Gerrard Wants To Manage Liverpool

Steven Gerrard, has revealed ambitions of one day managing Liverpool. In an interview with TwentyFour 7 Football magazine, Gerrard said he will be undergoing the necessary coaching qualifications over the next 12 months.

"The dream come true would be to manage Liverpool, when the Liverpool job becomes available.
"There are world-class managers there ready already, but we’ll have to wait and see. It would be the icing on the cake," Gerrard said.

The Liverpool-born midfielder has spent his entire career at the Reds and has captained the side since 2003.

Should he succeed in managing the club somewhere in the future, he would join an elite group of former Liverpool players who have managed the club and reboot a tradition that began with the late Bill Shankly.

Among the former players who have managed Liverpool include the legendary Bob Paisley, Kenny Dalglish, Ronnie Moran, Greame Souness and Roy Evans.

Boardroom slugfest at Anfield?

As Liverpool fans (at least some) begin rejoicing over the prospect of new ownership, the club's current shareholders are apparently ready to throw a spanner into the works and block the deal.

While on one hand, it would appear that Liverpool's current owners should have a say on who they sell to, the nature of their debt with RBS is such that the board, which was given the task of finding new owners by the bank, has equal amount or more power to push through a deal.

While I won't dwell too deeply on the law in Britain, I do have one question: What is it going to take for those two dipshits to realise they'll never get GBP600 million for Liverpool? For that matter GBP400 million seems way too much for a club languishing in the relegation zone!

Don't they realise that the longer they prolong this process, the lower the value of the club will be? I mean Roy Hodgson has so far demonstrated an ability to do nothing to stop the downward spiral at Anfield and it appears as though learning from one's mistakes is not one of his qualities.

To top it all off, refusing to sell the club now will tarnish the duo's image to greater lengths. As if they aren't hated enough, blocking this deal could have the potential of making Tom Hicks and George Gillette even more hated than Osama Bin Laden!

As for Hodgson, I hope he doesn't spend too much time worrying about this when he's got much bigger concerns on his table at the moment. Once you've got the Kop chanting another manager's name, you know you've got your work cut out for you.

Liverpool sold to owners of the Red Sox!

It appears as though one of the longest and drawn out M&A sagas of the Premier League is about to end. Various reports, citing Reds chairman, Martin Broughton, say Liverpool FC has finally been sold to New England Sport Venture (NESV), owners of baseball giants, the Boston Red Sox.

Of course, the story doesn't end there. Broughton added that the club may enter legal proceedings against its current owners who unsurprisingly were against the sale and tried to block the deal - by sacking managing director, Christian Purslow and commercial director, Ian Ayre, at the 11th hour.

And why were they against the sale? Well, according to these reports, NESV has offered GBP300 million which is well below the GBP600 million Tom Hicks and George Gillette were holding out for.

Soccernet also reports that Roy Hodgson, who has successfully led the club to its worst start in almost 50 years, will still have a job when NESV officially take over, which is anyone's guess if legal proceedings are initiated against the current owners.

But will this have any effect at all on Liverpool's on-field problems? And will the Kop accept another set of American owners? Stay tuned for more updates.

You can read about the takeover here and here

Deshamps: Liverpool wanted me

What is it with football managers who deem it necessary to announce the clubs they've rejected in the past? Take Marseille boss Didier Deschamps for instance. As if Liverpool didn't need more off-the-field distractions, the former French captain has now revealed that he was interviewed for the job before the club approached Roy Hodgson but rejected the move to stay at Marseille.

Is there a reason Deschamps is revealing this now, months after the incident? Is this about inflating his ego? Or is it a reminder to his employers at Marseille that he's a highly-sought after manager and its time to talk contract renewal? Or is he reminding Hodgson that the Englishman wasn't Liverpool's first choice?

If it's the latter, one can only speculate on Deschamps' ulterior motive unless Hodgson's position at Anfield is not as solid as he makes it out to be. It isn't uncommon for clubs to fire new managers (remember Big Sam and Newcastle) and Liverpool's miserable start to the season would only compound speculation that Hodgson's job could be on the line if things don't improve soon enough.

Liverpool's performances on the field have been amateurish at best judging by the way they've been outplayed by teams such as Birmingham and Sunderland. You could call it "early season blues" and the Reds have never been known to be early starters but the severe lack of confidence and coordination in the side points directly at Hodgson as much as it does at the players themselves.

Still, who - with the exception of Sven Goran Ericsson - would want to take this job? Would anyone be willing to coach a side with Liverpool's current crop of players with an almost non-existent transfer budget?

Still, let's not forget that it's still way too early to cast a verdict on Hodgson yet and the man certainly deserves time to prove himself to the Liverpool faithful, his rivals as well as to Monsieur Deschamps.

