It's been a crazy few days for managers in English football. Since Christmas there have been numerous sackings in the football league and this morning Liverpool announced that Roy Hodgson is leaving Liverpool to be replaced by Kenny Daglish for the remainder of the season. The timing of these sackings is obviously motivated by the desire to give the new men the chance to make decisions to sign/sell players during the January transfer window.
Two things jump out at me about the Hodgson sacking. Firstly, will Kenny be able to recreate his former glories? He's been out of football for best part of 15 years and as we know the game has changed a lot in that time. I'm not sure, letting the players know 'what it means to play for Liverpool' will really make much difference to them. Is it really just passion that Liverpool have lacked i wonder? No doubt it will get the fans going though so i'm half expecting an upset against United in the cup and of course the blues need to beware next week at Anfield.
The second thing it underlines for me is how difficult it can be for a club to move on after having had a long-serving manager. Invariably long serving managers have been successful and stamped their mark on the whole club. By the time Benitez had left Liverpool in summer 2010 only Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher survived from before his reign and as late as 2007 Academy Director Steve Heighway had been replaced with Benitez's man. Long serving managers tend to have a vision that permeates through the whole club, from playing staff, to backroom staff and even to fans. When a manager goes, quite often their vision can live on elsewhere in the club for quite some time. I think it's this that Hodgson refers to when he expresses his regret at not being able to put his stamp on the squad. Liverpool aren't unique in struggling with the transition, Aston Villa are another example right now and i could cite Charlton Athletic post-Curbishley, West Ham post-Redknapp and Leeds United post-Revie as other examples.
Everton fans that have called for David Moyes' head this season need to be careful what they wish for. Inevitably even the most successful managers reach a point where it goes stale and they can take a club no further. Sometimes change is neccessary. But what Evertonians need to understand is that whoever comes in after David Moyes is going to have a very tough job on their hands. Whilst we may decide Moyes has taken us as far as he can we need to be aware that it may not be possible for anyone else to take us any further in the near future either. We may well go backwards before we go forwards again.
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