Discussing Kenny Dalglish’s shock return to Liverpool, comparing it with John Barnes’ reign at Celtic and expressing disbelief at Frank Lampard’s mobility; it’s a week in football, brilliantly written by John – follow him on Twitter.
So King Kenny returns to the scousers and thus provides us with one of the most nonsensical comebacks since Dirty Den returned to Albert Square. Kenny Dalglish is now 86 years old and hasn’t managed a professional football club for 11 years. Even then he was at Celtic after curiously recommending that they hired John Barnes as manager, a suggestion made all the more bizarre by offering to take over should the inexperienced Barnes fail. Of course Barnes did fail, he was sadly not gifted with a single brain cell and as such found it impossible to manage a club so dominant in their domestic competitions that they have 90 major honours.
His worst moment came as he led Celtic to a home defeat against Caley Thistle – then part timers struggling in the First Division. This result is akin to United losing 17-1 at Old Trafford to ITV’s Loose Women. That coupled with falling 10 points behind Rangers was the final straw for Barnes and he was duly sacked. How wrong Celtic were though, he dusted himself off and 9 years later took the reins of Tranmere with the third most annoying scousers of all time Jason Mcateer, but this duo of remedials could only win 3 out of 14 games and again Barnes was dismissed.
That rambling was to highlight the fact that Kenny is clearly a halfwit and this was clarified by his team selection for the huge FA Cup match. I wasn’t sure if Kenny had watched a game in the last 5 years because he failed to pick Joe Cole. As I highlighted last week we all know that Joe Cole is currently the best player in the world so to see him omitted from the team was a shock indeed, but then he also failed to notice that during the rafalution Liverpool had signed Sloth from the Goonies and were playing him on the right hand side of midfield.
As we all know now Ken was slating the referee after the game, alleging that the penalty and the sending off were unjust, he didn’t go as far as Ryan Babel though who tweeted a mocked up picture of Howard Webb in a United shirt. What a shame for the young man that when Liverpool finally realise he is the reincarnation of Ali Dia and sell him to Bedlington Terriers the only thing that he will be remembered for is his Photoshop skills and his bench warming prowess.
The “Sack race” has been dominating the headlines over the last week with four managers having earth shatteringly bad seasons. Hodgson, Houllier, Ancellotti and Grant being the men involved. Sadly the first die has been cast and Liverpool removed (by Mutual consent – hmmmmm) Hodgson on Saturday – 24 hours before the FA Cup clash with the mighty United. As I mentioned last week I am sure that Woy was employed by Sir Alex with a long-term brief of keeping Liverpool in the bottom half of the table, while ensuring that they sign the flotsam and jetsam of European football. In that regard Woy was doing a sterling job having captured the worlds best player Joe Cole, Christian Poultry and the mercurial Meireles whilst sending Aquilani back to Italy. However with a healthy compensation payment he can whistle his way through the Mersey tunnel having done a grand job ensuring the scousers finish trophy less and out of the champions league places for another year. Unless Kenneth can guide them to the Zenith Systems European Thursday night for underachievers cup league thing.
Maybe Ancellotti has bought himself some time with a 7-0 drubbing of Ipswich – but this is merely a case of a playground bully picking on the snotty child as managerless (at the time) Ipswich were there for the taking, the only real surprise being Fat Frank managing to score twice in a minute. I would have imagined that waddling back to the halfway line, eating a pie, having a cuddle with Tiny Tears and eating another pie would have taken a couple of minutes in itself.
As for Grant and Houllier no one really cares. They are both dodgy managers who have had more than their fare share of luck and we the only thing that generates even the tiniest bit of interest in their fate is that that they have both been beaten to the title by Lord Ferguson. I would imagine Grant will be sacked and replaced with Big Sam who will use the transfer window to buy any player over the height of 6 foot 5, while Grant goes back to his previous day job as a baron Greenback impersonator. Houllier will probably be sacked too as he drags Villa deeper into relegation trouble. If he can quickly grow an impossibly thin moustache there might still be time for a stint playing Poirot on ITV 6 in the early spring.
