Roy Hodgson's sacking a sign of the times

How about some humility, then? What events have shown is that Roy Hodgson leaving liverpool was absolutely fantastic for the playing situation. You can get the worlds best bulldozer operator, and put him in the formula 1 grand prix. He wont win it. Hodgson is very good at managing shit teams from shit clubs. Probably better than Benitez would be. But the point is, whether its benitez or Dalglish, Liverpool need a formula one driver. enjoy your humble pie... or not, whatever.

Im an 18 year old EPL follower, and without blowing my own trumpet, i'd argue that i'd know just as much about the game of football as anyone else. Hodgson should have stayed with the mighty Cottagers, that's the underlying fact.

World football is not the AFL where you allowed to bottom out. It is a ruthless business. Decisions sometimes have to be made quickly to limit the damage. If Essendon was in the EPL, Knights would have been sacked halfway thru the season and for good reason. To save the side from disastrous relegation.

Rob Mc - you say that you don't have to be an expert to have an opinion on the game. I agree. The writer comes across as an18 year old who happens to follows the EPL with limited football knowlege. Yet, the writer claims "I’ve supported the game for a long time so I don’t need to do any research on it." If he knows what's going on, why did Liverpool supporters come here and straighten him out?

Good on you John Hunt for posting what you thought. Remembering that JH is a citizen journalist, I tihnk it's fair to question his post but not pillory him for lacking knowledge of 'the game' because he has a different opinion to yours. I seem to notice that happens a lot when people post their football/soccer thoughts. You don't have to be an expert on any game to have an opinion.

johnhunt92 - times have changed. There is big money involved. This has got nothing to do with foreign owners. Newcastle - 8 managers in the last 7 years. Tottenham - 8 managers in the last decade. Under achieving clubs with aspiration for bigger things. Are they foreign owned? As Elliot Lodge said "Football is a game of many intricacies in the functioning of the game and your lack of knowledge was evident"

Nambucco, mate even though it might not read like it, I'm on Roy's side. I think he is a quality manager and was pleased when Liverpool signed him. He took over a squad in a in crisis, both on and of the field thanks to inept owners. Benitez was in a much better position when he took over post Houllier. I don't think Roy was given enough time to turn it around, but thats the nature of football these days, as Benitez has found out recently. However, you can't deny Roy did some strange things. Alienating the Kop was a huge mistake. Some team selections were overly defensive and not in sync with the attacking style players like Torres/Gerard are used to. Some of his signings were questioned at the time and proven to be duds. And his post match interviews. Weird. Still, he should have seen out the season. This Dalgleish thing has made Liverpool look like this years Newcastle.

Whilst Houghton and Allardyce can feel agreived at having been sacked after having done a decent job, the same could not be said for Hodgson. First of all, he was not a coach for Liverpool, in the same way that Sam Allardyce is not a coach for Barcelona, they just aren't the right fit. The fans of Liverpool expect their team to go out there and try to win the game by taking it to the opposition as opposed to Hodgson's philosophy of sitting back and soaking up pressure. The fact that the team capitulated so poorly against Stoke, Wolves and Everton suggested that Hodgson didn't understand how to manage this team. It was a team, the majority of which had been there when they finished in second place 2 seasons ago. Alonso and Mascherano had left but that doesn't explain such a meteoric drop in their standings. You only need to look at a team like Bolton who have played good positive football with a far inferior squad to realise that Hodgson was getting it all wrong. Where were you when Benitez was sacked, I'm sure you said very little about a manager who was sacked after winning trophies, guiding the team to two champions league finals, finishing in the top 4 in four of his five seasons in charge and brought in top class players such as Reina, Alonso, Torres and Mascherano. Instead your making noise about a manager who has seen the club get knocked out of the League cup in one of their worst ever defeats in a knockout cup, sit mid table and look generally incapable of stringing together positive performances.

I would hope you knew football before you started writing articles on the topic. Football is a game of many intricacies in the functioning of the game and your lack of knowledge was evident. Elaborating on what others have said, Hodgson crirticised the kop for their lack of suppurt - a big mistake. But overall, his unwillingness to play attacking football made him unpopular at Anfield so his fate was inevitable.

I don't think he was under any illusions about the respective qualities - or indeed size- of Fulham and Liverpool. Did Liverpool make it to the Europa League Final a couple of years ago? You make him out to be some sort of football noviciate, Betamax. He took Switzerland to the quarter finals of the World Cup in 1994, Finland to their highest ever FIFA Ranking, he's managed Inter, FC Copenhagen and Blackburn (all of whom he got into Europe at the first time of asking after periods of relative failure before he got there) and he won SEVEN Swedish league titles, Make no mistake, he's a very good manager, Better overall I would say than Benitez; For some reason the Kop never took to him, so he had to go - a weak decision by Liverpool's board. Dalgleish as a replacement has calmed the idiots in the stands, but I would be very surprised to see him turn around a playing situation which, amusingly for those who don't support the club, seems to be going from bad to worse.

Not their fault that they are the Number 2 team in their city!

I think the point of your article is the modern game dictates get results quickly or be prepared to shown the door. Hodgson was probably not given time to settle, however he didn't help his cause by making some bizarre post-match rants, often accusing his own players of under performing, which is a no-no, even if its true. He bought poorly(Poulsen, Konchesky), but was also handed a lot of dead wood(Babel, Lucas etc) from the Benitez reign. Top players like Torres, Reina and Gerrard have made rumblings about him and that sealed it. I think he found out the hard way that there is a huge leap in managing a club the size of Fulham and a huge club like Liverpool. But, back to the point, modern sport, particularly football with huge amounts of money at stake, demand instant success. Managers often are cannon fodder for the club owners to keep the masses happy. Its never the players fault, of course.

Roy took over Rafas problems thats why this happened. Roys first misstake was not seeing how much of a basket case LFC is.

johnhunt92 - managerial merry go rounds are commonplace in football. What happened to Roy Hodgson is not remarkable. For example, before Mourinho came to Real Madrid this season, they had churned through 9 managers in 7 years. If you want to write articles on football then I suggest you do some research on the game.

I am baffled by this writing... Johnhunt92: either you hate Liverpool as a football team, or you hate the fact a British was sack or you have no clue of what happened during the 6 months the was a manager at the club. The facts are simple: he broke all records of mediocrity (literally) with the worse stats for Liverpool since 1955-1956 during Shankly's era. He had to be fired since Roy Hodgson was not classy and dignified enough to resign. His reign was simply that disastrous. Maybe you are not a person who likes to be accountable for what you are paid to do Johnhunt92 but most honest people believe that concept.