“King” Kenny

Welcome, I’m Callum Rivett and this week I tell The Football Front why Kenny Dalglish isn’t so royal after all. And any Liverpool fan that says otherwise is starting to look rather disillusioned.

After spending about £69.1m*in the summer and £57m** in January 2011, Liverpool had to finish in the top six in the 2011-12 season to prove that the big spending was worth it. Currently, however, they sit 8th, with teams such as Sunderland, Swansea, Fulham, Norwich and Stoke with a real chance of overtaking the Anfield club.

The £35m spent on Andy Carroll has since proved to be a waste of money, he doesn’t look close to fulfilling his potential, and his pathetic dive at Newcastle (see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AHVDJlKmKk) has surely ruined his remaining status that he had at his former club, despite saying how much he loved Newcastle and he was, in Layman’s terms, apparently forced out of the club.

I understand that, yes, as a player, Kenny Dalglish was fantastic and rightly considered a legend. But perhaps as a manager, his methods are out-dated and he frankly doesn’t have a plan. If you go to a top club, Chelsea, Man United, Man City, Tottenham, Arsenal, etc. you know what to expect: Arsenal pass the ball, Chelsea go mostly all attack and hit you on the break, Spurs are speed demons and rely on Bale and Lennon, United look to experience and City try to buy the league and hope Silva is on his day and Balotelli isn’t being a sulky child. But with Liverpool, it’s not like that. It seems the team lack an identity.

Now, I’ve only watched Liverpool live once this season so if you want you can completely ignore my opinion and that’s fine, but when they played against Norwich, they only really started playing when we equalised. We hung on a bit towards the end and some world-class saves from John Ruddy and brilliant defending helped us survive and rightly earn a point. Bellamy has been the star performer this season for Liverpool, and is always a threat and I’m sure he’ll receive a warm welcome from Carrow Road in a few weeks, since we gave him his break in the footballing world and played well for us, and included a few practical jokes along the way***. I’ll put the asterisked parts at the end, you’ll soon understand it.

Kenny Dalglish is, like I said, an out-dated manager and a man without a plan. It’ll pain Liverpool fans for me to say this, but he needs to be more like Sir Alex Ferguson. Ferguson has changed his game plans at United when needed to, got the right blend of experience and youth and it’s won him and United many trophies by doing so.

That about sums it up, so here are the asterisks:

*Wales forward Craig Bellamy from Manchester City, free; Uruguayan defender Sebastian Coates from Nacional for a fee of £8m; Spanish defender Jose Enrique from Newcastle for a fee of £8m; Brazilian goalkeeper Doni on a free transfer from Roma; Midfielder Stewart Downing from Aston Villa for a fee of £22.8m; Scottish midfielder Charlie Adam from Blackpool for a fee of £8.3m; Midfielder Jordan Henderson from Sunderland for a fee of £22m.

**Andy Carroll, £35m; Luis Suarez, £22m.

***Apparently, in the late nineties, about 1998 I assume, on a long coach trip to an away game, Bellamy was either locked or locked a team-mate in the toilet for the entire journey whilst playing for Norwich. I think Bellamy got locked in, as he’d been playing practical jokes on the team for most of the time he was there.

Follow Callum on twitter: @calriv97.

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