SOCCER: Manchester Utd v Liverpool:STEEL SHUTTERS were closed quickly behind Roy Hodgson yesterday morning as he drove past the television crews, through the snow and into Liverpool's Melwood training ground. It was a fitting start to a day when the siege mentality increased in the manager's bunker and an impenetrable barrier greeted supporters desperate for signs of leadership. The walls are closing in, irrespective of the result of tomorrow's FA Cup tie at Old Trafford.
Well aware that even a third-round match between Liverpool and Manchester United would not be high on the agenda at Hodgson’s press conference, the club cancelled his appearance an hour and 16 minutes before its scheduled 1.30pm start. The decision was taken after consultation between Liverpool’s media team and the manager and it was designed to maintain focus on the FA Cup rather than gag a man whose public pronouncements have contributed to his rapid fall. The focus on Hodgson’s future was inevitable once Liverpool had slipped to a ninth league defeat of the season at Blackburn Rovers on Wednesday, however, and as of late Thursday night the press conference was scheduled to go ahead.
It would be an exaggeration to say that Liverpool and Hodgson shied away from the questions supporters want to be answered, but there is only one question at Liverpool now and it is being asked of John W Henry and Tom Werner, the club’s principal owners: When will you sack the manager? After a day off on Thursday, Hodgson took training yesterday. He had refused to answer questions about his future at Ewood Park, where as Blackburn manager in 1998 he was tapped on the shoulder midway through a press conference and told that the late Rovers chairman Jack Walker would like a word – it was “fired”. Liverpool’s continued silence aside, the image being presented is that of business as usual. Of course, it is anything but. Liverpool is an institution with a manager facing universal disapproval and fledgling owners caught in an unexpectedly swift and complex dilemma. At least it is no longer going to the wall.
It would be wrong to portray Liverpool as a club adrift. There is pressure not only on Hodgson but on Fenway Sports Group, the club’s owner, to end the state of limbo it has created by refusing to publicly back or sack the manager following the home defeat by Wolverhampton Wanderers 10 days ago. The owners have called Hodgson to wish him luck before matches, but nothing else. FSG has been caught up in the level of fans’ anger directed at the 63-year-old, to the extent that the goodwill fostered since it replaced Tom Hicks and George Gillett last autumn seems to be at risk. Three months after FSG’s arrival, there is still no chief executive at Anfield and comparisons are being made to the inert regime of the previous American owners. Such warnings and comparisons are allowed to take root amid the silence from Boston, but they are inaccurate.
The reason Hodgson has been on the brink since compounding his team’s abject defeat by Wolves with an appeal for “fans to become supporters” is that FSG is known to be seeking his replacement. The Americans are anxious, however, to avoid the kind of costly short-term measures that characterised the club until they took over in October. They hope to wait until the summer before parting company honourably with Hodgson and installing a young and dynamic manager with a long-term vision for the club.
Falling attendances, five defeats in eight league games, the worst start to a season since Liverpool were last relegated, in 1953-54, and outright revolt in the stands against negative football and negative thinking have forced a reappraisal, but not a solution. Definitive answers are never easy to find in January. Didier Deschamps has committed his long-term future to Marseille and Andre Villas-Boas has done the same at Porto. Owen Coyle, the leader of the British pack, may be difficult to prise from Bolton Wanderers.
There is no better place for a Liverpool manager to win a reprieve than at Old Trafford but it illustrates the depth of Hodgson’s predicament that he will not find one. An unexpected away win – which would be only his second domestic victory away from Anfield as Liverpool manager – might buy time for the owners, who know that the club’s failings precede Hodgson, but his standing among supporters would barely flicker.
The first time the Kop sang their manager’s name, it was not in tribute – “Hodgson for England”. The ominous cry of “Dalglish” has been aired on a regular basis since Blackpool won at Anfield on October 3rd, draining the man in charge and placing his team in a state of constant anxiety. But tomorrow could be brutal by comparison. FA Cup ticket allowances mean 9,000 Liverpool fans will be at Old Trafford and the team’s manager is more likely to face hostility from the East Stand than the Stretford End if the visitors go down without a fight. That would be a nasty first.
Hodgson did air his views on the game yesterday in an interview with the club’s in-house television channel. He did not cut to the chase. “It’s very important the fans realise that we understand they have high hopes, expectations and ambitions for the club and the team,” he said.
The Liverpool manager has been let down badly by his players this season but, sadly for a decent man, he is the only one in the bear pit. His tactics have not been inspiring and there has been no evidence of the cohesion the club’s former managing director, Christian Purslow, thought he had installed when he appointed the manager of the year last summer.
FSG is reluctant to hire a temporary replacement but without a breakthrough in its hunt for a new manager and a dramatic improvement from Hodgson and his team, it may soon have no choice.
Kenny Dalglish is the obvious unifying candidate and part of the reason supporters were against Hodgson from the start, after the Scot had made it known he wanted to succeed Rafael Benitez. Whether FSG could ask Dalglish to step aside without creating a fresh storm around the club is another matter.
Yesterday the Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson, said: “Roy Hodgson doesn’t need to justify his record as a manager. His experience and performance level everywhere he’s been have been terrific so I’m not going to get into that. We are in a situation where managers are getting fired and threatened to be fired. It’s a very difficult industry these days. I feel for all those managers who are under pressure and have lost their jobs.” Hodgson does not need sympathy from Ferguson, he needs his scalp – and that will only ease the torment.
GuardianService
