Source: Daily_Mail
Kenny Dalglish: The case for the Liverpool legend to return
The desire among those who stand on The Kop is to see it start where it ended so painfully more than 19 years earlier; to see Kenny Dalglish return to the scene of his last act as Liverpool manager. [LNB]The club's next match is the stuff of nightmares for Roy Hodgson and an alarmingly inexperienced board of directors trying to navigate the club through a major crisis. [LNB]It is a trip to Goodison Park, for an encounter with an Everton side that, despite their early season problems, look to be in much better order than their illustrious neighbours. [LNB] Fans favourite: Liverpool supporters were calling for the return of Kop legend Kenny Dalglish after Sunday's shock defeat to Blackpool[LNB]They have a better manager and a better team, and come Sunday week they might even have been facing a Liverpool side at the very bottom of the Barclays Premier League had the two teams below them not been playing each other the day before. [LNB]For Dalglish, however, it might not seem so daunting because going back to Goodison would be a chance to finally address some unfinished business. [LNB]To scratch an itch that has been troubling him for the best part of two decades. [LNB]It was after a 4-4 draw at Goodison on February 20, 1991, a cup-tie Dalglish said in his latest memoirs was 'like watching a car-crash and not knowing which emergency service to call first', that he decided he could not continue. [LNB]Missing trophy: Dalglish celebrated winning the Premier League at Anfield... but for Blackburn in 1995[LNB]That he feared for his health, and for his family, because of the stress that had been building since Hillsborough. [LNB]'The nation's amateur psychologists claimed it was the stress and strain of that extraordinary game that tipped me over the precipice. It wasn't. My nerves were shredded long before then,' he said. [LNB]The next day he walked into Anfield, his body covered in a rash, and informed the hierarchy of his decision, complaining that he felt his head was 'exploding'. [LNB]His resignation was reluctantly accepted. But Peter Robinson, then the club's all-powerful secretary, urged him to take a sabbatical and return the following season. Dalglish's wife, Marina, spoke to Tom Saunders, also by then on the board, and urged them to leave it a couple of weeks. She said once her husband had taken a holiday with his family, he would be fit to return to work. [LNB]It was while Dalglish was still in Florida that Graeme Souness was appointed. And soon after Robinson had suggested to Dalglish, by then at Blackburn, that it was time he 'came home' as Souness's replacement three years later, he was left surprised and disappointed for a second time. Roy Evans was promoted to the role of manager. [LNB]Anfield insiders on Monday insisted there was little chance of Dalglish, 59, returning this time, even after the greatest player in the club's history had the courage to put himself forward as a candidate in the wake of Rafa Benitez's exit. [LNB]Even after he took one look at the candidates he was asked to consider as a member of the selection committee - with Hodgson among them - and said he was a better alternative. [LNB]That he was dismissed as an option as disrespectfully as he was by chairman Martin Broughton pretty much summed up the sad state of affairs at Anfield. A club being run into the ground by men with a head for business but not football. [LNB] Under pressure: Liverpool have made their worst start in 57 years under new boss Roy Hodgson and find themselves in the bottom three for the first time since 1984[LNB]The chairman of British Airways, Broughton was appointed to wrestle theclub from the grasp of American owners and into safer hands; not todetermine who should be hired to resuscitate a stuttering team.[LNB]In Dalglish they had a man not only four years Hodgson's junior but with the club in his blood; someone who would have even accepted the role on a temporary basis and stepped aside when the club was in a position to recruit one of Europe's leading managers. [LNB]As Ray Clemence said, it matters not that Dalglish has not managed for 10 years. [LNB]Winning feeling: Dalglish helped Liverpool enjoy many successes in yesteryear[LNB]'Kenny's never been out of the game,' said the former keeper who won two European Cups with Dalglish. [LNB]'He's been working behind the scenes, he's a football man. [LNB]'I've read about Kenny being interested and if he did put himself up, it certainly wouldn't have been a bad decision.' [LNB]Clemence went on to say he 'didn't think Roy Hodgson was a bad decision either', adding that he thought it premature for the fans to turn against him. [LNB]But today Broughton and his colleagues still have to reflect on Liverpool's worst start to a season in 57 years, and the £20million they have seen Hodgson waste on players like Raul Meireles, Christian Poulsen and Paul Konchesky. [LNB]And the fact that the same fans who never rose against Benitez, who have proved so loyal to all their managers over the years, have decided after seven Premier League matches that Hodgson must go. [LNB]'Dalglish, Dalglish,' they chanted as their side crumbled against Blackpool. [LNB]The least someone should do is listen. [LNB] Hodgson admits Liverpool face relegation fight after Blackpool shockTorres left out of Spain squad as Liverpool await results from groin scanLiverpool 1 Blackpool 2: Roy Hodgson on the rocks as Reds slip into drop zone and fans call for DalglishLIVERPOOL FC
