That nice Kenny Dalglish is on Nicky Campbell at 10 this morning. I've e-mailed in a question. I asked whether he thought football could survive financially when people who failed abysmally in their jobs, took teams from 2nd to 13th in one season, then sued their former emploers for huge amounts of money.

Not sure it'll get read out.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

Answers

"I got them up to second."

"Les wanted to move on" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"We got left without a striker when Shearer was injured ?!"

"Cup Final appearance, only Wenger gave us credit for Shearer hitting post"

"It wasn't money it was principle. NUFC should have honoured contract."

"We got into Champions League because of the number of goals HIS team scored, between January and May"

"Left a good legacy of a youth policy"

No regrets, did his best, so that's okay

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

That's how people with big ego's survive and flourish.....they have selective memories and also the ability to remember the facts in a different way to other people (they lie to themselves)....

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

And I woke up feeling pretty cheerful today. Jesus, talk about living in denial, what an absolute arse that man is.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

I wanted to keep les but it was a board decision they wanted the cash then alan got injured.

Well thats one bit I sympathise with

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

Give the guy a break - do you expect him to say "well, actually I'm just a useless @rsehole"?

The guy's been fired twice; he has to rationalise these events in a way that preserves his self-respect and self-image, and allows him to get on with his life. He's long gone - let's not deny him his self-respect.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

I could give the guy a break if he ever learned to say "sorry". As it is, he deserves all the flak he gets.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

Dalglish is A KING RAT. Ego bigger than his talent but he still believes he is the best, as does Ruud. Greedy barstewards.

-- Anonymous, January 22, 2001

He's nothing if not predictable. Saw this on Sporting Life:

Dalglish has washed his hands of responsibility for Celtic's pathetic performances last term which saw them finish 21 points adrift of Rangers in the SPL.

Dalglish said: "It was John who signed all the players at Celtic. "I don't know who was the worst although there were more bad ones than good ones. "Obviously there was some consultation between us but at the end of the day the guy who is responsible for who plays, how we played and where and when we trained is the guy who is ultimately responsible for buying players."

Full article is at the link above

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Mm, perhaps a little unfair to TSM. Pricky Campell put him on the spot by asking him who the worst player to be signed while he was at Celtic was, which is a bit of a 'have you stopped beating your wife?' question. It seemed to me he was trying to stress that the process was collaborative rather than blame everything on JB.
I've always felt Dalglish has been harshly treated. Granted, he's an uncommunicative serial suer who signed some absolute dross and had us playing some of the dullest football in history...BUT - the Ferdinand/Shearer thing wasn't his fault; signing the top scorer in Holland two seasons running and the top scorer in France the previous season seems pretty reasonable without the benefit of hindsight; he was sacked at a stupid time, either three months too early or three months too late depending how you look at it; people like to think he took a championship team and dismantled it, forgetting how off the boil we'd gone under Keegan - few tears were shed over Ginola at the time, for instance; and amongst the dross he signed some good, inexpensive players who are currently an integral part of the squad.
I'm really setting myself up for some battering this week, aren't I?

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

NOt at all Dan, a very fair summation I would say.

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Time for a cold shower on the cold water thread Dan. No matter how much you might try, you will never convince me that Dalglsh was good for Newcastle. Yes, hindsight is a wonderful thing but I can't see what difference it will make in future ;-)

IMHO, Dalglish did dismantle a very good side. OK, so we might have gone off the boil a bit. So why not just turn up the gas a bit? Surely it wasn't necessary to hoy oot half the vegetables (bad analogy!) to improve the soup? The flavour was good and it was not far from being finished - just a few more spices to add and it could have been very, very tastey. But instead, Dalglish decided the old recipe needed a complete change. New vegetables were brought in (good analogy!) and the end result wasn't palatable.

WRT to Ferdinand, I said at the time and I will continue to say, it was good business, especially with the benefit of that hindsight. We sold Les for £6M (same as we paid) and in the next couple of seasons, he hardly got a game at Spurs due to injury. Same with Cole. Seemed a bad deal at the time, but he had bad form and injury at ManUre and took a long time to settle. But the difference with the sale of Cole and that of Les was that when COle went, we replaces him (with Les and Gilly). When Les went, we did f*ck all, despite our other striker being injured. Now, whether this was Dalglish or the board's decision not to buy, I can't be sure, but I seem to remember KD saying there was nothing good enough available. Or maybe he was talking about the display at the local leek show? Who knows - you could never understand what he said anyway.

Then, in typical kitchen style, pots, pans and all sorts went flying and we got a Dutch cook who couldn't control the brew's ingredients. But at last we have a MasterChef in charge. The Hors d'Heuves ain't been bad (at least he saved them from going down the pan) and the Main Course is starting to smell good. I for one can't wait for the feast to be ready!

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

>>>>>Granted, he's an uncommunicative serial suer who signed some absolute dross and had us playing some of the dullest football in history...

