Three and in – not just another football blog

I can’t remember a time when so many Premier League managers were as close to losing their jobs. Look:

Roy Hodgson – if he lasts to the end of the day I’d be surprised

Avram Grant – it’s hard to escape the feeling he really doesn’t have a clue and the fact that Wally Downes is being tipped for the Crystal Palace job is hardly a sign of forthcoming stability.

Carlo Ancelotti – crazy as it might seem last season’s double-winning manager is under real pressure at Chelsea. Some of their players have admitted privately they think it’s just a matter of time. He’s a dead eyebrow walking.

Gerard Houllier – Villa haven’t shown any improvement under the Frenchman. Quite the opposite. A team that finished 6th, two years running, under Martin O’Neill is now thoroughly embroiled in a relegation fight. Houllier’s calmness might well be the benefit of his experience but Villa fans will take no comfort from it. Has he ever had to fight this kind of battle before? The Villa board have to make a decision, stick or twist.

Mark Hughes – whispers from the Cottage suggest Hughes isn’t exactly popular for his approach. They’re just a couple of points above the relegation zone. Unless they move away, and quickly, he might find himself out of a job.

And while Wolves, Wigan and West Brom have all shown great loyalty to their managers, when the pressure’s really on and the season is coming to a head they won’t rule out the possibility of a short-term fire fighter.

Oh, and not forgetting:

Alex Ferguson – top of the league and unbeaten so far this season but everyone says this is the worst United team, like, ever. Must be true.

It looks like it’s curtains for Roy Hodgson. A 3-1 defeat to Blackburn compounded by a penalty miss from captain Steven Gerrard which was a clear signal to the board.

“I’ve had enough of Woy”, it said. “My furrowed brow of self-importance demands a new manager”.

And so it will come to pass. I know he’s not popular with Liverpool fans but he came to the club at a difficult time and, in my opinion, has been let down badly by some of the players. Every Premier League manager has a right to expect better defending that he got last night from that clown Johnson or Kyrgiakos. Slam him for picking them, if you like, but what choice did he have?

The players have underperformed, not just the ones Hodgson brought in, and regardless of how fans feel about the manager they can’t ignore the fact these players have let the club down most of all. It’ll be interesting to see what Liverpool do. Dalglish is obviously popular but he hasn’t managed a team since the 90s.

It could get worse before it gets better. Still, we’ll always have this (hat tip James).

Every week Lawrence Gray-Hodson, a man who made his name in the upper reaches of Division 2 in the 1970s and 80s as well as being a former Scotland and England international, writes a column exclusively for Three and in.

This week he looks at Roy Hodgson’s Liverpool plight.

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It was with great sympathy that I read the comments of Roy Hodgson after Liverpool’s defeat to Wolves last night. I fully understand that it was a terrible result from a team who are struggling badly this season. I also fully understand how Liverpool fans are upset that a team which finished second just a couple of seasons ago is now struggling to make the UEFA Cup places.

But who could not have been moved by Roy when he said:

Ever since I came here the famous Anfield support hasn’t really been there. I have to hope the fans will become supporters because we need support – we are not deliberately losing.

It’s been obvious since day one that Liverpool fans don’t like Roy Hodgson. To them he’s like a step-parent who has taken the place of their real dad. Yet they ignore the fact that their real dad was a rioja swilling buffoon who spent £20m on Robbie Keane. If Benitez was their real dad and Liverpool was their mum then their dad used to get into bad moods and slap her about the face a bit.

Yet when it’s your real dad you’re willing to overlook his flaws. Forget that he alienated your best midfielder so he could bring in the honest but limited Gareth Barry. Forget that when the title was there to be had his team conceded four goals to a Russian who barely moves from a 20 yard patch the entire game.

Along came Roy and he is kindly. He tried to win the Liverpool fans over by bringing them a present. “Hi”, he said, “I’m not trying to take the place of your real dad but here’s a Joe Cole to play with”. Granted, it’s a bit like getting second hand lego that has been chewed by a dog but at least the thought was there. From the start the famous Liverpool support turned their nose up at him.

That’s not support. That’s the opposite of support. You know the Scousers, so happy to wallow in misery that I bet many of them are enjoying this season much more than title winning ones because it means they always have something to cry about. I fully expect a group of celebrities to make a video about how Hodgson is killing their club. First it was Hicks and Gillett, then Hodgson, whoever comes next will be to blame I imagine.

