The Roy Hodgson Thread

[Clem]

Great article that, top post. It means nothing if the owners don't know what they are doing (yet).  Can't see Roy being ousted until summer at the earliest and maybe not even then.  I am not convinced the owners are  truly here to compete for the top post, or at least are prepared to be very patient about it. In which case they have a good manager. He steadied the ship alright. Now its settled on the bottom

[Tes]

Different reasons why Roy should go - inability to have a superiority complex. A certain level of arrogance is required and I'm afraid he has none.

I'd settle for him losing the inferiority complex and instilling some belief.

[Ageing Stick Insect]

I'd settle for him losing the inferiority complex and instilling some belief.

Agreed.

[Tes]

Under Roy we've at least found consistancy:

5 points from our first 5 games.
7 points from our next 5 games.
7 points from our last 5 games.


 

[Clem]

Under Roy we've at least found consistancy:

5 points from our first 5 games.
7 points from our next 5 games.
7 points from our last 5 games.


 

jeez thats ugly reading 

[Tes]

Mutual respect for mediocrity spawned this fine bromance

Sunday December 05 2010


We've all had enough pain. We've all had enough misery and dissembling. But the next 24 hours will bring more, although it will be disguised as a heart-warming story of friends re-united. Gerard Houllier returns to Anfield tomorrow and he will be met there by his great friend Roy Hodgson.

If you had Roy Hodgson's away record, you too would have many friends in football. Since August 2009, Hodgson has won two league matches away from home, so it is no surprise he is greeted warmly wherever he goes.

Hodgson, as he repeatedly reminds people, may be one of the game's most respected figures, but when he walks through the front door of a football club, he is also a walking, talking three points for the home side. All that is left is to choose the wine. They spend a lot of time talking abut wine.

Instead of points, he accumulates friends, who tell him how well he's doing in his latest job, the management of the decline of Liverpool.

He will be emboldened by the words from his great friend Houllier, who returns to Anfield, despite never really having left. From afar, he guided Liverpool to victory in the Champions League in Istanbul. It was his side, a side containing Djimi Traore, that won the European Cup. At the UEFA conferences where he sees his friends or when he sits down with a journalist, Houllier tells them this and they nod sagely. It is a version of the truth. Signing Djimi Traore was Houllier's achievement. Winning the European Cup with Djimi Traore was Rafael Benitez's.

These stories of managerial bonhomie are not complete without mention of the "good bottle of red" that one has decanted for another. The mistrust of a*sene Wenger by many stems from the fact that Wenger, though clearly French, eschews the good bottle of red.

There will be more talk of red wine in the build-up to tomorrow's game than during a Keith Floyd show where he is cooking coq au vin with red wine gravy followed by a red wine tapioca pudding.

They are both friends with Alex Ferguson too. Ferguson has acquired many friends in football, but he has rarely shown up at a football ground without considering if he could build a lifelong grudge around the presence of some enemy in the vicinity.

Hodgson last week described Liverpool's draw in the FA Cup with United as "sad". There are eight members of the team that won 4-1 at Old Trafford still in Liverpool's squad. Hodgson will be able to pick on seven of them and the painful decline of Jamie Carragher means he will not miss the eighth.

If Liverpool have disintegrated since that time, Manchester United have got no better. Hodgson's sadness was over the meeting of two big teams in the third round, but there was the underlying sadness as he jokes about putting on his make-up for live TV that, once again, his real record would be scrutinised and exposed.

He is just a patsy. Most of those who appointed him are no longer employed at Anfield but yet he must muddle on.

Many of his supporters in the media castigate Liverpool fans for abandoning their principles and not showing the patience they have traditionally granted previous managers. This, they will claim, is a reflection, of our impatient times with its demand for instant gratification (my problem with instant gratification is that it takes too long).

Yet Liverpool fans were pretty patient with Benitez and that was six months ago. It may not be the times that have changed just the credentials of the incumbent.

Hodgson's supporters still point to his record, highlighting in all seriousness his exploits at Fulham. There is no real success. Hodgson has never won a league title outside Scandinavia.

His methods, as he put it himself, "have translated from Halmstads to Malmo, to Orebo to Neuchatel Xamax, to the Swiss national team".

Liverpool fans are not showing impatience with Hodgson, they are voicing their feeling that he was the wrong appointment for a club that demands more than going a year without an away win and nobody noticing.

It could be that those who praised Hodgson so highly weren't really paying attention. It was easy to praise a friendly and welcoming manager while he was at Fulham. It was easy, even if he was going from one end of the season to the next without winning away from home to talk about his exploits.

