Game changed but stubborn Dalglish didn’t adapt his style

Kenny Dalglish returned to Premier League football in January 2011 insisting football had changed little during his 10-year hiatus from management. After just over 16 months in charge at Liverpool he found that, although the game may have been similar, the landscape surrounding it was vastly different.

For a man who was brought up on winning trophies, he discovered that putting silverware in the cabinet was not a panacea for all ills.

In truth, it was never the case during his first spell at Liverpool, but such was their dominance during the 1980s and 1990s that if a league title was not won one year it was a fairly safe bet it would be reclaimed at the next time of asking.

Dalglish’s parting comments on his departure from Anfield, that he would not have swapped February’s Carling Cup win for anything, highlighted the difference between his thinking and that of owners Fenway Sports Group. For the Americans, whose experience of football is limited, having bought the club in October 2010, it is all about the Champions League – if only for the revenue.

Dalglish left feeling that winning one trophy and coming within the width of a goal-line of possibly picking up another should have been enough encouragement for the owners. It was not. What changed from a month ago, when chairman Tom Werner said Dalglish had their full backing, only FSG’s inner circle know but it is apparent they did not have confidence in the 61-year-old to build on the progress made.

On occasions the football showed fleeting glimpses of that which Dalglish would recognise from Liverpool teams gone by, but there were many other times when it did not rise above mediocre. Just six league wins at home all season and a lack of goals accounted for many of their problems but Dalglish, in stubbornly defending the players he signed at vast expense, was negligent in not addressing issues sooner.

Who knows what he could have achieved had he signed a penalty-box poacher in January – an oversight highlighted by Everton’s pick up of Nikica Jelavic for a relative snip, which transformed their campaign so significantly that they finished above their near neighbours for the first time since 2005.

Dalglish stuck to his principles on the field and his intransigent attitude off it showed how little he had grasped of how the modern game had changed.

With 24-hour news channels and a worldwide fanbase only the click of a button away, the Scot’s public profile took a battering due to his stance on the Luis Suarez-Patrice Evra racism row and a lack of a coherent PR strategy from within the club.

While other managers have learned to play the media game, Dalglish always gave the impression he would rather being doing anything but.

His apology for “conduct not befitting a Liverpool manager” after one post-match television interview told its own story.

But the club icon leaves Anfield having restored stability and brought harmony to the fans after the internal turmoil during the dysfunctional regime of Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

To paraphrase one of his favourite sayings, he put a smile back on people’s faces. All except the American ones who ultimately mattered that it is.

l Former Liverpool player Terry McDermott says Dalglish was not give enough time in his second stint and has warned against replacing the fans’ favourite with an inexperienced manager.

McDermott, who played with Dalglish at Anfield and was on his coaching staff at Newcastle, was dismayed by his friend’s sacking.

“It’s a big call. I think they’ve pulled the trigger at least six months too early,” he said. “A Liverpool person, or a person who knows about football, would have kept Kenny at least until Christmas but people who don’t know as much about football maybe came to this decision.

To do it now, I think, is the wrong thing. The league position, like everybody said, was not good enough. That would have been rectified next year. I’m sure the players he brought in would have blossomed next year.”

The likes of Wigan manager Roberto Martinez and Swansea’s Brendan Rodgers are among the early favourites to replace Dalglish but McDermott was quick to warn FSG away from elevating a younger manager.

“They’ve got to have someone in mind who is going to take over the mantle,” said McDermott. “They have to be to be top notch. It’s no good bringing a rookie in because then it’s another two or three years while he beds in and brings his own players.”