The Brazilian Robbie Savage is the driving force of the Liverpool midfield

Is it Roy Hodgson’s fault that Liverpool only have two good players? Fernando Torres stayed loyal this summer, while the midfield brilliance of Lucas will certainly see him move to a Champions League qualifying club. The rest of the squad is average but Hodgson didn’t sign most of them. Most of them were signed by their real dad. A man who had quality strikers like Crouch and Bellamy on his books yet sold them so he could bring in a left back like Dossena.

I’m loath to criticise an Englishman but where exactly is the captain Steven Gerrard? His furrowed brow is all well and good, we know he cares about the club, but in recent games he’s been nigh on invisible. Why does he not find himself on the receiving end of some fan disgruntlement? It seems as if it’s one rule for Roy and one for special Stevie.

I remember when I was in the middle of my career and we had a change of manager. The fans didn’t take to him at first, chanting against him because the man who came before him was popular. It didn’t matter that he’d nearly had us relegated. The fans loved the way he dealt with the press, the chairman, the players. The new man found it tough at first and we players let him down just as the Liverpool players are letting down Roy Hodgson.

During one game some of our fans showed their support by going to his house and spray-painting an enormous penis on the side of his house. Rather than watch their team they did that. And that’s what Liverpool fans are doing to Roy Hodgson. They are spray-painting a giant penis on the hallowed turf of Anfield.

Maybe the Liverpool fans need to take a long hard look in the mirror. When times are tough a real supporter supports his team, through thick and thin and all that. There are those who say the crowd should react to the team, and that’s a fair point, but what about the crowd being the 12th man? At the moment Liverpool’s 12th man is Ronnie Rosenthal against Aston Villa, a tubby Jew who isn’t much good except missing an open goal from 8 yards out.

Is that how they want to be seen across the world? Liverpool’s problems go deeper than the decent Roy Hodgson. They might start in the boardroom but they spread to the pitch, the dressing room and to the stands in which these so-called supporters sit.

Sure, they want what’s best for their club but maybe they ought to realise that their mum has kicked out their real dad for being mean and abusive. They may not like who their mum is sleeping with right now but they’ve got to grow up, stop being kids and just play with the chewed up lego they’ve got.

Nobody likes crybabies or spoiled kids and that’s what Liverpool fans are right now.

So Liverpool have appointed Damien Comolli as Director of Football Strategy. The cunning addition of the word ‘Strategy’ won’t fool many: this is, in essence, a reprisal of the ‘Director of Football’ role which has failed so many times in English football, and indeed at Spurs, where Comolli held his highest-profile position to date.

In theory, it’s a progressive move from Liverpool, and one which acknowledges their financial limitations. Comolli will be charged with identifying affordable potential with residual value, as John Henry becomes the umpteenth of a owner Premier League to try and imitate the ‘Arsenal model’ of player development.

Arsenal, of course, is where Comolli rose to prominence. There is a lot of debate about how significant a role he played in player acquisition. The only thing that can be said with any certainty is that he identified a 17-year old Gael Clichy playing for Cannes. Steve Rowley, the Arsenal chief scout, has reportedly privately played down Comolli’s influence. The Frenchman, meanwhile, would probably tell you he taught Thierry Henry how to kick a ball.

Comolli’s credentials are clouded further by his time at Spurs. When he and Juande Ramos were dispatched, his reign was viewed as something as a failure. However, since then, some of the signings held up as example’s of Comolli’s incompetence have gone on to excel: the likes of Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Heurelho Gomes, and of course Gareth Bale. Comolli would say that this is evidence that his role can only be proven to function over the long-term.

Whatever your opinion of the Frenchman, his appointment surely comes as a blow to the authority of Roy Hodgson – especially when you consider that Hodgson was already working under the shadow of a Liverpool great, Kenny Dalglish. The Hodgson-friendly portion of the press will tell you no English manager is better equipped to deal with this continental system of management. Maybe not, but bringing in a guy to head player recruitment is essentially taking away part of Hodgson’s remit.

And looking at his summer signings, can you blame the new owners? The limited impact of the likes of Paul Konchesky, Joe Cole, and Christian Poulsen won’t have had NESV overly excited about their manager’s recruitment acumen. With Hodgson’s short-term future still very much in doubt, and his signings failing to impress, I wouldn’t want him spending precious pounds in January either.

So Liverpool have their shiny new owners. They got rid of those dastardly Americans, and replaced them with… well, some other Americans. But these ones are different. They’re not systematic family rapists, for one thing.

