Here's a thing about Roy Hodgson. An intelligent man, one of the few football types who knows which way up to hold a book, Hodgson's favourite novelist is JP Donleavy. A grand choice, is that; the Irish-American is one of the 20th century's greatest writers. But Roy's pick from the Donleavy canon – defined by the bona fide 1955 classic The Ginger Man – is a throwaway 1979 effort called Schultz, a novel the author himself would struggle to recall. This is like saying your favourite Shakespeare play is Timon of Athens, or that your favourite Beatles song is PS I Love You. Or that the most dependable left-back in the world is Paul Konchesky.
It's not a particularly relevant point, granted. But it is an instructive one. The man's judgment is shot to bits. Anyway, it's less brutal to raise the subject this way, instead of picking on poor old Christian Poulsen again.
No doubt there will soon be paeans published to Hodgson's abilities, bemoaning the old boy's luck. And indeed it wasn't his fault that his reign was doomed from the start, tarnished as he was for being appointed by the reviled former owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett, and the club's erstwhile CEO, confused real-life Championship Manager addict Christian Purslow. Hodgson also replaced the sainted Rafael BenÃtez, who had probably run his course at Anfield – his ill-fated tilt at the title in 2009 always looked more like the bittersweet denouement of a glorious golden age, rather than the first blossoming of a bright new era – but nevertheless had deservedly cemented his status as an Anfield legend after a series of giddy successes.
So yes, Hodgson's task was always nigh-on impossible. But for a man so feted by his peers, he went about his business in a remarkably cack-handed way. Konchesky and Poulsen were, it hardly needs pointing out, laughably bad signings. On the other hand, Raul Meireles was an inspired purchase, yet sticking him out on the wing was akin to splashing out on a Bentley then taking it to Sainsbury's car park to spin a few doughnuts.
His interviews, designed to keep the Sir Alexes of this world happy, were excruciating for fans brought up on rallying cries. The tactics were not quite route one, but lumpen and regressive enough to be dismissed as route zero. (Brief tactical aside: whenever Liverpool conceded, BenÃtez copped regular flak from pundits for employing a zonal marking system; Andy Gray has kept very quiet about Hodgson's less successful man-to-man deployment.) And the manager's repeated attempts to keep Steven Gerrard happy by stationing him in the middle, where the player simply has no clue, pleased nobody other than the deluded captain, who should stick to what he is good at.
And there's the rub. Hodgson is at heart a politician, a nice industry man, saying and doing the right thing in order to keep everyone happy and get along. His modest achievements were, as a result, talked up by other nice industry men – is anybody outside the media bubble seriously impressed by a 35-year gadfly career untainted by success outside Scandinavia? – and like all good company men who keep ploughing their furrow, Hodgson was eventually rewarded with the keys to the executive bathroom. Promoted to a level above his competence, he soon flooded it, a comedy tail of toilet paper found sticking out the back of his trousers.
So to the future. Is King Kenny a wise appointment? Possibly not – Dalglish's stints at Newcastle and Celtic were pretty poor, and he's not worked at the top level of the game since then, a decade away from the heat of the kitchen. Yet his achievements are strangely underplayed: the man has won four English titles, for goodness sake, and fashioned arguably the greatest pure footballing side the league has ever seen. (Liverpool's 1987-88 team could teach modern-day Arsenal a thing or two about trying to walk the ball into the net.)
Though the sideline snipers will doubtless try to argue otherwise, the denizens of the Kop aren't stupid. Despite joyfully throwing their arms open to greet a loved one finally coming home, they know deep down that the 59-year-old Dalglish isn't the long-term solution to Liverpool's travails. Big decisions will be made down the line. But Dalglish understands the club, and at the moment that's all the fans ask. His presence should be enough to steady a rocking ship, though FA Cup defeat followed by mid-table anonymity is the likeliest outcome. But even if the worst happens – if the team's decline continues inexorably, and a shocked Liverpool find themselves in the Championship next season – Dalglish is unlikely ever to find himself, like Hodgson did, walking alone.
