Liverpool, Chelsea, Aston Villa and West Ham all lost on the night.
Glad on the 1st result in some way as the the result might be a final straw for the sacking of Roy Hodgson, not too bother about the 3rd and 4th, but feel bad on the Chelsea lost. I think it is all over, MU going to win the Premier Leauge for the 19th time....just too depress to feel this way, just hope miracle happen and they lost by May, just hope...
So from the 4 Managers, how many will be sacked? I think all 4 of them, within this month.
Liverpool won against Bolton. I am disappointed, will this mean a career saving to Hodgson? I really hope no no no. I hope we lost and he go....
King Kenny have been mentioned as possible caretaker Manager until end of the season, if that is true it will be great, although i still prefer Banitez to return but it what been reported is true that some "senior" player in the team are one of reason Rafa been outs from LFC then, it is not a good idea to go back to manage a people who might not follow the idea of the manager.
Then, left King Kenny, for me he is my second choice, but not far from the fist choice and i just hope this will happen, i just don't think whoever take over the Anfield hot seat will fare worst than Hodgson. (No sure about result, but definitely playing style will be more attractive)
I just hope, hope and hope Hodgson to be sacked, the sooner the better. Then i can wave this contradict feeling (supporting the team, but hope them loss) goodbye.
Roy Hodgson saw on his arrival from Fulham that Liverpool's first- and reserve-team squads were burdened with mediocre or unused personnel. Photograph: John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
When Paul Konchesky joined Liverpool this summer a rival Premier League manager invoked the ghost of Julian Dicks, another bald English left-back from central casting. "He's not a Liverpool player," the manager remarked of Konchesky, who was jeered from the pitch in last night's 1-0 defeat at home to Wolves, days after his mother had allegedly called the club's fans "Scouse scum" in a hastily erased Facebook post.
"A Liverpool player" is an instantly evocative title that evokes Dalglish, Keegan, Souness, Lawrenson and Rush. The question of who is – and who demonstrably is not – a candidate for this deification has exercised the minds of Liverpool supporters since Graeme Souness handed the shirts of living saints to several comparative journeymen in his three-year reign from 1991-94.
Konchesky's acquisition from Fulham by Roy Hodgson was a rational attempt to solve a positional shortcoming and is cited here only because Liverpool's deep structural weakness is easy to identify. In the 20 years since they last won the league title, an ocean liner of substandard or under-achieving footballers has disgorged its human cargo at the Mersey docks and sent it up to Anfield, where the team now sit in 12th place in the Premier League, three points above the relegation zone.
On his own journey from the Thames to the Mersey, Hodgson saw straightaway that Liverpool's first- and reserve-team squads were suffocating under the weight of mediocre and unused personnel. A reader of highbrow fiction, the former Fulham manager used a fine phrase to describe the surfeit of drifters he came across while Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Dirk Kuyt did most of the hard work. Hodgson called them "purposeless".
Critics will say he has added to the ranks of the purposeless by taking delivery of Konchesky, Christian Poulsen and Milan Jovanovic (Joe Cole and Raul Meireles are of a higher calibre and still have time to assert their talents). But equally Hodgson could point to his excellent rebuilding work at Fulham and his shrewd eye for a hidden jewel. He could also say Liverpool are deluded by old glories (Carol Konchesky said that, too) if they think the budget exists to spend like Manchester City after so many expensive blow-outs in the transfer market.
Simply: Liverpool have recruited dozens of duds over the last 10 seasons while Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea have signed very few. The Kop, the team's best players and Hodgson himself are toiling against this debilitating imbalance, which has become manageable only in bursts: first when Rafael Benítez's team won the 2005 Champions League and then when Gerrard, Carragher, Pepe Reina, Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano gelled to propel the 2008-09 side to second place in the Premier League with 86 points.
Any professional footballer will tell you a trophy-winning team needs a decisive ratio of gifted players and committed winners. Benítez's best side possessed that magical half-dozen. But when Alonso and Mascherano left, Torres lost interest and Gerrard and Carragher were hampered increasingly by injuries, the mediocrity all around them again became Liverpool's defining characteristic.
