Bile?
In short, we have been left in a situation where the club has no CEO, no Director of Communications, no Senior Press Liaison, no Commercial Director, no Head of Sports Science, no DoF and no Manager. That's not 'handling' a situation. That's dropping a lead ball on your right foot just after you'd willingly taken a sharp knife your left.
I don't agree. If it was January, I might. They obviously decided to clear out, and in a football club there is no great time to do that, but the start of the summer break is a better time than any.
Our season was awful. Worst league position in decades, worst home record in half a century. The second half of our season was the worst set of results I have seen in my lifetime as a Liverpool supporter. The one trophy we won, we did so only after 120 minutes and penalties against a lower league side. So for Kenny to say that he "wouldn't swap [the League Cup] for anything as I know how much it meant to our fans", well I fucking well would. In fact, I would swap it for a Europa Cup, or an FA Cup, or Champions League qualification, much less winning the League.
When you come down to it, the supporters who disagree with Kenny's firing do so on the basis of who he is and what he had done quite a while ago. As a manager, he has to take responsibility for the team's position, and he doesn't get to mitigate that responsibility by pointing to his record from two decades ago (not that he did, to be fair, but a lot of fans did). Nor has he the excuse that Rafa Benitez had, of being hamstrung by corporate hijackers. FSG said they would clear the debt and they did. They said they would make funds available for players, and they did, in spades.
What they got in return was an
annus horribilis of pitiful PR and appalling results. I think they had to act, and now was probably the time to do it. I feel for Kenny but to be brutally honest, the Kenny I heard talking over the last six months, and especially in the last month, wasn't the Kenny I remembered.
And this idea that The Liverpool Way has somehow had its death knell sounded by FSG is utter bollocks. Where was the Liverpool Way when Souness was driving the club into the ground? Or when Houllier was parachuted into Roy Evans' lap? Believe me, if The Liverpool Way could survive the Hicks and Gillette all hat and no boots show, it can survive anything. There is only one constant in a proper football club and that's the supporters. In twenty years' time, Henry and Werner will be gone, as well as a succession of managers and players but I will hopefully still be supporting and probably my kid too, and maybe even his kid.
It would have been nice if Kenny was given another year but football isn't always nice. These FSG boys are in it to win. There's a very good reason for that, too. If we get winning, we get more support and more income, and that breeds more winning and more support and more income and on it goes. People may not like that but a quick glance up at the Etihad shows you what you need to win things in football these days.
To sum up, FSG gave Comolli and Kenny a bunch of money and waited to see how they fared. Not very well, is the answer. You can understand them cutting their losses now and giving someone else a go.