CRAIG Johnston has thought a lot about Liverpool recently. He never really stops but watching his beloved Reds struggle on and off the pitch has been especially painful.
He's not been short of former teammates to chew the fat with, either - not with Alan Hansen and Graeme Souness coming to his Florida home for golfing holidays.
Not with Steve Nicol stopping by as the coach of an MLS franchise. Not with watching games at Anfield with Ian Rush and a catch-up with Bruce Grobbelaar at the World Cup.
And then there's Kenny Dalglish, as pure a keeper of the Liverpool FC flame as is alive today.
Anfield's genius No. 7 became the manager and promptly won the League and Cup double, walked away with his health suffering - then 20 years on, practically walked back along the Mersey to answer the club's desperate plea two months ago.
The manager will try to make his legend even greater tomorrow night when the Reds host bitter rivals Manchester United at Anfield.
Dalglish was Johnston's teammate, then his manager, and now is above all a close friend. Close enough that they stay with each other regularly.
In Florida they toasted Dalglish's 58th birthday, and at his home by the Royal Birkdale golf course near Liverpool, they hopped over the back fence together to watch the British Open.
And great though Johnston's distress has been watching Liverpool's plight of recent seasons, there is a raw delight in him that Dalglish has come home to Anfield.
"I felt very strongly that Liverpool needed someone who could go into that dressing room and give them a kick up the arse - Kenny is one of the few people in the world who could," Johnston said.
"You have to understand that Kenny is a very unique human being. He was always gruff and to the point, even caustic, and still is. Maybe in some ways he has mellowed, simply because he had to - the heart issues and the memory of the stress he suffered around [the] Hillsbrough [stadium disaster in 1989] had that effect on him. But fundamentally he's still the same guy and the same personality." .
Mention of Shankly, the incomparable Scot who built the Liverpool legend in the '60s from a team of second division strugglers, demonstrates the challenge facing Dalglish. Other than the club's recent and despised American owners, Johnston has no doubt where the malaise lies.
"Frankly the players, or some of them, have been giving 55 per cent, 60 per cent," he said. "How can the same squad, with the loss of Xabi Alonso, that came second in the EPL two years ago be so far off the pace now?
"It's clear a lot of the players have not been giving 100 per cent and needed some old-fashioned management - someone who knew the club, knew the fans and what was acceptable. How can you go backwards so far as a squad and still be giving 100 per cent?
"Now the players know they will be exposed because he's the kind of bloke who will if they won't give everything.
"From his first game in charge you could see the difference in attitude."
Johnston also has no doubt that Dalglish can oversee a renaissance in the long term, especially with the appointment of Steve Clarke - No. 2 to Jose Mourinho at Chelsea when they won two EPL titles - to the coaching staff.
"In a sense Kenny has been managing Liverpool ever since he left, every game," Johnston said. "He hasn't been detached - football's moved on of course but he's hardly been hiding on Mars.
"He's been talking football and analysing it with players, coaches, agents and fans ever since he left.
"Look at the people he has already persuaded to join the club. A lot of people wanted [strikers] Luis Suarez and Andy Carroll, but Kenny had been in the job a week and made the move. He sold Fernando Torres and bought those two, who are the opposite of the pretty boy who didn't try and was always injured. Good business if you ask me."
