't have any faith in Hodgson and they will want the best man possible for the job, why can't people get that? Kenny hasn't managed for the best part of 10 years, Thommo has been sat in a studio for the last six, and hasn't been employed by any other football club in a coaching capacity. What possible reasons would NESV have to consider them as a safe pair of hands until the summer? And what if Henry thinks that by giving Kenny the job it would put off any prospective candidates who would think that the fans will be calling for the legend to return whenever we go through a bad spell? By the sounds of the bits that they've fed to the press it looks like they are looking at the long term, which would mean no approaches for Hiddink,Van Gaal or Cappello. How can anyone possibly call them for that? It'd be ideal if they appointed someone this week but if they are being sensible and planning for the future then Isn't that exactly the type of owners we've been asking for on here for the last three years? The second highlighted part says a lot to me, you're really suggesting that the chance to win a cup this year should be a factor in making such an important decision? If the board use the rest of the season to put all of their plans in place, to get the manager they want and build a healthy budget for him to go into the market in the summer can anybody tell me why that's such a bad thing for them to do?

Problem is that takes f*ckin forever to reach a conclusion an' all..

I think you're right, if they're briefing the press that he's out then you'd imagine/hope that they're a decent way down the road to getting someone else. Which would obviously be a good thing. It may also be that they know who they want, they have an agreement, but the man in question won't join until the summer, which is obviously not quite so good. It'll become obvious soon enough, if we make bids for players that are obviously Hodgson types like Carlton Cole and Robert Huth then he's staying for the forseeable. Any youngsters or Bosmans for next year and you'd imagine that's him gone.

If it wasn't our club he was manager of it would be funny watching the big hitters like Barclay,Hayward and Winter wriggle themselves into a position of trying to slowly distance themselves from a manager they all thought was better equipped than multi title winning Cappello to be in charge of England.

I feel a bit strange standing up for Purslow, but I'll do it anyway. You're spot on in saying that his "transfer account" money vanished, but in my eyes you're trying to shoot the messanger - G+H owned the club and the budget (or lack of one) was ultimately down to them. Unless you believe that Purslow was skimming money from the club into his own accounts - and there's not the merest hint this happened - then he was acting according to his boss' instructions, he either goes along with telling Rafa what he was in turn told to say, or he refuses and is probably let go. Again, in his position, what would you have done? Did he want Rafa out and briefed the press against him? Yeah, almost certainly by the looks of things. On the flip side Rafa was playing the press for his own ends .The fact that Rafa has fallen out very badly with his bosses in his last three jobs tells you that he probably isn't the easiest to work with when things don't happen exactly how he wants. The thing about English managers is irrelevant as Deschamp has come out and said that he was approached in the summer so that kind of rules out any anti-foreigner bias on Purslows part. The bit I put about Gerrard/Torres/Carra v. Rafa has still been unanswered by anyone. The three board members would certainly have asked those players their opinions - they'd have been suicidal not to. Getting rid of G+H was one of the most important things to happen in the clubs history if we are to have any decent future. The board wouldn't haved risked p*ssing off it's two superstars, if they went then it may have put off investors. So again the question is this, what would you have done if you were Purslow (besides "hilariously" saying that you'd kill yourself)?

For what purpose? How can he be power hungry? he's just done himself out of a job. Did he brief journos? Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest - Rafa did the same. He tried to rebuild the club around whose beliefs? are you saying that he stopped Rafa from getting who he wanted because he thought he (purslow) knew better? Where's the evidence? I don't know Purslow at all, but it seem obvious that he (and Ayres) could have walked away at any time to save themselves the hassle of G+H - the fact they didn't helped us change owners. I've no idea of business at that level but I've seen people on here try to make out that basically anyone could have done what Purslow did in standing up to G+H in order to make their points about Rafa. Again I ask, given the situation at the club in the summer - who would you choose, Rafa or Torres and Gerrard? and if you choose RAfa, what do you think would've happened next?

He played a huge part in getting our club out of the hands of Hicks and his mates, so yeah, in my eyes he is a bit of a hero if you want to use those words - someone on here the other day said that Purslow "was just doing what the lawyers told him to" - which lawyers wasn't made clear but the general point was taken. Purslow is scum and only interested in himself, end of,obviously we have to ignore the bit whereby he went to war with his employers and helped to bring in another group and guarantee that he would be without a job as soon as their feet was under the table - but that shouldn't be too hard to do . Why is he scum? Because he got single handedly got rid of Rafa of course - except for the unfortunate fact that it was ultimately Broughtons decision to make - but again, we can ignore that as well. Broughton also held the interview with Hodgson and then went on SKY to give the reasons why he gave uncle Roy the job - none of which get mentioned in the "f*ck Purslow" thread but there you go, if you ignore one inconveniant truth to help your argument then you might as well ignore them all. If the stories that Rafa had lost the support of Torres and Gerrard were true and you were Purslow,and bearing in mind that you were fighting day and night against the two b*stards for the future of the club, what would you have wanted to happen - Rafa stays but your star players go and with them a big selling point for potential investors, or you keep the players and see if another manager can get more out of the squad than finishing 7th? For the record, given a straight choice between Rafa or Hodgson I'd chooose Rafa every day of the week.

Like who? And what sort of owners would they be? It does my head in that people on here don't get the seriousness of the situation we were in during the summer. Our chairman had to give assurances that we could financially afford to fulfill this seasons fixtures, we faced the very real possibilty of going into administration and having points deducted. If the board (including f*cking Purslow) hadn't fought as hard as they did we could even be owned by a combination of Hicks and a hedge fund that wanted it's money by any means possible - we could very easily have "done a Leeds" and yet there's still a large amount of fans that just disregard all of that as irrelevant just because Rafa was sacked after finishing 7th - absolute fecking madness.

I just can't see that tbh, even if that were the case it's a very handy excuse for failure and you can guarantee that Roy will do the " I need a full Summer with my own signings" bit with the owners when he speaks to them. It comes down to whether they feel confident enough in the knowledge of the people advising them on footballing matters - They won't see the point of changing managers unless they're absolutely certain that they're trading up. Everyone had better get used to Hodgson being here because unless he seriously fecks things up he's here all season. On a side note,it is possible to feel that the time was right for Rafa to go and still think that Hodgson isn't anywhere near good enough so I don't know why that's being used on here as a stick to beat people with.

That's how I see it, they probably don't see much value in making such a big decision so early into their reign when they don't know exactly who they should replace him with. I know a lot will say "easy, put Kenny in charge" but emotion won't come into it for them - I would imagine that they'll be very reluctant to put someone in charge of their investment that hasn't managed for so long. At a cost of £2-3 million to pay off Hodgson it would be a hell of an expensive leap of faith for them - I'm willing to bet that Roy is saying something similar to them in private in order to keep his job. Realistically, I can see us scraping enough points together to climb up to around 10th-ish by xmas and Hodgson being given some money in the Jan. window to see what he can do (I can definately see him saying to the owners "if I bring in 3 players I'll turn things around"). Torres might well go and we'll bounce around in mid table whilst the owners get to know what's required and hopefully bring in a top line manager and give him decent funds during the summer. Not very cheery I know, but unless we only pick up 5-6 points from now 'till xmas I just don't think that they'll want to rush things and risk making a huge mistake.