One journalist recently wrote a piece defending Hodgson (guess what? He needs time). Liverpool fans were criticised for chanting Kenny Dalglish's name and the writer wondered if maybe Liverpool fans should get Dalglish just to see how they would react if it was a Dalglish side that lost at home to Northampton, went into the bottom three or lost at Stoke.

It was Hodgson who did this but it seems it is always somebody else's problem.

Usually, it is Benitez's. Last week's news that Liverpool incurred £9m in agents' fees thanks solely to Benitez was another example. This cost came about "tackling the legacy of the previous regime" as it was widely reported.

Hodgson arrived saying Liverpool were over-staffed and then recruited Konchesky, Poulsen and Joe Cole while letting some young talent go and releasing a finally fit Alberto Aquilani on loan.

The reality is that Hodgson has discovered that Liverpool is a club apart, uninterested in the soothing words from the media.

"Everyone I know in football respects the job I'm doing here and aren't too surprised it hasn't been an easy start," he said last week as he anticipated a meeting with another old friend, Harry Redknapp, before reminding people that Jose Mourinho had said Liverpool will get "worse and worse". Hodgson left White Hart Lane pointless and characteristically fatalistic, even after a good bottle of red.

Tomorrow promises more warmth and conviviality. Hodgson and Houllier will talk about their mutual respect and reflect on their great gifts of survival, skipping over their exploits which have earned them such admiration from their many friends in football.

A draw would be the most fitting demonstration of this great bromance.



http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/premier-league/mutual-respect-for-mediocrity-spawned-this-fine-bromance-2448861.html

I wonder if Dion Fanning wasn't invited to the 'all things wonderful are English' journalists club because he writes for the Irish Independant.

It's hard yet again to disagree with him.

Points are something Roy definately struggles with, whether they are away from home or even written ones.

[the dude abides]

very good article.

and all the points made are good ones.

roy is beaten before he starts....he is so fatalistic and so accepting of mediocrity.

you'd hate to be struggling out of your trench, and going over the top in a war, with woy beside you.

[Clem]

Mutual respect for mediocrity spawned this fine bromance

Sunday December 05 2010


We've all had enough pain. We've all had enough misery and dissembling. But the next 24 hours will bring more, although it will be disguised as a heart-warming story of friends re-united. Gerard Houllier returns to Anfield tomorrow and he will be met there by his great friend Roy Hodgson.

If you had Roy Hodgson's away record, you too would have many friends in football. Since August 2009, Hodgson has won two league matches away from home, so it is no surprise he is greeted warmly wherever he goes.

Hodgson, as he repeatedly reminds people, may be one of the game's most respected figures, but when he walks through the front door of a football club, he is also a walking, talking three points for the home side. All that is left is to choose the wine. They spend a lot of time talking abut wine.

Instead of points, he accumulates friends, who tell him how well he's doing in his latest job, the management of the decline of Liverpool.

He will be emboldened by the words from his great friend Houllier, who returns to Anfield, despite never really having left. From afar, he guided Liverpool to victory in the Champions League in Istanbul. It was his side, a side containing Djimi Traore, that won the European Cup. At the UEFA conferences where he sees his friends or when he sits down with a journalist, Houllier tells them this and they nod sagely. It is a version of the truth. Signing Djimi Traore was Houllier's achievement. Winning the European Cup with Djimi Traore was Rafael Benitez's.

These stories of managerial bonhomie are not complete without mention of the "good bottle of red" that one has decanted for another. The mistrust of a*sene Wenger by many stems from the fact that Wenger, though clearly French, eschews the good bottle of red.

There will be more talk of red wine in the build-up to tomorrow's game than during a Keith Floyd show where he is cooking coq au vin with red wine gravy followed by a red wine tapioca pudding.

They are both friends with Alex Ferguson too. Ferguson has acquired many friends in football, but he has rarely shown up at a football ground without considering if he could build a lifelong grudge around the presence of some enemy in the vicinity.

Hodgson last week described Liverpool's draw in the FA Cup with United as "sad". There are eight members of the team that won 4-1 at Old Trafford still in Liverpool's squad. Hodgson will be able to pick on seven of them and the painful decline of Jamie Carragher means he will not miss the eighth.

If Liverpool have disintegrated since that time, Manchester United have got no better. Hodgson's sadness was over the meeting of two big teams in the third round, but there was the underlying sadness as he jokes about putting on his make-up for live TV that, once again, his real record would be scrutinised and exposed.

He is just a patsy. Most of those who appointed him are no longer employed at Anfield but yet he must muddle on.