There is no memory game on red Merseyside quite like the recitation of nearly-men and no-names – starting with the forwards. Sean Dundee, Erik Meijer, Florent Sinama-Pongolle, Fernando Morientes, Titi Camara, Ryan Babel, David Ngog and Andriy Voronin demand inclusion. In other wide or attacking midfield positions room would be found for Anthony Le Tallec, Albert Riera, Mark González, Jermaine Pennant and Bruno Cheyrou. Defenders worth a mention are Philipp Degen, Sotirios Kyrgiakos and Andrea Dossena. This random selection from a lengthy list leaves out many obscure French or Spanish purchases who barely sniffed first-team action. The vast scale of waste is a huge rolling problem for a club once renowned for precision in the scouting department. Each wave of mistakes creates a new challenge of culling and dispersal, restricts budgets and overloads those players capable of vying for titles with the responsibility of carrying passengers.
The homegrown Liverpool contingent have complained privately for years about this annual influx of substandard punts. A scattergun transfer policy has conspired with the failure of the academy system to produce heirs to Gerrard, Carragher, Michael Owen and Robbie Fowler. Under extreme pressure to correct the slide of Benítez's last campaign, Hodgson tries to perform major surgery on a bloated workforce while bad results whip up a wrecking gale.
The emotional disengagement of Torres bites at the hopes of supporters because he is the one world-class foreign import still wearing the Liver bird, unless Reina creeps in. Called to the stand, Gérard Houllier and Benítez would defend themselves with weighty evidence. Houllier won a domestic and European cup treble in 2001 and Benítez took them to two Champions League finals (winning one) from 2005-07. Neither, though, could bounce the team any higher than second in the Premier League.
Both surrendered that momentum straight after building it. Houllier spent £20m on Salif Diao, Cheyrou and El Hadji Diouf in the summer before Liverpool fell back to fifth (2002) and Benítez went from second in 2009 to seventh 12 months later. The reason, in both cases, was a dilution rather than a deepening of the talent pool.
So an exasperated Anfield crowd mock the manager ("Hodgson for England" they sing) while Liverpool arrive in a new year with their worst points total since Don Welsh's team were relegated in 1953-54. The club's new American owners, who have no experience of making football decisions, must calculate whether to back Hodgson's cull or simply transfer a chronic structural problem to another manager.
In the past 10 years major transfer miscalculations by Arsenal, Chelsea and United can be counted on the fingers of two hands. At Liverpool they cram the picture. The Noughties were an age of mass auditions and experimentation, and culpability extends to owners and directors.
Unveiling Ron Yeats, Bill Shankly invited journalists "to walk around" the "colossus" he had signed. Yeats was "a Liverpool player" in the intended sense. Not just good, but special. There are too few now.
Liverpool's manager, Roy Hodgson, can barely watch as his team lose 1-0 to Wolves at Anfield. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA
Liverpool's American owners are running out of patience with Roy Hodgson amid fears that the manager's relationship with the club's supporters has broken down irretrievably.
Despite the fact that in one poll 95% of Liverpool fans wanted Hodgson to be sacked immediately after last night's 1-0 home defeat by Wolverhampton Wanderers, there appears to be no great appetite for regime change. John W Henry and Tom Werner of New England Sports Ventures are prepared to give Hodgson more time after six torturous months.
However, Henry has already labelled performances this season "unacceptable" and the next three games – against Bolton Wanderers and Blackburn Rovers in the league and Manchester United in the FA Cup – are likely to be critical to Hodgson's chances of surviving until the summer, when his position will be reviewed.
Henry and Werner, who run the Fenway Sports Group, through which NESV controls Liverpool, are understood to be concerned by the breakdown in relations between fans and the manager. A poll on the Liverpool website The Empire of the Kop drew more than 4,300 replies, with 95.5% of respondents answering yes to the question: "Do you want Roy Hodgson to be fired today?"