Is that not enough for you Dan? - signed some absolute dross, some of the dullest football in history.

I mean, apart from that and the fact that we were transformed from title chasers to relegation candidates he did a good job? >>>>>forgetting how off the boil we'd gone under Keegan

Forgetting what???? 4th in the table and off the boil? The 5-0 where we should have put 8 in?

You're coming up with some very perverse ideas this week Dan. :-)

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

Jonno - 'not enough for me' to do what? Write him off as evil incarnate? I'm not saying I wish he was still in charge. Far from it - that's why I acknowledge the disastrous things he did. I just don't go along with the prevalent pat, overly-easy all-consuming anti-KD sentiment. I think some of the KD/RG-hating YBR-deifiers would like to convince themselves think Bobby signed Dyer, Solano, Hughes et al...
Anyway, maybe I'm just feeling perverse. No change there. :@)

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

>>>>to do what? Write him off as evil incarnate?

Yes, exactly. He destroyed a great team and never once apologised or admitted his appalling mistakes. I can only remind you of your own words signed some absolute dross, some of the dullest football in history The dullest football in history Dan - you said it - I watched it and agree - less than 12 months after the 5-0. Can you point to any such destruction of a team ever in so short a time?

As for Nobby & some of his better signings, he signed so many players that some were bound to be good - even then he played players out of position, notably Speed who has been excellent since KD left, and was rubbish beforehand.

I have more time for Ruud who halted the slide temporarily but was unable to deal with a situation amongst the players, and probably aggravated that situation. So I don't put myself in the Ruud hater camp but recognise that he had created too many problems around himself and almost certainly had to go.

As for the deification of YBR let's be serious Dan - the walking on water thing is for fun yeah? YBR is a great manager and has done a fine job with us so far. Judge KD and YBR on where they started and the results since. The devil incarnate and the deity are close enough approximations to the truth.

Your thoughts of late are certainly perverse. To start the cold water thread after a quite superb result which takes us up to 6th (and we were bottom when YBR arrived) and then to say that KD was hard done by when he took us equally as far in the opposite direction is a tortuous logic. IMHO.

Maybe you just like arguments ... :-)

-- Anonymous, January 23, 2001

To use Screacher's fine analogy about the chef and the soup. What is a Swedish chef going to do with the England soup.

Let's hope he's not like the one out of the muppets!

Hurdy Durdy Murdy Gurdy, Put the chicken in the pot, Hurdy Durdy Murdy Gurdy.

Couple that with his amazing likeness for a youthful Montgomery Burns and Sven Goran Nokia 5110 is off to a bad start.

-- Anonymous, January 24, 2001

Oh, oh!!

WHEN KENNY MET FREDDIE

Kenny Dalglish was not on the best of terms with chairman Freddie Shepherd when he left the post as manager of Newcastle United, but that all seems to be in the past.

Dalglish was seen on Monday having lunch at Langan's in London with Shepherd and as one wag was heard to commented: " They were never that close when Kenny was the manager at Newcastle! "

-- Anonymous, January 24, 2001

Your thoughts of late are certainly perverse. To start the cold water thread after a quite superb result which takes us up to 6th (and we were bottom when YBR arrived) and then to say that KD was hard done by when he took us equally as far in the opposite direction is a tortuous logic.
Jonno - I'm delighted that we're sixth and said so. I just don't think we're good enough to stay there at the moment and sounded a note of caution. I was critical of KD but believe some people are over the top in their hatred of him. So I don't think I'm taking a willfully extreme and contrary view on either topic. Sadly, very little in life is black and white. ;@)

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2001

>>>>very little in life is black and white

Dan - you're digging yourself in deeper now.

Everything in our lives is Black and White!

:-) You might be right about not maintaining 6th (although I see no reason why we can't better that) but I reckon it's more fun to celebate a victory than worry. As for TSM, I certainly don't hate him (and he was barely mentioned on the "most obnoxious people in football" thread) but hate what he did to us. Despite buying Nobby, Speed and several others, he took us backwards a long way.

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2001

I don't know about Dan but I certainly like a good argument and therefore I take my hat off to him. His defence of Dalglish, has to be one of the bravest postings on I've ever read on here.

To throw in my tuppence worth Dalglish won my respect as a human being for the dignified way he responded to the Hillsborough tragedy. I once met a trained counsellor, a devout Evertonian in fact, who worked with grieving relatives in the direct aftermath of that horrific afternoon. He told me until that point he had loathed Dalgish, but after seeing first hand how, tactfully and sensitively, he went out of his way to comfort the bereaved he had nothing but respect for the man.

As a football manager Dalglish completely lost my respect by the cack- handed way he ran Newcastle United. After us and Celtic I wonder how many top level clubs would offer him work, which says a lot given his CV uptill his spell at SJP. Following Keegan would have been a tall order for any manager but he was the wrong man at the wrong time and left the club in a far weaker state than when he took over. But then I don't think Dan disagrees with that.

-- Anonymous, January 25, 2001