Neil Atkinson is in the chair to discuss Roy Hodgson’s introduction as Liverpool manager.
Joining him are John Gibbons, Craig Rimmer and Mike Nevin. It’s a searingly honest discussion around what Liverpool was then; a look at how the club had become toxic and how it only got worse.
The four get into how they were made to feel by Liverpool and how dreadful those performances were under Roy Hodgson.
They also talk about what it is to be a club in turmoil. These were dark days, my friends, and this is a dark seventy minutes of discussion.’
Before listening to this show, I had thought that a lot of the criticism of Hodgson was unfair and that it was mainly anti-London bias.
Don’t get me wrong, I thought he was totally useless and still do, but I didn’t realise that he had said all of those things and dealt with the media so ineptly.
Hodgson’s father was an Evertonian from Walton. When you take into account that the fag-end of Hodgson inauspicious playing-career, along with the earlier part of his career as a coach, he was working abroad almost constantly between 1972 and 1996.
This may go some way to explaining some of the stupid things he said. There was very little domestic football on the tv in that period, particularly when we were good.
He may well have seen more of our European games, on the box, which tended to be defensive masterclasses.
Perhaps, the combination of his dad describing us as a no-mark side, when he was a kid, and the football that he did see us play, gave him the wrong impression?
He may have just regarded us as a mediocre club who enjoyed a period in the sun during a time that we played a negative game and that both his cap-doffing manner and style of football would be accepted by the fans?
I’m not saying that he could have approached the job differently – his career shows that he only knows one approach and it hasn’t evolved for decades.
I just think that if he had a better understanding of the club, he might have thought twice about accepting the job – particular at that time and under that regime.
There was simply no way that it was ever going to work out well.
Well done to Mike for noting that Gerrard had partly downed tools in Rafa’s final season.
I hope it will be raised that neither Gerrard nor Carragher used their profile to overtly or openly call out the cowboy owners. It didn’t need to be an aggressive statement, merely allude to it in a “senior sources” article in one of the main papers.
I fumin again listening to all that, I’m fumin on toast with marmite and i fuckin hate marmite. Gerrard and Carra stabbing Rafa in the back and the front, siding with Purslow so that Gerrard can play back in center mid and Carra getting a new 3 year contract with 30 extra pieces of silver thrown in. I was with Girling on this, never wanted the Hodge and hated every moment he was at the club, people said i should give him a chance, why I replied, Hodgeson is the distillation of the antithesis of what a manger of LFC looks like. A brown nosing egocentric media cowling narcissist that is a perceived intelectual because he speaks a few languages and reads books
Great listen but brings back bad nightmares of that time in our history.
The Blackpool and Wolves home games could take up hours of time. They were the really low points of that season.
A truly special podcast by group of real knowledgeable fans and just listening to the horror brings back emotions of that period and still brings back anger, resentment and disconnection towards a club supported since the age of 5. The hatred towards Hicks and Gillett and Purslow. Hatred towards the Media the ex players the ignorant and gullable LFC fans and Gerrard and Carragher that drove Benitez out of the club and gave us the buffoon in Woy Hodgsaurus. I also went through the period wanting us to lose games as the connection was broken between me and the club and many others like me. Looking back into that period it has left a legacy that few of us realise such as the creation of spirit of shankly and lot of LFC fans hated them also which tells you about our “knowledgeable rafa out brigade” the emergence and rise of great writers like Paul Tomkins, Kristian Walsh,Jim Boardman and others even maybe the Anfield Wrap may have some origination interms of meeting other like minded reds. The Internet campaigns against Banks Lending Money to the bastard Owners mainly by the active SOS and Rafa supportersin RAWK and other forums, the idea of supporter ownership which hopefully can come to fruition or atleast a Barca and Real Madrid type of model . I love Rafa and for someonr in his early thirties he was the Paisley N shankly for my generation and I really hope that someday he returns and gets a farewell that he deserves as a manager because he has done a lot for this club .
Listening to this now, and caught myself thinking: “Sounds painfully familiar that bending over to top of the table teams and paying too much respect to lower league/championship opposition, as well as the manner of the boss to shift all responsibility onto someone else, including his own players etc.”
The only difference is that Hodge was an old ridiculous owl, and BR is a younger one, but very much of the same ilk.
You don’t have to like Rodgers or think he’s good enough but Hodgson = Rodgers heads might be the most ludicrous, hyperbolic espousers of rubbish of any Liverpool fans. It’s just foolish.
Did you miss the parts where they were talking about younger players? Or the style of play with regards to pressing and getting on the ball? Rigidity and arrogance as opposed to a consistent evolution of formations?