A guest post today by one of the best actual footie players in the Never Captain Nicky Butt network of contributors – of course, it’s Griggers. Former high school and college soccer star in the United States, he’s currently completing his coaching badges and managing on the high school and club level. Big Liverpool fan, his words carry just a tad bit more weight due to his footballing pedigree… Enjoy.
Over the past three weeks, Liverpool FC has seen a big change in character, and it stems largely from their new/old manager. “King Kenny” Dalglish has returned to the sidelines where he once took Liverpool to the greatest European heights. Back in the 1980s, when this writer first became a fan, Anfield was quite possibly the happiest place on Earth. Disney might argue that, but just watch some old footage of Ian Rush’s goals and then look at Dalglish’s celebrations. Mickey Mouse has nothing on King Kenny’s smile.
Now it is a new era at Anfield – not to mention a new millennium. In his first game in charge, he saw the Reds take on rival Manchester United in the 3rd round of the FA Cup. After losing skipper Steven Gerrard, Dalglish’s 10 men were arguably the better side. But United’s early penalty dropped Liverpool from the competition. Despite a loss in the next game at Blackpool and then a draw at home in the Merseyside Derby, Dalglish’s attitude was a welcome change for all Red supporters along the Mersey River.
There seemed to be positive things happening in Liverpool, and the fans were backing one of Liverpool’s greatest players and managers. This was in spite of the fact that if the Reds lost at Molineux, Dalglish would have recorded the worst start to a campaign by a manager in its history. But all those good feelings came to fruition with two massive League wins against Wolves and Fulham. Four goals for, two shutouts, and that big smile on the sideline once again. Liverpool fans had reason to be smiling themselves.
With all of that in mind, here are five key factors to why Liverpool fans are looking at the table and expecting to fight for a spot in Europe next season.
1) Lucas DID NOT feature against Fulham. For whatever the reason, Rafa Benitez, Roy Hodgson and King Kenny all played Lucas in the middle of the field. Liverpool’s demise over the past two seasons can be directly linked with the departure of Xabi Alonso. But, you could argue that the departure of both Benitez and Hodgson can also be directly linked with how much faith they put in the Brazilian. Poulsen is not necessarily the answer, but Lucas’ absence against Fulham certainly made this Liverpool fan very happy. Only time will tell if this trend continues.
2) MARTIN KELLY – He has featured in each of Dalglish’s sides since the Scotsman took over, and there have not been a whole lot of successful opponents attacking down Kelly’s flank. Although he won’t be a huge advantage for fantasy players if he gets rotated in and out, Kelly is a welcome sight at right back for the Reds and their supporters – and has so far kept his #1 place.
3) RAUL MEIRELES – Wow! Goal against Everton followed by a goal and an assist against Wolves. The own goal by Fulham was caused by Torres’ shot and the Former Funny Feeling Friday’s determination to follow and be a pest near the goal line. If you are defending, do you want to look at Torres, Gerrard and Meireles? The Portueguese international is hitting his stride. He could be a key factor not only in their push for Europe, but he has 28 fantasy points in the last three games – including Man of the Match status twice in a row. Is he in your fantasy team?
4) They are now in seventh place, although Newcastle and Stoke have a game in hand just two points back. With 14 games left, anything can happen, and they sure have the momentum going in the right direction. (Just six weeks ago, the Reds were in the relegation zone.)
5) Last but not least, is Torres feeling good again wearing Liverpool colors? He just did not seem happy at the beginning of this season. With Gerrard missing some games, there was more pressure on the Spaniard. Now King Kenny is whispering in his ear during training. Can Torres find his form?
There is still a lot of time left for Liverpool to go up or down the table, but for now, things are looking positive. Their focus for the next three months will be simply the EPL and the Europa League. That translates to a quality schedule for a team that is trying to climb the table. It’s not going to be an easy road, but with Dalglish in charge again, Anfield seems to be a happy place once more.
