Kenny Dalglish. King of the Kop. After his first stint with the Merseyside club Dalglish left a legacy of six First Division titles and three European Cups as player, while as manager scooped three more titles and two FA Cups.
The legacy of Dalglish and the success of his 1980s sides has cast a significant shadow over Anfied ever since.
Fast forward thirty years and Liverpool are without a Premier League title and Dalglish has been and gone again.
Eight place. Eighth place in the league and runners up in the FA Cup, Liverpool supporters can point only to their second rate Cup victory as evidence of Dalglish’s second coming at the club.
Brought back to the club by Rafa Benitez, Dalglish soon found himself in the hotseat once again after the clubs disastrous spell under Roy Hodgson.
The takeover by American giants Fenway Sports Group and the quick turnaround the relegation threatened club experienced under ‘the King’ fostered a sense of optimism on Merseyside early on in his tenure.
But after a bright start, Dalglish was unable to replicate the success of his first term and was swiftly shown the door by the American owners. Now that it’s all over, how will history remember Kenny Dalglish?
Things started to go wrong for Dalglish late January 2011.
After Fernando Torres’ head was turned by the alluring advances of Chelsea and a British transfer record fee of £50 million was secured the King was handed responsibility and free reign to acquire a strikeforce capable of replicating El Nino’s goalscoring ability.
Quite predictably Dalglish went back to what he knew, the English staple ‘big man little man’ pairing signing of Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll.
Sadly for Dalglish the modern game has moved on and there is a very good reason that the big clubs don’t play the way they did 30 years ago.
The key here is that rather than bank the £50 million FSG allowed Dalglish to spend it and coughed up some more cash.
While Suarez has entertained fans with his ability on the ball. his inability to score goals and Carroll’s frustrating time at the club continue to hamper the clubs progress.
If Carroll and Suarez were bad business worse was to come in the form of big money deals for Jordan Henderson and Stuart Downing.
At £20 million pounds a pop for the British pair, it’s hard to fathom just how bad a bit of business that is.
To put it in perspective, when the club signed Downing Juan Mata was available for £17 million.
The argument at the time mirrors that of the Carroll/Suarez pairing in that Liverpool needed a touchline hugging winger with the ability to drop long balls on Carroll’s head all day.
Again we see Dalglish struggling to let go of the past. Sadly for him the days of 4-4-2 and route one football have been and gone.
Jordan Henderson will probably be a good player one day but he is worth closer to half of what Dalglish stumped up for him.
Young English midfielder Jack Rodwell went to Manchester City for £14 million this season which just about says it all Henderson.
More to the point why was the Brit signed? Henderson is not the player to pick a mediocre Liverpool outfit by the scruff of the neck and drag it up the table and into Champions League spots.
So basically he’s not the player they need to get to where they want to go and if they ever get there he’ll only be a squad player anyway.
After £60 million was burnt six months earlier Dalglish squandered a further war chest in the vicinity of £60 million once again.
This sort of support from the new owners started to really excite Liverpool fans, they started to think ‘how good’s this, we’re out buying £20 and £30 million players’ when history shows they were receiving players worth only a fraction of the fees they were handing out.
Dalglish’s second term was ended at the close of the 2011/12 season after a Premier League season to match the transfer wheeling and dealings.
Just like his first stint at the club Dalglish’s shadow is likely to hang over the famous club for quite some time.
FSG are seemingly no longer willing to support managers at Liverpool with an open cheque book. The manner in which Dalglish ineptly squandered FSG’s millions is going to be felt at Anfield for quite some time it seems.
Just ask Brendan Rodgers. Not only did Rodgers inherit a squad built to play an inferior system but he has had to scrape each and every dollar to make an impact in the transfer market.
The month-long pursuit of Clint Dempsey reportedly failed because FSG and Liverpool were unable or unwilling to meet the lowly £6 million valuation of the 17 goal star from last season.
Brendan Rodgers was stopped from addressing his squads most glaring weakness, goals, and unable to secure a deal for his number one summer target.
Moving forward this will be the legacy of Kenny Dalglish. Just like the King’s first departure from the club it seems Liverpool will struggle to scale the heights of Dalglish’s reign.
The saddest thing for Liverpool fans is that second time around that’s eighth place. Eighth place in the league, runners up in the FA Cup and a second rate Cup victory.
