Hodgson caught in the headlights

Thursday 30 December 2011

By KP

As a life long Liverpool supporter, I cannot remember a more abject, lacklustre performance as witnessed against Wolves.  There was no cohesion and certainly a lack of drive apart from the early miss chance by Meireles.  Inept and pathetic are adjectives which come to mind and when was the last time a Liverpool player was mockingly cheered of the pitch while being substituted and he was one of the manager’s buys.

After almost half a season and there is still no perceived style of play, except to say there doesn’t appear much difference from this Liverpool to the one, Rafa left.  Yesterday, Wolves obviously did their due diligence on our Standard Chartered outfit, pressing high up the pitch, thus putting the leaden footed pairing of Skertel and Kyriagkos under pressure from their fleet footed strike force.  The sooner a fit Daniel Agger gets back into contention the better as there’ll be no need to for holding midfielder in home games!!!

Meireles improvement in the last games had fans wondering about a potential axis with Gerrard in the future, yet he was dumped on the left of midfield. Question, why did Steve Gerrard need to start against a side which had amassed one point away from home this season after being out for the best part of six weeks?  With every move, Roy is beginning to get into the struggling coach’s syndrome of putting square pegs in round holes.  I’m not a great fan of Maxi, but he would have provided better balance. 

The demeanour of the players on the pitch seems to suggest they have faith in the manager and Hodgson seems unable to instil any belief into a side devoid of confidence.  Torres, looks like someone thinking ‘they lied to be me about bringing in players, I could’ve been at the Nou Camp, and I sure as hell am not running for that loose past which Lucas just hit!’  He seems woefully devoid of ideas.  After bringing on Babel and Cole, two of the very view creative players in the squad, he made no discernable change in formation.  No three at the back, with Glen Johnson pushing on.  No, Babel up alongside Torres with Cole in behind.  After an hour, one could only hope that a flagging Steven Gerrard could summon up one more bit of magic from his medicine cabinet to fix the Liverpool ills, but it was not to be this time.

It’s not just that we are losing. It’s the fact there is not an attacking threat, no drive, no style and certainly no guile. But Woy, has never been one for free-flowing football as far as I’m aware.  He has in the last weeks become the Minister for Misinformation, blaming Rafa, bad contracts, openly criticising players for their lack of form – failing to acknowledge that even with all the problems from last season we still finished seventh and right at this very moment Liverpool fans are quaking in their boots with the thought of another potential loss on the horizon to Bolton dropping us deep into the regulation mire.  Remember, this man has previous, being responsible for Blackburn being regulated in 1998, after being sacked in the December of that season. One thing Liverpool fans won’t want to hear is that he was given money and bought in a string of bad buys, culminating with reports of him losing the dressing room.

Gerrard, Reina and Torres.  Name another side in the Premiership with three truly world class players.  Finished thinking? Probably Chelsea. So tell us Woy, why are we plummeting like a meteor? 

KP

Thursday 30 January 2011