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I can’t believe you call yourself a Liverpool fan and then say you are happy that Lucas was not playing. He has been one of our best players this season easily. Are you sure you are a coach? Because if you can’t see that Lucas is a good player there isn’t much hope for you in that field. One day Lucas will be the captain of the Brazilian national team, and you will be crying about us selling him. Anyways we are looking a lot better and I agree could challenge for a Europa league spot. Poulsen is playing better but is never a better player than Lucas who was apparently injured for the game against Fulham.
perhaps from a lucas fan pov youre right. from a liverpool fan, hes really quite inconsistent. wihle you say he could be the captain of the brazilian team, really, youre referencing his potential. that potential, sadly, has not came out on the field as frequently as benitez and hodgson hoped. so, from a coaching perspective although he might be a great player….from a playing perspective, well…
Enjoying seeing a resurgence from Liverpool. Time will only tell if the managerial fix is really the solution… Seems to me like most of the recent troubles have been a result of the fans; you simply can’t take anything away from Hodgson as a manager.
If this article is in response to Liverpool’s recent run of form then I would say you’re jumping the gun a bit. If anything Liverpool fans aren’t out of the woods yet; the vital 3 points secured against Fulham Wednesday evening was the result of an utterly unconvincing display at home. A win is a win, but don’t go jinxing good fortune by proclaiming they’re suddenly Europe-bound after such a clumsy performance; it’s safe to say they were lucky at best.
PS the new millennium started in 2000. If you mean the new decade you would be also be mistaken, that began in 0’10.
Yeah, wins against Wolves and Fulham are really something! Especially win against Fulham, that was bordering to miraculous with that scrapy own goal and all the late Fulham pressure. But after beating Wolves, surelly Liverpool can also win against some other future Championship teams
Seriously, watching Liverpool against Blackpool and Fulham, they were just as bad as 2, 6, 10 or 20 weeks ago. Moving to 7th place must be nice for the fans, but poor results are still waiting just behind the corner. OK, Meireles has improved and back line looked decent at times, but there’s still a serious lack of creativity and inefficiency in the middle and up front and it’s hard to see a row of wins coming for that team. But enough said, match against Chelsea will clearly give as an answer on club’s short-term future. Ofcourse unless they flop against Stoke at home on Wednesday.
Lucas has been identifiably an excellent, committed player this season. He didn’t feature against Fulham, which was a notably poorer performance from the team than an earlier game that he did feature in, against Wolves. Lucas is often scapegoated by the media, quite unfairly considering he works hard and often shows a lot of quality.
Adi has obviously not watched Liverpool at all this season if he thinks there is no difference in the quality of our performances under Kenny compared to Hodgson. He acknowledges the performances of Meireles, and then talks about a lack of creativity through the middle and up front.. What, the areas where Meireles, Torres and Gerrard operate? Those are undoubtedly our strongest areas. I’d advise Adi to actually watch football before making ill-informed judgements.
Well Tom I follow football and I follow it very closely. Perhaps the only difference in our views is the fact that I’m not a Liverpool fan (or fan of any other Premiership team), I’m just huge fan of the entire league
And I’m not really sure why are you mentioning Gerrard, because he has showed nothing so far under Kenny. And he was arguably the best Liverpool player under Hodgson (including hattrick just before his England injury). Speaking of Torres he’s yet to prove it, because me and you could score those two goals against Wolves and he was yet again firing blanks against Fulham.
Meireles and defence are surelly areas of improvement, no denial there, but it’s way too early to talk about major improvements, Blackpool easily won against L’pool just a couple of weeks ago and Fulham totally outplayed them in the second half on Wednesday. And that was at Anfield.
Gerrard wasn’t the best player under Hodgson. I don’t think you could name a single best player under Hodgson, they were all pretty awful attempting to play his dinosaur tactics. Gerrard has been on the wane since the end of 2009 and gives his usual force-of-nature performance only occasionally, before disappearing into anonymity deep in our central midfield. He’s only played two games under Kenny though, so I expect to start seeing markedly better performances from him in the future.
Torres was not ‘firing blanks’ against Fulham. If you had watched the match, you would know that he scored a legitimate goal five minutes into the match that was wrongly ruled out for offside (by the male linesman, I might add). He was also key in forcing the own goal when his shot sent the goalkeeper Stockdale sprawling, as well as looking like a threat numerous times.
Blackpool beat us at Anfield under Hodgson, not Kenny, so this is inconsequential to the point at hand, which is an analysis of Kenny’s performance so far. Fulham outplaying us in the second half is symptomatic of the confidence of our squad – three points was incredibly important, so they tried to protect their lead. This mentality developed slowly under Hodgson, whose teams attempt to score and then sit incredibly deep to try to protect their lead – and when this approach failed on many occasions, the confidence of the team was battered, which inevitably worsened this mentality and made them sit even deeper. Kenny will get rid of this mentality, given time.
