One wonders what will happen to Kenny Dalglish's successor should Liverpool endure another tough season outside the top four of the Premier League
The wheel has turned full circle for John W Henry at Liverpool. His game-plan to gain control of the club was formulated at the London offices of the law firm Slaughter and May and, 19 months on, slaughter in May has cleared the way for Fenway Sports Group to implement its Anfield vision. Having added Kenny Dalglish to its cull, the demand will be intense upon Liverpool's owners to finally demonstrate they possess one.
Dalglish has gone, prematurely in these eyes, following a season that encapsulated the complexities facing FSG in its decision over the manager's position. The return on its £120m investment in new players in the Premier League was clearly unacceptable and Liverpool are at a tipping point as Financial Fair Play draws near while their rivals head into the distance.
Liverpool's former manager was often justified in lamenting misfortune in front of goal and lauding a performance level that was infrequently reflected in results, but an eighth-place finish – an 18-year low – reflected a campaign lacking in consistency and cohesion from players and manager alike. The club's first piece of silverware for six years, with the Carling Cup followed by an FA Cup final appearance, delivered the counter-argument for Dalglish's first full season back in charge and Liverpool's most celebrated moments since 2008-09.
"We are here to win," said Henry on the day his company, then New England Sports Ventures, wrestled the club from the destructive grip of Tom Hicks and George Gillett. It would have been more accurate to add the caveat "but challenging for fourth place is more important". One wonders what will happen to Dalglish's successor should Liverpool finish next season closer to the top four but trophyless.
Liverpool's league campaign disintegrated when Robin van Persie's stoppage-time winner for Arsenal at Anfield on 3 March – the week after the Carling Cup had been claimed on penalties against Cardiff City – effectively put Champions League qualification out of reach.
Subsequent defeats by Queens Park Rangers, Wigan Athletic, Roy Hodgson's West Bromwich Albion, Fulham and finally Swansea City were no way to convince FSG that recovery was inevitable next season.
It was in the transfer market where the owner's faith in Dalglish first wavered. Liverpool's style improved markedly under the 61-year-old and the fractured mess he inherited not only from Hodgson, with the club four points above the relegation zone when he accepted Henry's SOS while in Bahrain on a cruise, but from a previous ownership that had fundamentally weakened the squad, places this season into perspective. It should also have afforded Dalglish an extra year to demonstrate that Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, José Enrique and Charlie Adam – failures to a man during their debut seasons on Merseyside, despite Carroll's late flourish – have the mentality and quality required.
An outlay of almost £90m on that quintet is impossible to justify. Damien Comolli paid with his job as director of football having negotiated the transfer fees. As Dalglish admitted on the day Comolli was sacked, he was the one who identified the targets. The manager was now vulnerable. His replacement will not have the same funds available to construct a Champions League challenge and, Luis Suárez aside, there are few profits to be made with the current squad. If there was risk in retaining Dalglish for the task of rejoining the European elite it is outweighed by the necessity to start all over again with lesser funds and a fourth manager in four seasons.
Dalglish restored stability and dispelled the theory he had been out of the game too long before signing a three-year deal as Hodgson's replacement last May. His handling of Suárez's eight-match ban for racially abusing Patrice Evra in October, however, was archaic and inflamed the controversy. It is sad that a generation who never witnessed Dalglish become Liverpool's greatest player and one of their finest managers have, among their own first-hand memories, the sight of the Scot wearing a Suárez T-shirt at Wigan and rounding on the interviewer who asked about the striker's refusal to shake Evra's hand at Old Trafford. None of this was a factor in his departure.
Ian Cotton, Liverpool's long-serving head of communications, lost his job last week but the truth is there was no one at Anfield in a position to take the lead from Dalglish. The vacuum at the head of Liverpool's operations on Merseyside is reflected in the contrast between Dalglish's two departures as manager. In 1991, it was of his own accord amid the trauma of Hillsborough and at a hastily convened press conference where he was flanked by the chairman Noel White and peerless chief executive Peter Robinson. Today it is against his wishes, with Liverpool's chairman, Tom Werner, resident in the United States and with no chief executive employed by the club.
FSG was welcomed upon arrival at Liverpool not simply on the basis it had ousted Hicks and Gillett and removed the imminent threat of administration. Henry's considered nature and steely ambition, Werner's dynamism and the obvious enthusiasm at FSG for restoring Liverpool's fortunes as it had the Boston Red Sox fuelled the sense of a fresh start.
They spoke of acquiring the best young talent and wanted a young, hungry coach to lead the long-term project of leading Liverpool back into the Champions League and into title contention. The decision to dispense with Hodgson had to be taken and, in fairness to FSG, its plans were then complicated by Dalglish's immediate impact and the unifying effect the Anfield legend had on a club at war with itself. Nineteen months on, however, and just under two weeks before the transfer window reopens, Liverpool have no manager, no director of football, no chief executive, no head of communications and still no decision on a new stadium.
The boldest judgment of recent times on Liverpool's future has come from Lord Justice Floyd at the high court in October 2010, and not from the men he sold the club to. That changed today. Having sacked a club icon, a man who recently claimed he would be for ever in Liverpool's debt, FSG is now free to implement the plans it always envisaged for Anfield. It has no more excuses. Liverpool's support, meanwhile, awaits evidence the owners' decisiveness is not merely restricted to firing employees. Read More
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