Paul Moore asks if the re-appointment of Kenny Dalglish to manage Liverpool was always doomed to failure?
It was a surprise to many when Kenny Dalglish returned as manager of Liverpool football club in 2011; he’d been out of the game over 10 years.
But to the Kop and to all Liverpool fans the Saviour had returned. How would anybody guess in only the following year he’d be shown the door, and after winning a trophy.
I can see what the owners of the world famous club were trying to do and King Kenny’s CV as Manager is highly respectable. I think part of the problem was he was out of the game so long and in 10-15 years a lot had changed.
I’m not blaming Dalglish at all; he wanted to ‘give back’ to a club that had given him so much as a player and later as a manager.
His first problem was he didn’t inherit a great squad; and didn’t sign anyone in his time there that set the football world on fire. When he sold Torres for £50 million I thought it was a good deal for the club.
He signed Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll as replacements. With due respect to all three players it’s an inflated market; the money paid for all three was well over the top. If anyone got the best deal it was Newcastle!
Maybe too much was expected to soon? I think what he was trying to do was build a team that could challenge but the signings he made and the players he played failed to perform as well as they could have.
Some fans forget it takes time to build a team and sometimes the players just aren’t available to buy. Even so, the inflated prices only made the demand for instant success all the greater.
Selling Torres made good business sense and I think he had the best time of his career there but it was time to move on; his replacements haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory and for that I feel sorry for the former Celtic manager.
Liverpool were once one of the world’s great clubs and I think it will be a few years until they get back there. Anfield is one of the greatest grounds in the world with great support; when ‘walk alone’ is sang the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I wish Brendan Rodgers well; but letting Carroll out on loan is a huge ‘own goal’ and a mistake that’s got nothing to do with King Kenny.
image: © kong niffe
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