A Change In Charge

 The search for a new Liverpool manager begins! It’s a time that could be quite exciting, all the promise and potential that a new motivator and tactician can bring to the team, the hope of great things. This search is one with a slightly disappointing feel for a couple of reasons. Firstly everybody connected with Liverpool Football Club wants us to be successful with Kenny Dalglish in charge and the fact that a man held in such high regard has left is no cause for celebration. And secondly there is no obvious or outstanding candidate for the job.

 With the money invested in the squad over the last eighteen months it is important that the right appointment is made to continue the development of the players brought in. The names linked to the job so far are interesting more than exciting in my opinion. Andre Villas Boas had a great reputation before he joined Chelsea and had he been appointed last summer I think we would all have been very happy but his failure at Stamford Bridge while trying to introduce and bed in a younger playing staff means he would probably not be first choice to attempt the same thing at Anfield. Brendan Rogers, Roberto Martinez and Paul Lambert have all been mentioned and to be honest I couldn’t really separate the three of them in terms of who I would prefer. They all try to play decent football with limited resources but are all completely untried at a club the size and stature of Liverpool with such high expectation. Rafa Benitez has also been linked with a return but I think he’s had his chance and someone else should be given the opportunity. If the right person isn’t available this summer I believe Rafa would be a good short term option until the first choice manager could be appointed but if we were to go down this route then there was really no point removing Kenny from the position.

 The financial muscle of Manchester City, United, Arsenal and Chelsea along with the emergence of Tottenham means this is the hardest time of all to be trying to break back into the elusive ‘top four’ and the promised land of the Champions League that comes with it. Kenny Dalglish’s comments yesterday about not swapping the Carling Cup win for anything show exactly why he’s loved at Anfield and respected as a true football man and also exactly why we probably need a younger man to move the club forward. I fear that with the differences in finances between ourselves and the two Manchester clubs, aswell as the big London clubs who can charge London prices, means the only way we are going to earn our place back at the top table is by the appointment of a tactical genius, someone who can find every hole in our opposition’s armour and exploit it., someone who can find every strength and attribute we have within our squad and formulate tactics and strategies that utilise every little thing we have to give us an advantage in winning games. And men who can do this are few and far between. In fact I can’t think of one. Both Gerard Houllier and Rafa Benitez had spells where they seemed to get absolutely everything right, where every substitution brought a goal, even the signing of Abel Xavier brought us a goal within fifteen minutes on his debut. Both managers achieved a second place finish but both eventually ran out of ideas and their time at the club went stale.

 Clubs change managers regularly in modern football and special praise is reserved for those who stick with the same manager but I don’t think that having the same man in charge for the long haul is necessarily the way to go. Managers deliver success in the short term but over time their impact always fades. There is one notable exception but we won’t mention him. The other long serving managers in the Premier League are David Moyes and Arsene Wenger and both clubs are well thought of for keeping faith with established managers. But, and this is key in my opinion, Wenger has won nothing in the last seven years and Moyes has won nothing at all in ten years. Appointing a manager with the intention of him still being in place in a decade is all well and good but the current evidence doesn’t suggest to me that a long term appointment is the best way to gain success. In my opinion our owners need to think long and hard about which manager will best suit the squad we have now and the level we are currently at for the next two or three seasons and that is our man. Anything that comes after that is a welcome bonus.