Roy Hodgson - Liverpool Football Club manager?!! Resign in the morning!!

Goodness gracious me. Liverpool Football Club have never played in the last 10 seasons as woefully as they did tonight. We were facing a team fighting for points, fighting off relegation, we are in negative goals difference (when was the last time that happened?!!), we needed the points tonight and this night was the night we were suppose to show a determination for turning the corner and grinding out results in our favour. We were at Anfield tonight, against Wolves, and we should have finished the game the winners.

Instead we have players playing out of position, we have a lethargic response, and we conceded just the one goal and left it at that. Tonight was the disgrace of Liverpool Football Club, and that was down mainly to Roy Hodgson. His words afterwards just have not inspired me he has heart and soul behind the role as manager, and it was no different after tonight's abysmal showing of a supposedly thought-out Liverpool XI:

"It was a performance way below what we are capable of and what we wanted to give. I'd like to give Wolves credit, but I think we were a bit unlucky to lose the game, probably 0-0 would have been a fair result. But it was nowhere near our expectations or hopes.

"It was a bad day at the office, there was plenty of effort but no end product and the players are very disappointed in there. The fans have left angry and that's understandable. However, it would be dangerous to clear a lot of players out on the basis of one game. We wanted our renaissance to start today, but it hasn't happened. Panic would be the wrong thing to do but I'm not the sole arbiter of that."

What?!?! 'Arbiter'??! Roy Hodgson is the "sole" person behind choosing who plays, who starts, and who doesn't. The team has cracked under pressure and have only managed to hold tight in the home games mostly. We have lost to Wolves to add to the lost to Blackpool at home, for the first time for both defeats in so many years. We've travelled to Man City, Newcastle, Everton & Spurs to walk away licking huge wounds, and lousy Hodgson providing the limpest, lamest of post-match interviews with hardly any backbone but several snaps at the media instead.

We knew it would be a hard job to take on with poor owners, limited funds and a squad despondent from finishing out of the top four, in 7th place, relinquishing our Champions League voyage and looking likely to have relinquished it for another season to take up the Europa League which, with no disrespect to the competition, we should not be in. Having finished with 18 games two seasons back and being top with 38pts, we're 12 with 18 games gone and 22pts. Twenty six points from top, even seven places and 11 pts from 5th.

Oh yes, it can still change, with a miracle. Man City and Spurs have rocked the top four places, Chelsea have just about edged a 1-0 win at home against Bolton tonight, Arsenal were held after their stewing of Chelsea at the weekend, with Liverpool looking ever more unlikely to have any influence in going up and up the table. Players are lethargic, unresponsive, not producing the quality of football we need at the club, and there's a manager who probably comes off as if he has little to no clue in what he is doing. There's no belief coming from him and it's rubbing onto the players.

We have one of the best midfielders and strikers in Europe amongst a few others decent enough to take the club forward, left with the bare bones of the reminder of the squad who are not up to standard. Hodgson has brought in Meireles, Poulson and Konchesky and only Meireles seems something of a decent signing. Joe Cole cannot get into his groove as yet and there's no sign he ever will. If things do not pick up sharply soon, we will lose the few good players we have. We have gone from bad to worse, and the only answer is for John Henry to call an emergency meeting, telling Hodgson to leave NOW and replacing him with someone who will get the team moving and playing. We cannot afford to continue like this, at all, this is shambolic.



RedsMan.

The importance of the first penalty in a shoot-out

Here is a link to a research study that shows a team's chances of winning a penalty shoot out is raised by 20 per cent simply through opting to take the first penalty.

http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2010/12/Penalties.aspx

Something to bear in mind the next time your team enters the dreaded shoot out lottery...

NUFC coach Chris Hughton sacked: Whose decision was that?!?

Didn't Chris Hughton raised Newcastle United from the Championship into the Premier League after just one season? Didn't he do so as champions of the Championship? Unbeaten all season at home in the Championship? Three months into the EPL, Newcastle, candidates for relegation at the start of the season, have recorded memorable wins against the likes of Arsenal at The Emirates for the first time in 5 years I believe, and a 5-1 drubbing of Sunderland, their bitter North-East rivals. They are currently 11th in the table.

Despite how Hughton had to raise not only the club back into the EPL, he had to raise its morale, its confidence, get to the players, make them believe in him, make them believe they can go back up, and he did it all very well. And yet, a decision was made to release him from the club three months in, which will undoubtedly ask many questions that will remain unanswered. Why? Why now?? Who will replace him? Will it affect the players' performance?

But with bad results consisting of a drubbing themselves at the hands of Bolton, and a home defeat to another promoted side in Blackpool, Hughton appeared to have his card marked from a while back. Blaming his lack of experience for why he had to go, owner Mike Ashley has not left himself with much respect amongst the fans yet again, some of whom felt he wasn't in touch with their expectations. Many of them would have knighted Hughton, much less kept him at the club.

A few players have expressed their disappointment, and shock, at the decision. A balance of good results with bad, they were all still behind the coach. And he made a few good signings, Newcastle signings, the type that fitted in with the club - Sol Campbell, Mike Williamson, Peter Lovenkrands, Wayne Routledge - those who offered something that collectively made for a decent, fighting side capable on their day of being hard to beat. Now the players face responding to interim coach Peter Beardsley for the time being, again another unassured person in charge of the players.

What is Mike Ashley going to do next at NUFC - change their home strip colours??



RedsMan.