Many of his supporters in the media castigate Liverpool fans for abandoning their principles and not showing the patience they have traditionally granted previous managers. This, they will claim, is a reflection, of our impatient times with its demand for instant gratification (my problem with instant gratification is that it takes too long).

Yet Liverpool fans were pretty patient with Benitez and that was six months ago. It may not be the times that have changed just the credentials of the incumbent.

Hodgson's supporters still point to his record, highlighting in all seriousness his exploits at Fulham. There is no real success. Hodgson has never won a league title outside Scandinavia.

His methods, as he put it himself, "have translated from Halmstads to Malmo, to Orebo to Neuchatel Xamax, to the Swiss national team".

Liverpool fans are not showing impatience with Hodgson, they are voicing their feeling that he was the wrong appointment for a club that demands more than going a year without an away win and nobody noticing.

It could be that those who praised Hodgson so highly weren't really paying attention. It was easy to praise a friendly and welcoming manager while he was at Fulham. It was easy, even if he was going from one end of the season to the next without winning away from home to talk about his exploits.

One journalist recently wrote a piece defending Hodgson (guess what? He needs time). Liverpool fans were criticised for chanting Kenny Dalglish's name and the writer wondered if maybe Liverpool fans should get Dalglish just to see how they would react if it was a Dalglish side that lost at home to Northampton, went into the bottom three or lost at Stoke.

It was Hodgson who did this but it seems it is always somebody else's problem.

Usually, it is Benitez's. Last week's news that Liverpool incurred £9m in agents' fees thanks solely to Benitez was another example. This cost came about "tackling the legacy of the previous regime" as it was widely reported.

Hodgson arrived saying Liverpool were over-staffed and then recruited Konchesky, Poulsen and Joe Cole while letting some young talent go and releasing a finally fit Alberto Aquilani on loan.

The reality is that Hodgson has discovered that Liverpool is a club apart, uninterested in the soothing words from the media.

"Everyone I know in football respects the job I'm doing here and aren't too surprised it hasn't been an easy start," he said last week as he anticipated a meeting with another old friend, Harry Redknapp, before reminding people that Jose Mourinho had said Liverpool will get "worse and worse". Hodgson left White Hart Lane pointless and characteristically fatalistic, even after a good bottle of red.

Tomorrow promises more warmth and conviviality. Hodgson and Houllier will talk about their mutual respect and reflect on their great gifts of survival, skipping over their exploits which have earned them such admiration from their many friends in football.

A draw would be the most fitting demonstration of this great bromance.



http://www.independent.ie/sport/soccer/premier-league/mutual-respect-for-mediocrity-spawned-this-fine-bromance-2448861.html

I wonder if Dion Fanning wasn't invited to the 'all things wonderful are English' journalists club because he writes for the Irish Independant.

It's hard yet again to disagree with him.

Points are something Roy definately struggles with, whether they are away from home or even written ones.

awesome piece Tes.  We won't see its like in our Independent though. I'm past blaming anyone other than Henry now. That Hodgson is still here, and were still mid-table non-entities as Christmas approaches ,reflects on him and him alone.
He is the only person able to help the club, and he hasn't got a scooby how to do it. 

[barticus]

you'd hate to be struggling out of your trench, and going over the top in a war, with woy beside you.

we'd let him go....i don't think he'd notice as he ambled over the open ground because he'd be too busy thinking of the next glass of red wine with fergie...like the forlorn hope, we'd watch as he struggled up the large bank of enemy defences while he wondered what the whistling wind was going past his head every now and again...he wouldn't make it of course, but for the first time in his life he would have created a moment of inspiration for the troops left behind...Huzzah! unleash the dogs of war...

Much like his inevitable demise from our club...tis only a matter of time...

[Tes]

I'm past blaming anyone other than Henry now. That Hodgson is still here, and were still mid-table non-entities as Christmas approaches ,reflects on him and him alone.
He is the only person able to help the club, and he hasn't got a scooby how to do it.

What's worrying me, Clem, is that whilst he's taking stock and taking time trying to get the right appointments in place, weeks are slipping by, points are being dropped and the likelihood of us getting back into the CL next season recedes. That one act will see us lose probably at least two of the players you would be looking to build a team around and set us back a further two seasons.
A failure to break the top four this season could mean probably three seasons minimum before that could possibly happen, unless the Mancs or Chelsea start to plummit through lack of investment.

[Tes]

Hodgson: You'd be mad to sack my mate Houllier

Published 23:00 04/12/10 By Anthony Clavane




Roy Hodgson insists Liverpool owe Gerard Houllier a great deal – and has called on Aston Villa fans to give their boss more time to turn their season around.