We look a different side under Kenny, playing nice pass and move football with very little restriction on player movement (for tactical positioning). This was evident against Everton, Wolves and the first half against Fulham, showing evidence of improvement since Blackpool away and Wolves at home. Torres’ second goal against Wolves (the third one scored) had the highest amount of passes in the build-up of any goal scored this season in the premiership.
“They were all pretty awful attempting to play his dinosaur tactics.”
As I said earlier, misplaced fan aggression. The Liverpool downslide began before Hodgson’s arrival, and it’s only a matter of time before the fans place their anger on a new target (Rafa, then Hicks & Gillet, then Hodgson). It seems like the idea of a “rebuilding year” is just too complicated for the kop to conceptualize.
As for Hodgson; Tom’s remarks are opinions. No matter how you look at it, Hodgson led Fulham to their best league finish in the club’s history, worked wonders with their squad and tactics (which are still creating some beautiful play under Hughes), and then topped it all off with a stunning Europa league final. I’m sure the real dinosaur tactics will be on display under Dalglish; the game is vastly different now than it was under his rule.
First thing that comes to mind when thinking of the return of “King” Kenny is the return of another “King” a couple of seasons ago… That went well.
“It seems like the idea of a “rebuilding year” is just too complicated for the kop to conceptualize.”
No, actually I think you’ll find that our fans acknowledge our position and recognise that the team needs investment and confidence in order to function effectively once more.
We knew from the off that Hodgson was not the man to do it. He was appointed by Christian Purslow, the club’s former managing director, at a time when the club was in turmoil and was bound for midtable mediocrity due to the lack of investment in the playing squad – money that was all tied up in servicing the interest on the debt. A lot of fans disagreed with the sacking of Rafa and the subsequent appointment of Hodgson; a transaction that not only cost us financially, but one which also signified a shift away from the mentality of winning trophies, towards the mentality of selling off our assets and players dubbed by the British press as unworthy of the red shirt. Rafa put up too much of a fight, standing in the way of sales – Hodgson was their man.
I have watched Hodgson’s every game in charge of Liverpool. He is undoubtedly a managerial dinosaur. His ideas are stuck in the eighties tactics he embraces. His entire plan is to put men behind the ball when out of possession – forming two narrow banks of four which retreat to the edge of their own box. His teams do not press, they wait for the opposition to concede possession as they struggle to penetrate the defensive formation. He relies on central defenders who can head the ball clear, when it is inevitably crossed (as teams go wide in order to thwart his narrow defensive positioning). When in possession, few men are committed forward. The fullbacks never venture forward, stuck in the rigid back four line. He relies on fast wingers to get the ball down the touchline and put crosses in, or to cut in and shoot. Rodriguez and Kuyt never sufficed for this task, and our play became laboured and slow. Possession was lost easily.
These are factual observations, not opinions. They are backed up by Opta statistics, as well as the anecdotal evidence of thousands of Liverpool fans.
The man has won something like fourteen away games in his past fifteen or so years of operating clubs in the premiership. He has won nothing at all of note in his entire (thirty+ years) managerial career – the only trophies he has won are a few tin pots from the Scandinavian leagues.
As for Kenny, he has not vacated the game since he left. He has had a role with the club’s academy and he has watched a great deal of our matches. We are playing much more effective, efficient, attacking, confident football under him. The man was a genius as a player, a genius as a manager, and continues to be the Liverpool Way personified: dignified, opinionated, stands up for the club, stands up for his players, charismatic, charming. Unlike Hodgson, who is quick to play down expectations, quick to big up opponents, shows contempt and disregard for the fans, and is part of the revolting LMA tribe that bows to Mr. Alex Ferguson’s every whim.
i suppose, as long as they can turn around their away game lack of form (3 points in the last 6 away matches….surely not worthy of european competition) liverpool will surely be a contender for a top 6 finish. maybe not top 4…im sure theyll put in a good showing either way.
as for the kenny v hogd stuff, well, i think the sell of torres says as much as it possibly can. daglish knows that torres is a liverpool player with a future there, a significant long term investment surely worth keeping. im nearly certain hogd would have signed the papers and had him off in a second. speculation, sure, but it does show that daglish is showing a little spine for his club….liverpool needs it