Embarrassing performance as Reds lose again.

Hodgson must be close to the sack after yet another loss as Liverpool manager.

Embarrassing, shameful, ridiculous, hopeless. Just some of the words that were used to describe Liverpool's performance away at Blackburn last night in what surely must be Roy Hodgson's last chance as Liverpool manager.
When it finally seemed that Hodgson had discovered a winning formula at Bolton the worst thing for him to do was to change it. Hodgson, being the supposed great and successful manager that he is (as he referred to himself), then decided to do the complete opposite of this and made 4 changes to the starting line up. The first change was a necessity as Gerrard replaced the injured Miereles but as for the other changes only Roy will know what he was thinking. Agger made a huge difference against Bolton as it was great to see someone who could not only defend well but actually play the ball around comfortably from the back, rather than the usual aimless passing from the centre backs. With this in mind Roy dropped Agger and brought in Kyrgiakos who is in my mind a worse defender, slower and a worse player of the ball than Agger, and the only part of his game that I would say is better than Agger's is his heading ability which is useless against a team who play fast counter attacking football. The next change was to bring back Paul Konchesky, one of the worst left backs the club has ever had, in place of Fabio Aurelio who looked good on Wednesday and is a much better player than his team mate both defensively and going forward. The final change to the team was to drop the most hard working individual in the team and the only one who seems to have kept trying in recent games when Joe Cole was picked in place of Dirk Kuyt. With all this in mind the players themselves seemed surprised with some of the changes and they never really got started.

Glen Johnson was signed as a right back and is supposed to be playing there for the reds but there have been major questions about his defending abilities and he was at fault when Blackburn scored their first through Olsson. Those who regularly watch Liverpool will have known that they don't perform well when they concede first and that they don't perform well away from home. When these two things happened at the same time there was no hope. This however, shouldn't be the message the manager gets across to his players but it seems that Hodgson has instilled it into his players. The reds didn't create anything in the first half other than a Torres disallowed goal for offside and another Torres header that went wide. Things didn't get any better at the back either as Kyrgiakos allowed Benjani to turn far too easily and the Blackburn striker smashed the ball past Reina who was helpless in the Liverpool goal. A third Blackburn goal came in the second half as Skrtel and Johnson managed to allow Hoilett to cross into the box and Konchesky couldn't cover so Benjani grabbed his second.

Only when losing badly did Hodgson begin to realise where he went wrong as he brought Agger on at the back however I don't think bringing a centre back was ever going to be the best thing to do considering 3 goals needed to be scored. Kuyt and Babel then came on but it was already beyond repair and little could be done to salvage the situation. Gerrard grabbed a late consolation for Liverpool with a good strike on what was his 550th league appearance. Things could have been better for Liverpool as Gerrard then won a penalty but in what was a very rare occurrence he blazed it over the bar. In a way I'm glad we didn't get the 2nd goal as it would have been undeserved and it would have looked like we actually tried in the match which may have bought Hodgson more time. It shows what we've got to when everyone is actually not that bothered that we lost because we know it means that its one step closer to Hodgson going (maybe even Stevie G thought that and missed the penalty).

The defeat left Liverpool in 12th and meant that Hodgson has won only 7 out of the 20 league games he has been in charge of the reds and he has lost 9 of the 20. The stats don't lie and a team that loses more than they win is definitely not good enough for Liverpool but Roy is stuck in his mid-table manager mode and thinks he's doing a good job. Just one thing Roy, Liverpool aren't a small mid-table team. Roy said after the game that the reason we lost was because we where "too offensive". How can a team who lost 3-1 be too offensive? Surely the problem has to be that we weren't anywhere good enough defensively and that was the reason for all of the three goal that Liverpool conceded. Why weren't we good enough defensively? The wrong players where picked. So why where those players picked? It was the manager who picked them. So whose fault is it that we lost last night.....

If all of the fans can see it clearly then it must only be a matter of time before the owners do the same and when they do I can only hope that we can finally start our season. Without Roy. The bad news is that we've got a F.A. Cup tie at Old Trafford to navigate first and who knows what team will be picked and which of them will perform but things aren't looking good and the sooner its over the better. Just like Roy's reign at Liverpool.