It will be an emotional homecoming for Houllier at Anfield tomorrow night as the Reds welcome back the man who landed them six trophies.

Hodgson, who took over from the Frenchman’s ­successor Rafa Benitez, knows the Kop will give Houllier a warm reception.

The Midlanders visit ­Liverpool on the back of a terrible run which has seen them win only two and lose six of their last 11 games.


But although they have lost their last three games - including Wednesday’s ­defeat at Birmingham in the Carling Cup quarter-final - Hodgson is convinced his old friend will revive Villa’s fortunes.

“Gerard did a good job at Liverpool,” he said. “There’s no question about that. He is a good manager.

“He might not have hit the ground running, but he will do his best to make Villa a much better club. I’m convinced he’ll succeed.

“It seems these days it’s all about calls for managers to be axed. It will be easier to list this season a manager who has not supposedly been on his way out than those of us who are, supposedly, on our way out.” The two men are close friends, getting to know each other while serving on UEFA and FIFA technical committees.

After winning six trophies, Houllier felt he was building a legacy on Merseyside and has expressed his irritation at the way he left the club in 2004.

Hodgson said: ­“Gerard and I have been friends for many years. I will have a glass of wine with him after the game.

“He’ll be desperate to beat my Liverpool team just as I’ll be desperate to beat his Aston Villa team. But whatever happens it won’t affect our friendship.

“I know from my many conversations with him that he really enjoyed his time at Liverpool. He still has a lot of affection for the club. There is no bitterness or animosity at all.

“There is high expectation at Villa just as there is high ­expectation at Liverpool. But he knew that when he took the job. Just like I knew that when I took this job.”

Hodgson himself has been under fire from a section of Liverpool fans.

But on Wednesday night he guided his side into the ­knockout stages of the Europa League with a 1-1 draw at Steuau Bucharest and now feels the club have turned the corner.

“We started the season so badly,” he said. “Now our ­position is a lot healthier but we are still in the throes of laying a foundation.

“I’m just hoping that after 19 games we will be in the top half of the table with a platform to enable us to do a little bit better in the second half of the season.”

And Liverpool legend Ray Clemence has made a plea for fans to give Hodgson a chance.

“The fans should be ­patient,” said Clemence. “There should be no knee-jerk reactions. There are ­supposedly calls for Kenny ­Dalglish, but I haven’t heard them.

“It takes time to change things at a club. A new manager needs time to make his mark.”


http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Liverpool-boss-Roy-Hodgson-says-Aston-Villa-would-be-mad-to-sack-his-mate-Gerard-Houllier-article644019.html

“I’m just hoping that after 19 games we will be in the top half of the table with a platform to enable us to do a little bit better in the second half of the season.”

That's a new low even for our manager. That's probably the most depressing thing I've ever heard from a Liverpool manager.

[the dude abides]

we'd let him go....i don't think he'd notice as he ambled over the open ground because he'd be too busy thinking of the next glass of red wine with fergie...like the forlorn hope, we'd watch as he struggled up the large bank of enemy defences while he wondered what the whistling wind was going past his head every now and again...he wouldn't make it of course, but for the first time in his life he would have created a moment of inspiration for the troops left behind...Huzzah! unleash the dogs of war...

 

I can see roy now....in his world war one soldier uniform, looking up from his trench.

fatalistic - "It's sad.  What is the point.  There is no hope.  The Germans are too strong."

inspirational - "you go first and see what it's like, kiddo"

tactically poor - "I'll stick my head up and see what Gerry is up to up to"

[Tes]

 

I can see roy now....in his world war one soldier uniform, looking up from his trench.

fatalistic - "It's sad.  What is the point.  There is no hope.  The Germans are too strong."

inspirational - "you go first and see what it's like, kiddo"

tactically poor - "I'll stick my head up and see what Gerry is up to up to"

He'd dig into his inside pocket, remove a beer stein and head off to share a bevy with his mates Franz and Karl-Heinz.

I bet it was him who organised the footie on Christmas Day in 1915 and was 'sad' when we scored.

[the dude abides]

He'd dig into his inside pocket, remove a beer stein and head off to share a bevy with his mates Franz and Karl-Heinz.

I bet it was him who organised the footie on Christmas Day in 1915 and was 'sad' when we scored.

yes, it's bad form old boy to score - and potentially make our adverseries sad.

much better to play the game, what.

winning is for losers.

[Juan]

Under Roy we've at least found consistancy:

5 points from our first 5 games.
7 points from our next 5 games.
7 points from our last 5 games.


 

Wow we are nailed on to finish 12th