Premier League Nonsense

The last few days have been a telling judgement on Kenny Dalglish’s second spell in charge of the club. 

Sacked despite lifting the Carling Cup, Kenny’s legacy lives on and while it may never replace his initial time at the club by the adoring legions on the Kop it may well stand as a cautionary tale for those who believe the answer in football, no matter the question, is to throw money around.

Breaking the mould of England’s big club, Liverpool turned to a young, relatively untried manager, Brendan Rodgers, high on potential but lacking the experience of a club with stellar aspirations, handicapped by a proud past that saw Liverpool undoubtedly the best team in Europe for several years.

Things have changed and a series of ownership tussles have contributed to their fall from the biggest of the big to also rans on a par with Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United. Liverpool have never won the Premier League and it must be galling for the faithful to see the likes of Chelsea and Manchester City, flushed with foreign cash, overhaul them at football’s top table.

Dalglish came in to halt the perceived rot at the club but in some ways at least has only made it worse.

Liverpool have spent most of the pre season trying to get Andy Carroll, their 35 million pound misfit striker, off their wage bill. The best they could do was a loan spell at West Ham United where Sam Allardyce is probably the manager best equipped to get the best out of the pony tailed one.

Charlie Adam, an industrious midfield player who had a good season with Blackpool in their single Premier League season, was brought in. One of new manager Rodgers’ first acts in the transfer market was to sell him to Stoke City.

A look at Liverpool’s bench against Arsenal at the weekend should support that old adage that people who spend freely may rue their extravagance at leisure. Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson were brought in by Dalglish for a combined 40 million pound but even with a straitened first team squad, Rodgers complained he only had 19 players at training on Saturday, they were not deemed worthy of a starting place.

Indeed Rodgers has gone on record as saying that Downing’s future, were he to stay at the club, could well be at left back. This for a winger who famously managed no goals and no assists in his debut season yet inexplicably has 34 England caps to his name.

Liverpool are down to two strikers. Luiz Suarez will always be a handful but the referee during the Arsenal game showed that at least one match official was wise to his antics and the Uruguayan will not get such a sympathetic ride this time around while new signing Borini was pretty anonymous most of the game.

So traumatized do Liverpool’s Americans seem to be by King Kenny’s splurge they refused to sanction the purchase of their compatriot, Clint Dempsey, who had netted 23 goals last campaign for Fulham. 

Apparently they were reluctant to go above 3 million pound which was half Fulham’s valuation of the 29 year old.