If Rafa Benitez is harbouring plans of an imminent Anfield return, he may be advised to make other plans.
The fact that a 1-1 home draw against Aston Villa was, in some quarters, construed as a positive, said everything about the current state of Liverpool Football Club.
Two league wins in 10 games is clearly not good enough, and there are a number of fans who believe Kenny Dalglish is not the man for the job.
Don’t expect the stubborn Scot to leave any time soon though.
If an FA Cup ends up adorning the Anfield trophy cabinet in May, there will be even less of a chance of Dalglish’s managerial stint coming to an end.
Liverpool might just be stuck with him for good, like it or not.
The reason for this is two-fold; Dalglish is too proud to walk away, and the American owners will not want to rock the boat by making such a divisive move as to sack him.
This is likely to be Dalglish’s last ever job in management, and he has every reason to stick it out until he feels he has achieved what he set out to do.
It appeared that he would never manage in the top flight again, until his remarkable comeback last January, but if he leaves Liverpool- the club where he is revered as a hero, can you really see him managing anywhere else?
He has been there and done that with Newcastle and Blackburn, with differing fortunes, and will not see the appeal of taking on another challenge from scratch so late in his career, after all- this return to Anfield was supposed to be his final chapter.
So if his reign ended now, his reputation would have taken quite a battering, and crucially it would be irrepairable. He will never get a chance again to rectify his Anfield mistakes he has committed so far if he exits now.
Which is just why he won’t be going anywhere.
When he took over from Roy Hodgson the club were a mess, right now it could be argued he has only made a sideways step, while wasting millions in the transfer window, but he will still want more of a chance to show what he can do, after ending the club’s wait for silverware in February.
There is so much motivation for Dalglish to stay at Anfield- to put right his mistakes, to carry on what he started, and to end Liverpool’s long agonising wait for a league title.
Winning the league may seem further away than ever before, but it remains Liverpool’s ultimate goal- and will continue to eat away at their manager until he can at the very least get near.
Factor in his stubborn and determined personality traits, and Dalglish may decide to never walk away until he considers his job done.
The man who got nearer than any one recently, Rafa Benitez, should not expect a comeback any time soon.
Of course Dalglish walked away once before from managing the club, but the circumstances were different. 20 years ago he had time to rescue his managerial reputation. Leave the club now and it’s over.
Liverpool’s owners may have summoned Dalglish for talks to discuss the club’s alarming form, but right now they know that sacking him could be a PR disaster.
Unless the vocal majority of the fans turn on their manager, which likely will never happen because of his hero status, he will not be going anywhere for the foreseeable future, regardless of results.
Should Liverpool bite the bullet and bring Benitez back?
image: © kevinzim
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