Yeah he’s an old school tracksuit on the training ground manager.
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years after the Liverpool stint i heard from someone who Knew someone who knew someone kind of thing (Roy came to Aus for some brief corporate thing or something, not 100 percent sure) that Roy was absolutely football mad and one of the true gents, something about no matter his standing in the game, he was still out really late working with Junoir players , etc etc etc
hes real football the old fella.
kinda made me re assess our time with him as more a poor fit at the wrong time than Roy as this idiot who was useless.
hes years after us kinda speaks evidence to that, sometimes things in football are just not right.
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Back when I was playing I had a manager who was asking us to do some things I was pretty uncomfortable with. I pulled him aside to question him and point out the ways it left us exposed. His response was that I was right but it was also irrelevant - if there was someone capable of repeatedly hitting that pass that would expose us then he wouldn’t be playing at this level, and if they did have those players then we’re basically fucked regardless of how we set up and play.
Liverpool and England are, with all due respect to 80s Swedish football, not Malmo. And they are not even a temporarily over achieving premier league yo yo side like Fulham. That was Roy’s biggest limitation. Not that his methods and ideas had a ceiling, because there are loads of good football people there doing great work whose ideas are just not compatible to the elite levels. It was that he treated raising that as a personal insult to him and his track record rather than just a basic reality.
It was a bad time and was not a good time for anyone to be taking the job and the degree of his struggles with us has to be put in that context. But he was never going to work and was never the right guy. In the end probably the best thing we can say about him is that we didnt waste a potentially good appointment by making it at a time when it was a no win situation at the club, and he was enough of the wrong guy that it made it easy for the new owners to sack him and move on from the G&H era
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He’s apparently quite socialist is old Roy, I think he could have fit but his methods are suited to certain clubs. Roy’s tenure at Internazionale should have spoke what you needed to know.
Some good comments about Hodgson here. He had a very good career, a very long career, mostly at a mid level, falling short with Liverpool and England.
The frustration I felt when he was Liverpool manager has long since evaporated, but I have to say that I did not like the way he spoke about us. It was almost like he saw us as plucky underdogs.
I also vaguely remember Hodgson referencing Kenny almost as a lackey or assistant level, and it came across as tone deaf and full of hubris, given the standing of King Kenny.
Anyway, good luck to him in his retirement. I’m happy to acknowledge he was an old school football obsessive, and probably also a good bloke. And with that said, he was also a bad fit for us and we rightly ended it swiftly.
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Thinking back to that time, I wanted us to go with Pellegrini or Rijkaard ahead of Hodgson. Although he’d done well with Fulham that season, he just lacked that stardust that would’ve kept us in the minds of Europe’s elite while transitioning to a new ownership.
I’ve no ill will towards Hodgson. Like others have said, he just wasn’t the right fit, almost like an antichrist figure compared to Dalglish’s Messianic aura. At least he acknowledges Carragher’s feedback to him when he left us, and he might’ve done things differently.
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One of our forgotten heroes from the early Shanks days was 88 earlier this month. Quite surprised to find out he is stiĺl around. For some reason I recall him being something of a whipping boy for the crowd. I saw him score 2 goals in a famous 5-2 win over the great Spurs side in our first season back in Div 1.
We were 2-0 down at half time and Shanks must have given them a right dressing down because we came out and scored 5 in the second half. Still one of the most memorable games I ever saw.
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Quite delighted to see he is still around. I never saw him as a player, but I remember him taking Brighton to the FA Cup Final.
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And beating us at Anfield on the way with a winner scored by Jimmy Case. They were relegated that season too..
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I can barely remember him playing in the 60s although I knew of him and, about 15 years ago, when helping someone move house, I went to pick up the van they’d ordered from a local company. Turned out to be Jim Melia Rentals based at Anfield, Hereford Road, Leominster. Nice surprise. The inside of his office was full of old team photos and memorabilia. Enjoyed a short chat with him as he filled out the paperwork etc.
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A few weeks ago my wife was dropping off our granddaughter at creche in Paris and got talking to a dad who was also dropping off. When he knew she was from Liverpool he told her he played for LFC and loved his time there. She didn’t get his name but my daughter has now met him and it is Bruno Cheyrou…the new Zidane as Houllier called him when he first signed … kiss of death.
His girlfriend is the Kelly Dalglish of Canal+ and apparently much more famous than him.
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His Mrs is nice!! 
I remember him joining, but not much else about his time here to be honest. I Googled it and he played 48 times for us though.
Winner at Chelsea in the league in 03/04 was his highlight. We were shit at the time, went 4-5-1 with Heskey up top on his own and somehow survived to win 0-1.
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Obviously I remember the signing and the expectations Houllier created for it, but I genuinely could not have picked him out of a line up before I saw that pic. That’s how little of an impact he had
Bit like Brendan doing the Welsh Xavi thing to wee Joe Allen. Houlier can’t have helped the lad with this comment!
Didn’t he hit a winner against Wolves roughly around the same time.