Roy Hodgson: the worst Liverpool manager ever?

Seems to be the sexy thing these days to ridicule Ole Roy Boy, but is he really the worst Liverpool manager ever?  Worse than Don Welsh or George Patterson? I'm not so sure, but I will say he is the worst since I've followed the club.  Let's take a look at his transfers:

Players In	Club	Fee
Joe Cole	Chelsea	Free
Danny Wilson	Rangers	£2m
Christian Poulsen	Juventus	£4.55m
Brad Jones	Middlesborough	£2.3m
Raul Meireles	Porto	£11.5m
Paul Konchesky	Fulham	£3.5m
Players Out
Albert Riera	Olympiacos	£3.3m
Diego Cavalieri	Cesena	£3m
Krisztian Nemeth	Olympiacos	£1m
Javier Mascherano	Barcelona	£17.25m
Lauri Dalla Valle	Fulham	£750k
Alex Kacaniklic	Fulham	£750k
Damien Plesis	Panathinaikos	Undisclosed
Charles Itandje	Atromitos	Free

He brought in Paul Konchesky for £3.5m and sent youngsters Dalla Valle and Kacaniklic the other way to Fulham.  Konchesky was 29-years-old at the time and Hodgson thought he could be the solution at left back? He's Paul Konchesky, he couldn't even find a place in any other Premier League side when he left. Hodgson should have been sacked for buying him alone.  The worse part is Kacaniklic turned out to be a pretty good player and Emiliano Insua, who plays for Atletico Madrid now I might add, was sent out on loan to make room.

Out of all his purchases, Brad Jones solely remains at the club and really only Raul Meireles was a good buy.  I like Joe Cole, but he was also 29-years-old and frankly past it, Danny Wilson never panned out and was sent back to Scotland where helped get Hearts relegated last season, and Poulsen was a knob.

In defense of Hodgson, which I can't believe I just wrote that, he did get rid of some dead weight.  Riera wasn't working out, there was no place for Cavalieri, Nemeth's and Plesis' potential never came to fruition, and Itandje became a pariah for his disrespectful Hillsborough display.  The loss of Mascherano was a crushing blow, but he wanted to leave and Hodgson didn't appear to care if he stayed or not.

Roy Hodgson's 41.94 winning percentage is the worst of any Liverpool manager in the last 23 years and the worst in the last 58 years save Ronnie Moran's 10 match stint as caretaker manager in 1991 and the brief Houllier/Evans joint reign in 1998. Under Hodgson, we lost to Blackpool and Wolverhampton at Anfield. Blackpool was relegated that season and the Wolves avoided the drop by just one point.  We sat in 19th place 8 matches into the season and were eliminated from the League Cup by League Two side, Northampton Town.

There's no doubt Hodgson's term was a disaster. He sums it up best when talking about our 'amazing' comeback draw with Sunderland on Semptember 25th at Anfield: "The way we came back from 2-1 down was very commendable and towards the end of the game we were creating a lot of chances. We deserved our point." It was not even a deserved draw, but Hodgson seems content with it. A good manager would have said how we played like shite, our first goal shouldn't have counted, and our performance unacceptable and didn't meet Liverpool standards, instead of 'oh well, jolly good match, we got a point.'

Hodgson is clearly past it.  His tactics that have worked for him for '35 years' don't work for big clubs.  He was a failure with Liverpool and should probably go manage in the Championship.  His beloved Fulham are right there waiting and Felix Magath would most likely be happy to step aside.

Today's Banter: Hyypia backs Rafa, Rafa vows Reading Cup changes, Rafa frustrated over Gerrard, & more

- Sami Hyypia has been the latest star player at the club to vocally back his boss' rotation policy. The 33-year-old Finnish International has deemed Rafa's tinkering critics 'silly'. I've actually been thinking a lot about the pros and cons of Benitez' ways and will write a post with my conclusion later today. Meanwhile there are talks of Hyypia getting either a contract extension now or a new contract offer at the end of the season when his current one runs out. I really can't see Sami lasting more than another season, but one encouraging note is that the Finn himself is very realistic about what he can bring to the squad. He basically claims he never really had pace, doesn't feel as if he's gotten any slower over the years, and doesn't really understand why people question his abilities. It's refreshing to hear a player living in reality about their attributes. Hyypia's form this year has been inconsistent to say the least and even at times shocking. Hopefully he'll become more restraint in his discipline to help the team out more. If that means going up less for set plays in the box, then so be it.