With his legacy looming large over Anfield once again Brendan Rodgers would do well to match the uninspiring feats of the King’s last reign.
jmac
Guest
Another armchair Playstation football manager. Any person who criticsises a multi title and cup winning manager in the real world only serves to highlight their own inadequacies as an adult. And clearly has not achieved success themselves. I like the comments like 'fell in to place', as if by some piece of luck, the Blackburn team came together, despite that many teams fail in spite of the millions they spend. And yet in the Liverpool example it was a system inherited (hang on..no system was in Blackburn). You contradicted your own argument. You are looking for problems to explain a successful manager in the real world when it seems you have enough of your own. Jmac
Vas Venkatramani
Guest
Was KD inept in his transfer dealings? Absolutely. As the author writes, it's hard to fathom justifying 20m quid for Henderson and Downing when Mata was available for 17. But KD wasn't an exception. Rafa was guilty as well, when Rafael Van Der Vaart went to Tottenham for only 7m the same season we bought Aquilani for 18m with the Xabi Alonso cash. But transfers are only one component of the issue. The other was a dismantling of our academy when Steve Heighway (the man who brought up the likes of Gerrard and Carragher) left the club. Only in his last season did Rafael Benitez recognise the flaws of the academy, and we are now starting to see some good juniors coming through Melwood such as Martin Kelly, Raheem Sterling and Suso. But past is past. What does Brendan Rodgers do from here? First, he must recall Andy Carroll in January rather than test the market again for another striker. Given the farce that evolved with Clint Dempsey, it is better not retempt fate only for FSG to keep their hands in their pockets. For who people who are blaming FSG for being too thrifty, I can't imagine doing any different. Given that 100m was given to Kenny to reinvigorate the squad, they want to either see some kind of footballing return, or a simple swap of players. They are not sheikhs, and that was made clear to Liverpool fans from day one when they took the club from Martin Broughton after the Hicks/Gillett era. In the meantime, Liverpool must play Steven Gerrard in advanced forward positions and let him dominate midfield. He is still capable of that, and might inspire Luis Suarez, Borini and Suso to play more as a traditional goal-finisher. Liverpool's problems are not about creating, but finishing. Our defence needs to tighten up as well, given that we've shipped seven goals in three games. Joe Allen looks an outstanding buy, and Fabio Borini needs time to settle. The seeds are there, but Liverpool fans (like me) need to be patient. And if Champions League football does not come (as I think it won't) this season, then FSG must not elect to fire yet another manager.
David V.
Guest
I'm an Everton fan but know more than enough here to comment. "Route One" does not wash when Liverpool were, in their glory days, renown as a passing side. Whether Dalglish was ever that good a manager or not is up for debate, but his record doesn't exactly stand to scrutiny. Firstly, in his late 80s spell at Liverpool, he had the good fortune of inheriting a setup in which any pea brain could do well, because Liverpool as a club were always about the system rather than players, and Bill Shankly and Bon Paisley's legacy of a strong backroom staff to keep things running and that worked for a good three decades. The way he handled things post Hillsborough got respect across football, but he was evidently worn out by it. But there were other things at play too. Through no fault of his own, Heysel and Hillsborough had taken its toll on Liverpool and its players, and it caught up with them. Dalglish left, Souness took over and attempted to change things too quickly for them- and failed dismally. However, Liverpool's decline had a certain inevitability about it after Hillsborough. At Blackburn, Dalglish had the good luck of financial backing, Alan Shearer, and things falling into place at the right time for a title win. Tellingly, they failed to build on it and Blackburn's spending was to cost them dear in the coming years. Then at Newcastle, here he had the rotten luck of Alan Shearer getting injured pre-season. However, he made some immensely idiotic decisions- selling Les Ferdinand, David Ginola and Lee Clark, the last one a beloved local lad. He replaces them with players who clearly aren't of the same quality, despite a memorable Asprilla display v Barcelona, it all goes downhill. Finally, the John Barnes fiasco at Celtic. Barnes had a team vastly superior to all in the SPL today. Dalglish didn't cover himself in glory there at all. Even if Barnes had the rotten luck of losing Henrik Larsson to that horror injury.
Tim
Guest
The extent of the coverup and the smear campaign against not only Liverpool supporters but football supporters in general is absolutely disgusting. Some of the findings in the panel's report is truly shocking, specifically the revelations that 41 people could have actually been saved after the 3:15 PM coroner's original "cutoff" time.
Brick Tamlin of the Pants Party
Guest
Dalglish's reign was unspectactular that is without question.I always knew the honeymoon would end rather quickly but appointing Dalglish as manager should have never happened in the first place.To bring in a manager who has been out of the game for years and expect him to take you to the top is just bad judgement.But this is an ongoing problem for the Reds,maybe the expectation and the ghosts of the past are just too much to live up to for players of this famous club. On another note finally the truth has come out about Hillsborough,i hope the families of the victims can now get some justice for their loved ones who perished that day.Its unbelievable that the lies have been covered up for this long and it took year after year after year of campaigning to get the truth out there,disgusting.