Even though Lawro expects no change, surely Fenway and Liverpool should have put an end to the 48 hours of speculation before now?

Back off Liverpool. Villa have first dibs on McCarthy.

I read somewhere that Fenway suggested a redefinition of his responsibilities (I.e. kicked upstairs) and Kenny refused. It's pretty hard to imagine they are going to now say oh ok then, carry on as you were.

Stories this morning that Liverpool had contacted at least one current Premier League manager.

It is worth noting that the Red Sox are off to a rather poor start (last place in the division, 5.5 games behind Tampa and 2.5 behind the Yankees), and that the Boston media have been crucifying Fenway for botching their managerial change in the off season.

If that experience is informing their judgement in any way, the lessons would be to take their time, and to go with a younger, less high profile guy. The Martinez rumours make sense in that context, though I remain unconvinced.

This is all rather confusing. How long is the attention span of FSG? They seem able to pay attention long enough to the tales of disaster emanating from merseyside to fire someone, yet they don't manage to ever find a replacement, or even think about a replacement.

Or is it they finally manage to put out one fire at the redsox, and are over in england, trying to get stuff done, when some other aspect in boston explodes, and drags them back?

I mean is Ian Ayres supposed to be the permanent person for that position? And since commolli got the boot in order to allow the new man to line up the deals for the summer, we are kind of left wondering, where the hell is this new director of football? All of the best bargains have already been assidously tapped up by their rivals. There won't be anyone but the sick and the lame left.

There is a strong chance that kenny hasn't been fired yet, because he's the only one left on the staff with a set of keys for anfield, and he claimed to have left them at home, and is now going to take them with him on holiday in an act of passive aggressive defiance.

Henry Winter's just announced his imminent departure.

If they are ever going to get any credibility then Fenway really need to make a good job of handling this transition. While they might not be anywhere near as dodgy as the last pair of chancers, they've not actually shown themselves to be any more competent.

At least they have positioned themselves well in this instance. Offering Dalglish some sort of a different role in the club at least makes it look like they have not callously discarded a club legend, rather Dalglish is too stubborn to accept he has failed.

I would suggest that while H&G were much much worse for the club, they were considerably more competent. it's not easy to do what they did, or to hang on for so long.

Their insane plan was doomed to disaster from inception, so to hang on for nearly five years was very impressive. That's quite a lengthy rear-guard action, against some very tough opposition. Would these fenway lads have been able to tough it out for so long?

I would have gone with a "Oh my god--they killed Kenny!" title myself.

Etienne wrote:


Good riddence to the tory voting toff.

TalkSport too

EDIT - sorry, that should read 'talkSPORT'. Damn those unpredictable capitalisations.

I would have gone with a "Oh my god--they killed Kenny!" title myself.

So you can speak English Carlitos?

George wrote:


<applause>

http://djleekee.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/rafa-benitez-pa_1356726c.jpg?w=588&h=359

Oh please let it be the return of the Raffatollah.

So the vacancies now are West Brom, Villa and Liverpool.

Presumably a mad rush to get Rodgers, Lambert and Martinez will follow?

Or what about Pardew, just so garcia's skin would be in a permanent state of crawliness.

While a Rodgers or a Lambert would be a good choice for Villa or Everton or any other mid ranking Premiership club, should Liverpool be taking a punt on a manager with a single season in the Premiership behind them? They might be the next George Burley for all we know.

Martinez would fit I think, aside from his management ability he's a thoroughly agreeable man and would go a long way to addressing the snarly and bitter tone we have had for the past 18 months.

As an aficionado of such theories, Berbaslug will be pleased to hear that there is a school of thought in Boston that believes that Henry's mind has been elsewhere ever since he took up with Linda Pizzutti, and that he no longer really cares about what happens at Fenway.

If they followed football. oligarchs or contemporary art they'd draw parallels to Roman and Dasha, but their idea of the exotic is a weekend in Connecticut.

This guy may well be free in the next few days.

Villas-Boas would be a great choice for them. Fortunately, I think they'll overlook him in favour of a current manager of an English side. Martinez is flavour of the month and would be a reasonable pick.

Dalglish was yesterday's man. He might just have survived one mediocre league season, but he was never going to survive that and the Suarez fiasco.

I'll be sorry to see him go. I was enjoying watching him disintegrate and drag Liverpool down with him.

christ, there is still no statement on the LFC website even though everyone knows what has happened.

liverpool are the new newcastle. it's finally happened.