- Expect to see an interesting and possibly exciting eleven hit the pitch tomorrow for our opening Carling Cup match at Reading. The boss has vowed changes from Saturday's side. I really don't give a monkey's uncle about the Carling Cup, but it would be a good confidence builder for the kids if we can advance. I do expect Reading to take it a bit more serious than us since they pretty much have no chance at much else. It would be great to see Insua, Leto, Lucas, with a rejuvenated Aurelio leading the way. I'll have my 'What will Rafa do?' up later.

- Maybe he's looking to deter the critics and have them turn to their ever favorite victim, the head coach for England, but Rafa has voiced his displeasure with McClaren's use of an unfit Gerrard in England's two recent Euro qualifier matches. I'm not sure if the person who wrote that article hasn't anything better to do or not, but honestly, it needs to be put the rest. Gerrard will probably not play tomorrow so a week off will do him good.

- I apologize for my review on Saturday, it's certainly not up to the standards in which I set myself. I won't erase it though. Anyhow, I'm going to watch the match again here a little bit and will be back with a proper review. Also I plan on doing a post about why Rafa's rotation policy will prevail and of course, my 'What will Rafa do?' for the Reading tie. Cheers.

Today's Banter: Stevie to play injured for England, Rafa speaks out against Platini, Super Reserves to take pitch tonight, & more

(First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Brian and I used to do the Liverpool blog over at the Offside. I have taken over this blog from my brother and will be posting here frequently, especially in-depth coverage on game days. Feel free to leave any comments, particularly negative ones, I love haters. Cheers.)

- It appears that Steve McClown will get what he wants when a not fully fit Gerrard is expected to take the pitch for England next Saturday in their Euro-qualifying match with Israel at New Wembley. If you can't tell, I'm extremely over-joyed about this. I understand he's England's best player and they have little to no chance of qualifying without him, but if he re-aggravates the hairline fracture in his toe, he won't be available for the Wednesday match versus Russia and possibly even the mid-October ties with Estonia and Russia, again. The only thing I can take comfort with is the fact that we haven't needed our world class midfielder since the first match of the Premiership season at Villa. I'm also very thankful that Carra has quit the Three Lions and we should have him back when the break ends in two weeks.

- Rafa has added his voice to the dissent against UEFA head Michel Platini's proposal to have domestic cup winners be the final choice representative in the following year's Champions League tournament. Benitez basically shares the same view as most that it could potentially weaken the field of the world's greatest club tournament. Not only that, but it could potentially hurt not only the integrity of the domestic cup but also the league/country where it's participants play. Just imagine a manager of a mid-level Premiership club who knows that his team has a better chance of winning the domestic cup than finishing in the top three in the league, especially since they know the sides with the best shot of taking the CL league spots are akin to playing lesser squads in domestic cups. Champions League money is a great incentive if a side knows it can beat relegation with a half-assed EPL effort and still make it to the big European stage.

- We're fielding a pretty damn good Reserves side today in our opening fixture for The Barclays Premier Reserve League (North) against Middlesborough's reserve team. Among them will be first-teamer and Pepe back-up, the Frenchman Charles Itandje, recent official signing CB Spaniard Mikel San Jose, Former Stockport County wonder kid Ryan Crowther, and South Americans and part-time 1st teamers Lucas Leiva and Sebastian Leto. The normal crew will also be there including Emiliano Insua and Craig Lindfield. Our boys haven't played since their mid-August Scandinavian tour were they trounced Norwegian side, Kvik Halden, 5-1, and Swedish squad, Karlstad, 4-0 thanks to a Craig Lindfield hat trick. I have little doubt that our Reserves could easily maintain a mid-level spot in the Championship.

- Finally, there's been a lot of love coming from inside and outside of the club in recognition of some recent individual performances on the pitch. Rafa has recently praised Alvaro Arbeloa for not only playing every minute of every match so far this season, not only for playing out of his natural position most of the time, but also for just being awesome and showing an unbelievable amount of improvement over the last eight months since joining the squad. I have to concur, Arbeloa has went from an undisciplined back who appeared to care more about getting goals than stopping attacks to arguably our best defender, which when you have players named Carragher, Hyypia, Agger, Finnan, and Mascherano at your club, that's saying a lot. Also, Real Madrid captain Raul has noticed a 'different' Torres, hinting that he believes his Spain teammate might be enjoying life a little better at Anfield than he ever did at Atletico. I think it might be the fact that there's a lot less pressure for him to be 'the man' at Liverpool with the likes of local boys Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher as well as our world class midfielder Javier Mascherano. Cheers.

Emiliano Insua White Classic