Premier League Liverpool have sacked boss Kenny Dalglish.
The Scot’s second spell as boss at the club lasted just under 18 months, as the club struggled to find any sort of form in the league.
The club finished in 8th position four points behind local-rivals Everton.
Inevitable
I wrote an article last week about whether Kenny Dalglish should leave the club or not? I wrote this article because I just thought that it was inevitable that the Scot wouldn’t be the Liverpool manager next season. His exit really hasn’t been a surprise to me.
Announcement
Liverpool chairman Tom Werner released a statement on the clubs official website which read: “Kenny came into the club as manager at our request at a time when Liverpool Football Club really needed him. He didn’t ask to be manager; he was asked to assume the role.
“He did so because he knew the club needed him. He did more than anyone else to stabilise Liverpool over the past year-and-a-half and to get us once again looking forward. We owe him a great debt of gratitude.
“However, results in the Premier League have been disappointing and we believe to build on the progress that has already been made, we need to make a change. We are committed to delivering success for our supporters and our ambition remains resolute to return this great club to the elite of England and Europe, where it belongs.”
Terrible
Liverpool’s form in the Premier League has been simply awful. In fact Liverpool endured their worse league campaign since the 1950’s. Some might say that the Reds were unlucky in some games, hitting the woodwork a number of times but in truth the Liverpool players were just not good enough.
The Reds claimed their first silverware in six years in the shape of the Carling Cup and also made it to the FA Cup final. However, those cup achievements couldn’t mask the fact that the club wasn’t moving forward.
Mistake
There is a saying that you should never go back in football and that saying proved very right in this case. Dalglish made the mistake of returning to the club for a second spell in charge, 20 years after his first spell ended.
There has been a lot of changes in the game in the last 20 years and Dalglish seems to have been left behind. I think it was a mistake by the Liverpool owners to appoint Dalglish on a permanent basis.
Signings
Managers live and die by their signings, unfortunately Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool career has been killed off by poor signings. The fact that Dalglish preferred to signed British players has really cost him.
In the eighties and early nineties the English top flight was dominated by British players and foreign players were rare when Dalglish was first in charge of the Reds. Dalglish built a successful team on buying the best British players he could.
In his second spell he tried to repeat the trick. Unfortunately English players no longer prove value for money. The likes of Stewart Downing, Charlie Adam and Jordan Henderson wouldn’t have been anywhere near great Liverpool teams of the past.
I think those signings are a sign of why the club is no longer at the very pinnacle of the English game. Liverpool cannot sign the best players available anymore, but they could have signed foreign players who are far better quality for the same price as they paid for their overrated English players.
Split
There seems to be a split in the Liverpool fans at the moment. There are those fans who know the club wasn’t progressing under the Scot and that the club needed a change. However there are also those Liverpool fans who wanted Dalglish to stay at Anfield.
Most of those who wanted Dalglish to stay at the club was making the decision for sentimental reasons and not for football reasons. Had he been anybody else I don’t think Dalglish would have even lasted as long as he did.
Legend
Kenny Dalglish will always be a legend at Liverpool for what he did in his playing days and in his first spell as manager.
I don’t think many fans will punish him for his short second spell at the club. It’s a shame for Kenny Dalglish’s that his second stint at Anfield as boss didn’t work out, but I think it’s safe to say he will always be a hero to Reds fans.
Were Liverpool right to sack Kenny Dalglish?
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