Yesterday saw the first game of the NESV era. And there was N.ot E.ven the S.lightest V.ariation.

Fans, players, and managers of Liverpool Football Club have, for too long, blamed their poor form on the pitch on matters in the boardroom. The inescapable truth is that whilst the club have been able to drop Hicks and Gillett, they can’t drop the likes of Konchesky, Lucas or Maxi until January at the earliest.

The change of ownership is, in seriousness, an essential and positive thing for Liverpool Football Club. But there are eleven more immediate problems, and they took to the field today disguised as a football team.

A recent spate of injuries has seen a sparse squad looking barer than ever. The likes of Kyrgiakos and Konchesky simply aren’t good enough for a team with Champions League pretensions. When needing to turn the game around, calling in the cavalry of Jovanovic, Babel and Ngog doesn’t inspire too much confidence.

Even more worrying is the form of established stars like Joe Cole, Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres. Torres looks a shadow of himself, Gerrard has been shunted between different midfield roles without success, and Cole’s contribution has Arsenal and Spurs breathing heavy sighs of relief at a £80,000 p/week bullet successfully dodged.

A large portion of blame, however, must fall at the feet of Roy Hodgson, whose purchases have thus far failed to impress. If the new ownership really are going to invest in the playing staff in January, one would understand if they were loathe to entrust him with the cash.

Didier Drogba celebrated his backheeled goal against Arsenal by crossing himself and thanking a higher power.  For Drogba, it was unusually and unnecessarily modest.  Whilst he could never have predicted the ball would cannon in off the post in that fashion, his unconventional flick was the mark of a player instinctive, alert, and opportunistic – all signs of a striker at the very top of his game.

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Already this season, Wolves have picked up 21 cautions and two red cards.  Unsurprisingly, they’re now starting to worry that they might acquire something of a ‘reputation’.  Kevin Doyle has insisted that any notoriety is misplaced:

“If you were to look at it on paper you’d think we were a dirty team, but if you look back to last year we were one of the fairest sides in the league.”

Which as defences go is pretty weak.  The evidence of Wolves’ physicality is clear.  What did or didn’t happen last year is irrelevant.  If Wolves are, God willing, relegated this season, then they won’t be able to appeal to the Premier League on the grounds that they played much better the year before.  In football, the present is all that really matters.

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The chief perpetrator of Wolves’ overly-physical approach has been Karl Henry.  Perhaps he’ll be forced to reconsider the manner of his ‘tackling’ having been dismissed so early in their game against Wigan for his latest lunge.  With any luck, a referee will finally step up and apply the same disciplinary sanction to Nigel De Jong, who this weekend did what he had been threatening to do for some time and snapped the leg of Hatem Ben Arfa in two places.  The warning signs were there during the World Cup – De Jong serves little purpose other than to clatter his opponents.  His style of play shows a basic lack of respect for the safety of his fellow professionals, and it’s essential that referees respond accordingly.  If they continue to allow such challenges to go unpunished, then the FA or Premier League will be forced to introduce retrospective action.

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Mark Hughes looks healthier, happier, and settled in to his new job at Fulham.  He says it’s because he’s put on weight.  Maybe it’s actually because he’s finally found a club whose ambitions are compatible with his love of a level scoreline.  It was a run of seven successive draws that essentially ended his spell at Manchester City.  Six ties from his opening seven games as Fulham manager, however, have seen him heralded as captain of an unbeaten ship.  As a player, Hughes was something of a sharpshooter.  As a manager, it seems he’s still quick on the draw.

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So Liverpool have slumped to a new nadir.  One question: would a foreign manager be under more pressure from the media than struggling Woy?

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As ever, your thoughts, observations, and ramblings are welcome.

The chance to manage a club like Liverpool doesn’t come very often and for 62 year old Roy Hodgson it was always likely to be his last chance at a ‘big’ club. Nevertheless, I suspect he had to think long and hard about it.

He’d made good progress with Fulham, reached a European final and had good support from a relatively solid board. On the other side he must have known Liverpool were a club in trouble after a poor season, no Champions League football and with big problems with the ownership and finances.  In the end the lure of Anfield was too much. The reputation and history of the club must have been a huge factor and the chance to work with established stars like Torres, Gerrard, Mascherano (oops), Carragher, Kuyt, Reina and so forth must have been tempting.

Yet beyond those few names the Liverpool team is fairly average. A clutch of overpaid, over-priced players brought in by Rafa Benitez who, despite the denials from many Liverpool fans, was as suspect as they come in the transfer market.

If Wednesday’s Carling Cup was to bring any hope that there was potential below the first team Hodgson was clearly disappointed. Speaking afterwards he said:

I am just bitterly disappointed that the team I had so much faith in did not repay that faith this evening with the exception of one or two performances.

As a new manager he has to be relatively considered when passing comment on his team but thaty’s about as damning as you can get. Not only did he inherit a first team lacking balance and quality, the youth and reserves aren’t up to much either. There’s nobody coming through to put pressure on the established first team squad.

Without the financial resources to make changes there’s the very real danger that it will lead to stagnation. Going out of the Carling Cup to a lower league side isn’t in itself the worst thing in the world. Cup shocks happen all the time. The most disheartening thing for Hodgson, and for Liverpool fans, must be the fact that a club which has always prided itself on producing good local talent is no longer doing so. It might well be another legacy of the Benitez era but it’s something the new man is going to have to address.

Unless Liverpool find themselves with a sugar daddy, a la Man City, money is going to be tight for the foreseeable future. Investment and focus on youth might mean Liverpool have to take another step backwards to go forwards. It might be unpalatable to fans who saw their team finish second just a couple of seasons ago but the reality is very different now.

Hodgson has to marry the twin tasks of keeping Liverpool relatively competitive in the Premier League and ensuring there’s a brighter future for the club. He must have known this was going to be the most difficult job of his managerial career. Calls for his head already are misplaced.

He’s got a job to do and should be given time to do it.

Roy Hodgson has accepted the BEEB’s shilling and joined Harry Redknapp,  Clarence Seedorf, Jurgen Klinsmann and Emmanuel Adebayor to comprise a formidable World Cup panel.

BBC bloke Philip Bernie gushed, ‘We are delighted. We will have on board two of the most respected English managers to add to an already great line-up.’

All I know Phil, is that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. The campaign to get Andy Gray binned starts here.

Congratulations to Chelsea, the table doesn’t lie and all that, but I can’t help but sit here this morning and wonder about the overall quality of the league this season.

Yes, there have been some stand-out stats. The amount of goals Chelsea have scored for one but that begs its own question – is a league in which you score 7 goals three times and 8 once really competitive?

Does the fact that the smaller teams have beaten the established big teams mean it’s more competitive, that anyone can beat anyone, or is it down to a lack of focus or a measure of arrogance on the part of the big teams? How do you tally Wigan’s 3-1 win over Chelsea with their last day hammering (10 men notwithstanding)?

Liverpool, many people’s tip for the title, ended up in 7th, financially broken and it looks like a long way back for them. The only thing lesson we can take is that pundits, most of whom thought they could win the league, talk an awful lot of rubbish.

Spurs finished in 4th and you can point to the wins over Arsenal and Chelsea as being crucial – they really were, but City could have done it and lacked the bottle, Villa never looked like they wanted it and Liverpool, from a footballing point of view, have fallen on the stubborn sword of Rafa. That Harry Redknapp has been named manager of the year for scraping into 4th tells its own story – and Fulham’s fans will feel rightly aggrieved that Roy Hodgson’s achivements, accomplished without the millions Redknapp has had to spend, haven’t been acknowledged.

At the other end the three worst teams undoubtedly went down but look at those above them. West Ham on 35 points, Wigan on 36, Wolves on 38, Bolton on 39. It used to be a case that you absolutely needed 40 points to be safe, that was the target everyone spoke about, this season you could have survived in 31. Hardly suggests the league is better, does it?

For years the Premier League has been widely regarded as the best in Europe – although I’ve long been of the opinion that the Spanish league’s technical superiority would provide better football and win more matches – but this season’s league, along with the relative failure of English clubs in the Champions League means the tide has well and truly turned.

The product is still glossy, well package and overly marketed, but the proof is in the pudding – there were more empty seats in Premier League stadiums than in any previous campaign. I’m sure that has to do with the times we live in, but like the economies around the world, the Premier League is suffering a football recession.

Another Premier League season draws to a close and leaving aside the actual medal and trophy part of winning, and the getting relegated or being beaten in a final part of losing, here are Three and in‘s top 5 winners and losers of this season (in no particular order, I might add).

WINNERS

1 – Roy Hodgson: He came to a Fulham side in disarray and saved them from almost certain relegation. Since then he’s moulded a side that’s disciplined, tough to beat and who have been on a fantastic European voyage this season. Regardless of what happens in the Europa League final, Hodgson has proved that his previous spell in English management at Blackburn Rovers was a blip on what has been a fine and highly respected career.

2 -Wayne Rooney: Ronaldo’s world record transfer freed up Rooney and his goalscoring record has been quite outstanding. It’s a testament to his professionalism and team ethic that he played wide for United, never complained and let his Portuguese teammate hog the limelight. United are now reaping the benefits of a player who has learned a lot about the game from living Ronaldo’s shadow, his player of the year awards were well deserved.

3 - Darren Bent: Sunderland might have perceived as a step down after his move to Spurs but the former Charlton man showed why the Londonders bought him in 2007. 25 goals, all but one of them in the Premier League, had people talking about an England call up and Capello could certainly do worse. Maybe the £16.5m price tag weighed him down at White Hart Lane and Steve Bruce has certainly managed him better than Harry Redknapp. The boy done well.

4 – Wayne Bridge: He’s not much of a player but there wasn’t a football fan in the world who didn’t admire him for this.

5 – Mick McCarthy: An odd one considering but the last time Mick McCarthy managed a Premier League team they were relegated with a record low points total and McCarthy was fired with 10 games of the season to go (at which point Sunderland were 16 points from safety). Many predicted the same thing for his Wolves side but some canny purchases, not least of which is Irish international Kevin Doyle, and good managing of his resources means he, and they, get to spend another season in the top flight.

LOSERS

1 – Phil Brown: It was clear he lost the dressing room when he sat his players on the pitch to give them a teamtalk. Those who thought Brown added character to the Premier League couldn’t defend his toe curling singing when Hull survived last season. And this campaign it was obvious things weren’t right. Only 5 wins all season, just 4 points away from home, and Brown was put on ‘gardening leave’. It was too late for Hull, Brown’s ego was allowed to run out of control and ultimately it cost them Premier League football.

2 – Arsene Wenger: For the most part Arsenal’s season has been good but once again they fell short. In the title race almost to the end they didn’t so much fall away as implode. Yes, the injuries to key players didn’t help, but in January he could have bought a striker, he could have bought a goalkeeper when it was obvious it was a problem position. Perhaps he’s been hamstrung by money but nearly everyone can tell you what Arsenal need, Wenger seems happy to ignore it. His team have gone down without a fight and that, more than another trophyless season, is what Arsenal fans will remember.

3 – Ryan Shawcross: The Stoke centre-half cried when he was red carded against Arsenal. His tackle snapped Aaron Ramsey’s leg in two. He claimed he wasn’t that kind of player despite evidence to the contrary (3.2mb PDF). Even so, we can all accept he didn’t mean to break Ramsey’s leg, it was simply a consequence of the reckless tackling encouraged by his manager and all those who defended him as ‘not that kind of player’. His place on this list, however, isn’t because of any of that, it’s down to the litany of articles and interviews he gave talking about how tough it had been for him and how he’d somehow managed to cope. As Aaron Ramsey faces 9-12 months out of the game, not knowing if his career will go the same way as Eduardo, Shawcross’s self-pitying drivel was one of the lowlights of the season.

4 – Rafa Benitez: The Liverpool manager has cried foul about the money he never got to spend but he splashed most of what he got for Xabi Alonso on Alberto Aquilani who hardly played at all. He knew he had to sell to buy for a long time. He was prepared to sell Alonso the previous summer to fund a purchase for Gareth Barry. The lack of money is an excuse. He’s bought and sold badly at Liverpool, has seemed too interested in power behind the scenes and ultimately he went into a Premier League season with only Fernando Torres as a recognised first team striker. When you look at the fact that players like Keane, Bellamy and Crouch have been and gone there’s really no way to defend him. It’s true that the owners have caused problems but when it comes right down to it, the owners didn’t make Liverpool play like a mid-table side this season, Benitez and his players did. Clean slate needed at Anfield.

5 – John Terry: Nobody said footballers have to be role models but it helps, especially when you’re Chelsea and England captain. Terry had his worst season on the pitch, and his worst off. There are lines you don’t cross in your personal life, knocking up one of your best mates girlfriends, ex or not, is further over the line than Pedro Mendes ‘goal’ against United. He was stripped of the England captaincy, Capello preferring to give it a man who beats up DJs in bars than a shameless adulterer. Chelsea might win the title, they might win the FA Cup, but it’ll be in spite of Terry more than anything else.