Alan Pattullo: Sniping Dalglish is spoiling a classic image

There were incidents at Celtic Park, during his interim spell as manager at the turn of the last decade, when you wished he wasn’t managing so successfully to spoil the legend. Taking press conferences to public bars and being generally uncommunicative didn’t square with the man who defined joie de vivre as a player when leaping over advertising boards to celebrate a European Cup-winning goal. He has been back in management for a year now at Liverpool, and there have been signs of why you remember why you once loved him. His delirious reaction to the draw with Manchester City on Wednesday night, which sealed Liverpool’s first visit to Wembley since 1996, saw him flash that old smile. Then there were the tears in his eyes, a sign, too, of the emotional connection he has with the red half of Merseyide. They have gone through a lot together.

He has clearly still got something, too. Craig Bellamy, who he surprisingly brought back to Anfield in August, was the central figure in the cup success against City. Even Andy Carroll, judging by Saturday’s display in the FA Cup win over Manchester United, looks like he is being managed back into some form.

Yet Dalglish let himself down again at the post-match press conference when he replied, to the question of whether he had sympathy for the heavily-barracked Patrice Evra: “Are you winding me up?” He then followed this up with the ridicuous snipe of “have you ever played football?” You don’t have to have played the game to know when a player has been persecuted for doing nothing more than report an instance of racial abuse. Liverpool, the football club, were once the by-word for sportsmanship. The Kop was renowned as being the most knowledgable area of a football ground, regularly applauding visiting goalkeepers into their goal.

Now it feels as though a bit of the old magic has gone, from both the club and the man you once knew as the king.