Unfortunately for Hodgson, time and patience are luxuries that expire real quick at Anfield.

Are you really surprised Mr Hodgson?

"These players have to accept responsibility. I accept responsibility for changing a lot of players in the team, I did it because I honestly thought the players I put on the field were good enough to win the game and they weren't"

The comments above were made by Roy Hodgson following Liverpool's shock defeat to Northampton in the Carling Cup and if anything, in the middle of the expected barrage of criticism that will be aimed at him in the following days, there will be some who will sympathize with the Englishman.

After all, you can't get any more honest than Hodgson did in his post-match comments. He was under the illusion Liverpool Football Club's reserves would be better than a League Two side, especially with five first team squad members included.

Alas, the truth is Mr Hogdson, 50% of the players you've got in your senior squad aren't fit to feature in any League Two side let alone a Premier League club. But weren't you aware of this when you took on the job?


The frightening level of mediocrity at Liverpool has been well-documented and you can thank the previous management for that. And yes, maybe you should have sold Ryan Babel when you had the chance to and there's a reason why Lucas Leiva gets booed by the home fans.

But that's just it. Everyone knows that Rafa Benitez made some terrible acquisitions yet many of these third-rate players (read Maxi Rodriguez, Lucas, Babel, etc) seem to be regular features in Hodgson's side. In fact, Hodgson had the chance to offload these players and bring in some new faces during the recent transfer window but for some weird reason or other, he chose to stick with Benitez' flops.

And now his faith in these players is being repaid in the form of Liverpool's worst ever start to the Premier League. Even if he's finally caught on to this fact, it's too late to do anything at this point and he's stuck with them until January. And if Liverpool's position isn't any better then, Hodgson may find himself to be the first one out the door.

Redknapp slams Torres!

Former Liverpool and England midfielder, Jaime Redknapp, became the latest 'pundit' to critisize Fernando Torres' poor form for Liverpool this season after the Reds' dismal draw against Birmingham.

"Out there for 45 minutes today he (Torres) has been terrible. He hasn't got hold of the ball, he hasn't chased, he's got frustrated, he could have been booked, he's been diabolical," Redknapp said.

Very few would have been able to argue with Redknapp on Torres' performance yesterday but like so many others, the former Reds captain seems to have missed the various factors that led to Torres poor performance yesterday.

As such, I've volunteered myself to list down several reasons that could have contributed to Liverpool's lack of firepower up front.

1. Torres operated much on his own for most of the match and hardly received the sort of decent service any striker would expect. In fact, until the final 20 minutes of the match, Torres' supposed 'striking' partner, Steven Gerrard, was equally anonymous on the pitch.

Service down the flanks was even poorer thanks to some awful football by both Maxi Rodriguez and Milan Jovanovic. The fullbacks weren't any better although Koncesky did deliver a few decent crosses into the box in the second half. Glen Johnson, on the other hand, is looking more and more like an overrated footballer each weekend.

2. Birmingham defended in numbers which made Liverpool's entire tactical approach to the game of deploying a lone striker destined for failure the second the match got underway. Other clubs may be able to pull the one-striker policy but in those cases, the midfielders do lots of the attacking and shooting as well.

In Liverpool's case, Hodgson's five-man midfield was a bizzare mix that couldn't get any rhythm or flow into the game. As previously mentioned, both wingers were abysmal throughout the match with Rodriguez, in particular, nowhere to be seen for extended periods of the game. But the wingers were certainly better than Hodgson's two 'holding' midfielders who failed to stamp any authority in the middle of the park let alone break up play or provide some support to Torres.

3. Torres is clearly not match-fit and seeing as to how this is his fourth game after being injured for over a month on top of the many injuries he has sustained the past 12 months, you would think that an injury-prone ex-footballer like Jaime Redknapp would have some empathy instead of getting on some high horse.

If memory serves me, Redknapp spent more time injured than on the pitch for Liverpool during his entire tenure as a senior team player. Redknapp, much like his former England colleague, Kieron Dyer, are the kind of footballers who have spent more time injured than playing football much to the agony of the clubs that paid for their "services."

4. Torres' contribution to Liverpool FC this season can't be summarised in just four matches. Redknapp should note that the Spaniard has become the fastest Liverpool player to have scored 50 goals in the history of the club. As such, going back to point number 3, Torres has clearly been a much better investment for Liverpool than Redknapp ever was.

I don't know if Jaime Redknapp will ever read this but if he's looking to vent his frustrations at Liverpool's terrible performance against Birmingham yesterday, he should look elsewhere and not focus on Torres. After all, the Spaniard isn't a Superman.