Roy Hodgson enters Anfield, walking through a storm
Cast your minds back to a year ago. England’s footballers were still considered to be somewhat functioning, it was the cricketers who were under the spotlight as they contested the Ashes series (they actually won) and Liverpool FC had just had their best domestic season for some time.
Second in the Premier League having suffered only two defeats in the competition all season, the Reds finished on 86 points, the same total that champions Chelsea would pick up in the following campaign.
Had you suggested to the club’s support that, 12 months on from that runners-up spot, Liverpool would finish seventh in the Premier League, that manager Rafael Benitez – who was just a few months into a long-term, incredibly powerful new contract back in the summer of 2009 – would be the new manager of Inter Milan, that the club may have to face up to the impending sale of their star players, and that Fulham boss Roy Hodgson was primed to be Benitez’ successor, then most would have accused you of spending too much time in the sun.
Many wouldn’t though, for the football club had been papering over the cracks for far too long.
The 2008/09 season was as much of an overachievement as the following campaign was an underachievement. A club can’t run well on the pitch when there is such chaos off it. Luckily for Liverpool, they seem about to appoint a man who exudes a sense of calm, at least making sure that the football side of things can run smoothly.
Enter Hodgson. A 62-year-old from Croydon, south London, who has managed teams as far and wide as Örebro in Sweden, Switzerland’s Neuchâtel Xamax and the United Arab Emirates national side.
He took Switzerland to the 1994 World Cup, getting them through the group stages before securing Euro ’96 qualification the following year. He’s won titles in Sweden and Denmark, took Inter Milan to the Uefa Cup final and then repeated the trick, somehow, with Fulham last season in the Europa League.
The west Londoners narrowly lost to Atlético Madrid in the final in Hamburg, but it was an achievement that earned Hodgson plaudits continent-wide, and the LMA Manager of the Year award. After starting his managerial career with Sweden’s Halmstads BK in 1976, it’s taken him 34 years to be an overnight success in his own country.
Now his expected appointment as Liverpool’s new manager on Thursday comes at one of the most crucial periods in the club’s history.
Liverpool are rocking, there’s no doubt about that. Still up for sale, and still tagged with a ludicrously large price by co-owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks – although Hicks appears to be the man largely responsible for that – the Reds are still waiting on prospective new owners.
Hodgson will have to face scare stories over the possible sales of Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres – and there wouldn’t be many worse ways for him to start his reign than selling one, or both, of the club’s prized assets – but should they stay then there aren’t many better players for him to build a revolution around either.
The banks may take that decision out of the manager’s hands of course, but even if they do then Hodgson will be able to create a siege mentality around Anfield. Written off by everyone after the shambles of the last campaign, perhaps the new manager could inspire a revival, and an unlikely successful season, a bit like Fulham’s run to Hamburg.
Whatever happens, surely the presence of a calm, experienced man in the Anfield dugout will be a welcome change from the uncertainty that continues behind the scenes.
The Reds could have gone down the sentimental route and appointed former boss Kenny Dalglish – who won’t now resign from his ambassadorial role and will stay to work with his friend Hodgson – indeed, many had expected the club to do that. It would have been the easy choice.
They haven’t taken it, and now Hodgson enters facing a huge challenge.
It’s a challenge he’ll relish.
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