SOCCER:LIVERPOOL'S American owners are running out of patience with Roy Hodgson amid fears that the manager's relationship with the club's supporters has broken down irretrievably.
Despite the fact that in one poll 95 per cent of Liverpool fans wanted Hodgson to be sacked immediately after Wednesday’s 1-0 home defeat by Wolverhampton Wanderers, there appears to be no great appetite for regime change.
John W Henry and Tom Werner of New England Sports Ventures are prepared to give Hodgson more time after six torturous months.
However, Henry has already labelled performances this season “unacceptable” and the next three games – against Bolton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers in the league and Manchester United in the FA Cup – are likely to be critical to Hodgson’s chances of surviving until the summer, when his position will be reviewed.
Henry and Werner, who run the Fenway Sports Group, through which NESV controls Liverpool, are understood to be concerned by the breakdown in relations between fans and the manager.
A poll on the Liverpool website The Empire of the Kop drew more than 4,300 replies, with 95.5 per cent of respondents answering yes to the question: “Do you want Roy Hodgson to be fired today?”
The defeat by Wolves, which Hodgson considered Liverpool’s worst performance of a dismal season, was dominated by ironic chants of “Hodgson for England” and by calls for Kenny Dalglish to take over. That latter scenario is unlikely to arise even if Hodgson is fired. Given his impassioned loyalty to Liverpool, Dalglish would be unlikely to refuse an offer to return to the job he quit in 1991.
However, his candidacy to replace Rafael Benitez in the summer was rejected almost out of hand by the then managing director, Christian Purslow, and his successors are acutely aware that recalling a man who has been out of frontline football since a brief spell as Celtic’s caretaker manager more than a decade ago would create more problems than it would solve.
Fenway has no desire to install an interim manager and if Dalglish were unable to pull Liverpool out of their tailspin it would tarnish his glittering reputation and that of the board. If Dalglish were a qualified success, he may block Fenway’s plans to bring in a young, long-term manager.
The former Barcelona manager Frank Rijkaard is the favourite while Marseille coach Didier Deschamps, who was interviewed for the post in the summer, has moved to distance himself from fresh speculation linking him with Anfield.
