Roy Hodgson appointed the new king at Anfield
It has been confirmed that the new Liverpool Football Club manager will be Roy Hodgson. As a matter of fact Hodgson has himself unveiled that fact but not before the Liverpool’s official board who had been looking for an excuse to tell good news to their disappointed fans.
As the control of Anfield is handed over to the 62 year old coach it is thought in earnest by many experts that is this really a good news or not. Though the Fulham manager has lead the Fulham team to an improved performance they ended at the 12th position in the English Premier League during the season of 2009- 2010.
Still they made history when they accomplished an amazing campaign in the Europa League as they managed to reach the finals of the tournament. They encountered the veteran Atletico Madrid there. Though they presented an amazing performance and in the end got agonizingly close at winning the trophy they were halted by Diego Forlan and Sergio Aguero.
The Fulham coach has certainly proved that he can manage a lot with the small amount of allowance he is given. Now that the big job was vacant at Anfield he was naturally an option for the throne. Though earlier it was speculated that the 52 year old Spanish Rafael Benitez would stay at Liverpool after much assurances by the owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett, in the end he was given just 5 million pounds to remake his already tattered squad.
Clouds were still hovering over Anfield and after a couple of weeks of long discussion with Hodgson over the fate of the Liverpool football club he was promised enough that he seemed satisfied. Benitez on the other hand made it sure that his future was related to Inter Milan after their coach Jose Mourinho went to Real Madrid.
Now it has been revealed that Hodgson has been confirmed as a manager for a 3 year deal in which Liverpool will pay 2 million pounds as a release clause to Fulham with whom Hodgson still had a year’s contract pending.
Hodgson is quite enthusiastic to start the training session right away as he reached the Melwood training ground to catch up with the players in Red who had already returned from their leave of the season; however some were still off because of the World Cup proceedings.
He also told that he will give his first official press conference as a Liverpool manager on this Thursday at Anfield. Hodgson exuberantly stated, “This is the biggest job in club football and I'm honoured to be taking on the role of manager of Britain's most successful football club”. He then added, “I look forward to meeting the players and the supporters and getting down to work at Melwood”.
The manager will face a couple of tough tasks at Liverpool including persuasion to the Liverpool skipper and star striker Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres to stay with the Reds. That will certainly be a tough task as everyone now knows that without funds the team cannot have a new squad and risk a poor future in the next season. The only thing that can save them now is new ownership.
Gerrard and Torres are not the only one on the list that are preparing to leave the club. Javier Mascherano and Ryan Bebel have the same feelings and will probably soon be having contracts flying all around them.
The Liverpool campaign is already flaring up for Hodgson as the qualifying stages for the Europa League start on the 29th of July. One thing that will help him will be the déjà vu of attempting to succeed another failing club. He has already proven that and consequently big positive results are expected from him.
Tags: