Kenny's Gone

Well the review of the Premiership season will have to wait after the news today that Kenny Dalglish's second spell as Liverpool manager is at an end. I have to confess I'm extremely disappointed with the news. This season was remarkably odd and the league campaign was undeniably a disappointment with a quite dreadful second half, but I can't see how a manager who has won a cup and reached the final of another deserves to go and isn't onto something good. Kenny's king status is not even that relevant for me, I honestly think to sack a manager with that record over a season is harsh in the extreme.

Then we come to those mitigating factors in the league. Over 38 games, if you finish 8th you have to say you deserve to finish 8th. But the amount of times we hit the woodwork was truly astronomical, way way above the nearest side (the title winners) and the amount of missed penalties was also in double figures. I also think there were a great many games, particularly in the first half of the season, where Liverpool totally dominated and unlike in many of Benitez's games they created a lot of clear chances. I'm not making excuses, you have to take your chances, I'm just saying it wasn't a total right off in terms of performance.

So what did go wrong? Three words spring to mind - Henderson, Downing and Carroll. £75 million on those players was quite simply a joke. Henderson appears utterly incapable of being a top class player and was an outrageous gamble for someone who had, at best, shown some promise in half a season for Sunderland. Downing has proved what surely everybody always knew, he just hasn't got that extra quality to make him a top player and in his late twenties does not even have youth on side. As for Carroll, I've been his biggest critic all season and I remain unconvinced he will really come good in the long run but to give him his due, he was superb in two recent games against Chelsea to the point where I wondered for a second. But £35 million was truly bizarre for such an unproven player.

And one has to say the amount of goals scored, chances squandered and home wins was simply not good enough. There was no question the league campaign was disappointing and dreadful in the second half of the season and one could argue that Kenny signed the bulk of the players and bar Suarez, Enrique and Bellamy most were disappointments. I remain dubious that Kenny was the sole reason for the signings and suspect Comolli played his part, particularly in terms of the huge fees for which he has something of a track record from his time at Spurs.

But he has gone, so who replaces him? Martinez has been mentioned as have Lambert and Rodgers. I worry that they would have a similar problem to Hodgson and not be so suited to a big, high pressure role but I guess you don't know til you try and to be fair to all three, the football played their sides this season has been an asset to the league. But for today, let's just pay tribute to King Kenny. The man was arguably the club's greatest ever player, a wonderful manager first time around and you know what the second time around he won us a trophy and rescued a season from real utter disaster. I don't think that's too bad a record. King Kenny, farewell. You're welcome anytime and of course you'll never walk alone.

Chelsea games

First things first let's review the FA Cup final and the league game against Chelsea. I will be writing a big review of the whole Premier League season in the next couple of days.

FA Cup Final: Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool

A disappointing day for Liverpool, with Pepe Reina's rare mistake (although he has a mediocre season by his high standards) allowing Ramires to score and a team performance that was lifeless until, of all people, Andy Carroll sparked the team into life. If they'd started like they finished Chelsea wouldn't have had a prayer. What I want to know is where the hell has that Andy Carroll been all season?! He was magnificent, sparking the team into life with a superb goal and an awesome performance. I thought Kenny got the team selection very wrong - Suarez has never been a lone striker and was left far too isolated while Spearing and Henderson were far too inexperienced a pair to be anchoring the midfield. The former was overwhelmed on the big day, looking out of his depth while the latter is just not all that good I'm afraid. It seemed daft to start with Bellamy then not play him up front with Suarez. Downing capped a hugely disappointing campaign with another anonymous display while perhaps more sadly, Gerrard just couldn't find his magic touch and while he certainly didn't have a bad game, did perhaps prove that the days of hoping he'll come up with a virtuoso game winning performance have to be over. As for Chelsea, overall they deserved it and bloody Drogba yet again was the winner curse him! An awesome talent though, whatever you may think of him.

Ratings:

Reina - 5
Poor for him, bad mistake on first goal
Johnson - 6
Please god teach him to defend
Enrique - 5
A strange deterioration in form this season was capped with a poor display
Agger - 6
Solid-ish
Skrtel - 7
Good, almost scored late on
Gerrard - 7
Lively but lacking his old drive
Henderson - 5
Got to go and be written off as a costly mistake, good riddance Comolli
Spearing - 5
Sadly, as I love this guy, not a good performance and looked a little out of his depth
Downing - 5
Yawn...
Bellamy - 6
Worked hard as ever, but contributed relatively little
Suarez - 7
Excellent once Carroll had come on, isolated before that

Subs:
Carroll - 9
Far and away without a shadow of doubt, his best performance in a Liverpool shirt. I've been so critical of him but more of this kind of performance and he might just convert who knows?
Kuyt - 7
Should have been on from the start like he always should.

Cech - 7
Ivanovic - 7
Cole - 7
Bosingwa - 7
Terry - 6
Ramires - 8
Lampard - 7
Mikel - 6
Mata - 8
Drogba - 8
Kalou - 6

Subs:

Meireles - 6
Malouda - 6

Liverpool 4-1 Chelsea

In stark contrast, this was a great performance and Carroll built on his impressive cup final cameo and was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet. Chelsea were beyond atrocious to be fair, but a good result nonetheless.

Ratings:

Reina - 6
Little to do but did it fine
Johnson - 7
Good going forward and wasn't needed to defend too much thankfully
Agger - 8
Good goal and great performance
Carragher - 7
God bless him, a good display
Skrtel - 8
Superb as he has been this season
Maxi - 7
For him, quite effective
Henderson - 6
He scored, but he's still shite
Shelvey - 7
Well taken goal
Downing - 6
What a pile of crap and who thought he should take a penalty?!
Suarez - 8
Lively
Carroll - 8
Again, excellent. Who'd have thought it?

Subs:

Kuyt - 7
Hope to god he doesn't leave
Sterling - 7
A lively prospect and a lively performance

Hodgson really?

Oh the FA. You've got to love them...before I talk about the choice of Hodgson himself, let's talk first about the shambles that is the FA's selection process. They decided to 'leave it til near the end of the season' to 'avoid disrupting any club's season'...well clearly that worked with Spurs didn't it? Their form hasn't suffered at all from everyone assuming Harry Redknapp would get offered the job. That's good. Is it financially motivated appointing a manager who is out of contract? Almost certainly I would imagine, but the sheer stupidity of all of this is not appointing the manager til so close to the Euros thus giving him precious little time to figure anything out at all. Nice work FA.

In regard to the selection, much was made of Harry Redknapp. I have said in a previous entry that Harry probably would have been my choice although this would not have guaranteed any English success, for reasons outlined in that same blog entry. Given they were so determined to appoint the boss so late, I think Redknapp would have been the more sensible choice given that he has that way of transforming a team so quickly (Portsmouth, Spurs and even Southampton to start with) and is a motivator supreme. That said, Hodgson worked instant wonders at Fulham and WBA so I suppose that argument kind of cancels itself out, but Hodgson certainly did not have the same effect at the two genuinely massive clubs he's managed (Liverpool and Inter).

I hope this does not come across as a view biased entirely by his miserable reign as Liverpool manager, but I think the choice is most definitely the wrong one. Hodgson is undoubtedly a very good English manager if what you want is an average or struggling team transformed into a well organised, battling side who will stay in the Premiership and make their way up to mid-table. His performances at Fulham and West Brom were undeniably successful and for that he deserves credit. But Roy Hodgson, almost by his own admission, is a one-dimensional manager. In his own words at Liverpool, he said he played his way and that was it and his way, I'm afraid, is dull in the extreme. Route one, tedious, maybe well organised but totally unsuited to any team other than a mid-table one. He was hopelessly out of his depth at Anfield and the media pressure did not agree with him...so good job he's in the England job then...

Liverpool 0-1 Fulham

Oh for christ's sake! This was a seriously desperate performance and Fulham deserved their win. What a weird season!