“Imagine Franz Beckenbauer trying to play for Watford. He’d just be in the way.” – Frank McLintock.
On the face of it, this is a pretty stupid statement. What’s more, the fact that it was uttered by Frank McLintock doesn’t help it in the intellectual gravitas stakes. But if there is a deeper truth to what he is saying – and let’s just say he almost definitely stumbled upon it if there is – it’s that, in football, sometimes faces just don’t fit.
As Roy Hodgson has found out, the game isn’t about winning and losing, it’s about identity. To fans, their club is part of who they are. They’ve built up an understanding of what the club is about, of how it relates to them as a person, what their support of said club says about them.
Not all clubs have an entrenched identity of course. You’d be hard pressed to pick out the footballing philosophy – other than day-to-day pragmatism – that has run through the regimes of Paul Jewell, Steve Bruce and Roberto Martinez at Wigan Athletic, for example. But at clubs that do have a fixed character, changing it can be a precarious task.
Consequently, a manager’s success lies to a large degree in the level of symbiosis he has with his club. Kevin Keegan and Newcastle, Sam Allardyce and Bolton, Pep Guardiola and Barcelona, Harry Redknapp and Spurs – all examples of managers who fit perfectly with the standing, the history and the style of the club they are managing. Swap the names around – install Allardyce at Newcastle, for instance – and the performance may change.
In a few rare cases, a manager with overwhelming strength of personality has bent a club to his will. Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and, to a greater extent, Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, are the two obvious examples of this.
But Wenger’s manipulation was an easier task than Hodgson’s. Taking a club renowned for dour, reactive football and turning them into swashbuckling entertainers is rarely going to be met with resistance. Winning a lot along the way greases the wheels. The problem for Hodgson is that he is attempting to turn a team that has gained its standing through domination into something more submissive. This is a sea change in mentality that supporters will find hard to accept.
Though Rafa Benitez’ Liverpool were never known for their expansive, carefree displays, they were very much a proactive side. They pressed, high up the pitch and without relent. Dirk Kuyt, Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard would hassle defenders remorselessly as the first line of defence and anyone who made it through them would face Javier Mascherano. Consequently, they played at a much higher tempo, regularly won the ball back in dangerous positions and were able to start counter-attacks from threatening areas. It was a positive way to play.
Hodgson sets up his sides with almost the exact opposite approach – sit back, soak up pressure and nullify the opposition. When possession is won, get it forward quickly. At Fulham, with the physical Bobby Zamora and bustling Andy Johnson to grind the grist, it was successful.
At Liverpool, this kind of reactive play is not acceptable to the players or supporters and it does not fit with what the club is about. Trying to change a philosophy that has been inculcated through 50 years of success was, to put it frankly, a bad idea.
Unfortunately, Roy Hodgson was doomed from the start. Too nice, too different. Someone like Jose Mourinho, with his track record and bullet-proof ego, might have been able to engender the type of change that Hodgson wanted. But for Roy, there was no chance. You can’t blame him for sticking to his ideals, to what has got him where he is, but it just wasn’t the right fit at Anfield.
If the team was flourishing and results were good, he would have half a chance.
If the team were losing, but playing in the Liverpool way – positive, domineering, aggressive – then he would have hope.
But they are neither. Indeed, the rank failure of this Liverpool to even be outright bad can only serve as further annoyance to fans. Nothing is worse than mediocrity for a club like Liverpool. There is a certain dignity in your team being truly awful: you can distance yourself from it, laugh at it even.
You also know rectifying changes are just around the corner. With mediocrity, there’s always a lingering argument that things aren’t that bad, that the team may turn the corner or that maybe the squad isn’t actually that good, that it’s a fair position.
But things are that bad. Not because of the results, but because Liverpool’s good name has been brought into disrepute – they are now workmanlike, boring and insipid.
The new owners will now have to show just how well they understand the club and its traditions. If they can comprehend why Beckenbauer could never play for Watford, Hodgson’s time is up.