His win rate of 41% is almost exactly the same as that achieved by Graeme Souness during his time at Anfield and is the poorest by any Liverpool manager since Bill Shankly created the modern club. The defeat by Wolves, which Hodgson considered Liverpool's worst performance of a dismal season, was dominated by ironic chants of "Hodgson for England" and by calls for Kenny Dalglish to take over.
That latter scenario is unlikely to arise even if Hodgson is fired. Given his impassioned loyalty to Liverpool, Dalglish would be unlikely to refuse an offer to return to the job he quit in 1991. However, his candidacy to replace Rafael Benítez in the summer was rejected almost out of hand by the then managing director, Christian Purslow, and his successors are acutely aware that recalling a man who has been out of frontline football since a brief spell as Celtic's caretaker manager more than a decade ago would create more problems than it would solve.
Fenway has no desire to install an interim manager and if Dalglish were unable to pull Liverpool out of their tailspin it would tarnish his glittering reputation and that of the board. If Dalglish were a qualified success, he may block Fenway's plans to bring in a young, long-term manager.
The former Barcelona manager Frank Rijkaard is the favourite, although Hodgson has pointed out that the Dutchman's last job at Galatasaray ended in failure. The Marseille coach, Didier Deschamps, who was interviewed for the post of Liverpool manager in the summer, has moved to distance himself from fresh speculation linking him with Anfield. He has let it be known he would not welcome an approach while Marseille are still in the Champions League and that his long-term aim is to manage the French champions when they move into a refurbished Stade Vélodrome in 2014.
While recognising his position is precarious, Hodgson, who was voted the League Managers Association's manager of the year last season, insisted he still retained the support of a dressing-room that often failed to give Benítez its wholehearted backing. "I am lucky in that the support I have had has been from the players and from within the club," Hodgson said. "I haven't had a lot of support from the fans since I have been here. The fans have not been happy with what they have seen in the whole of 2010 and since I have come here we haven't won enough games to keep them happy.
"That is the way of football. When you take on any job, especially a big job like this, and results do not go the way you want, especially at home, you are going to be a target for disapproval."
It’s getting ugly. Well, technically it’s been getting ugly for a while. But the Wolves debacle was the nadir of a trying season.
I hate it when people say that a performance “was the worst for 10, 20, even 40 years”. You can’t line them all up and compare at the same time. But really, that quite possibly was the worst home performance for 10, 20, maybe even 40 years. Even in the dark, dark days of Souness, I’m sure I recall us at least trying to pass the ball, even if the players (Dicks, Stewart, Molby, Barnes et al) were generally too tubby to chase after it.
It has to rank up there, not least because, in all my time watching the Reds, I’ve never seen a game at Anfield where players were so scared to take possession in their own half of the pitch; it’s been shook out of Brazilian, Spanish, Portuguese, Argentine and Dutch internationals, as well as two or three of the more technically gifted England stars.
Pass? No – get rid. But not just anywhere: into the floodlights. Into the heavens. And into their half. Wallop!
From a total of just two long punts in last season’s fixture, Pepe Reina sent an incredible upward of 35 long-range missiles into the Wolves half the other night. So much for Spanish tiki-taka. The players were too scared to take a risk and play football, so the ball kept going back to him, and with coming short to receive the ball now a no-no, it had to go long. It was pathetic. I honestly think the following graphic in itself could constitute a sackable offence.
At times, Glen Johnson was just kicking to touch like a rugby player; imagine Arsene Wenger managing a team doing that. Gerrard, back in his favourite central midfield position, was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Hmmm…
Although Hodgson doesn’t have many traditional wingers to chose from, he still opted to leave out Maxi – a cultured, possession-savvy Argentine with three vital goals of late – in favour of playing a defensive midfielder on the wing. Hardly inspiring stuff, given the opposition had the worst away record in all four divisions and were bottom of the table. Hodgson spoke of not disrespecting teams by thinking Liverpool should be beating them; setting his side out to at least try would be nice.
I noted several months ago that there was an obsession with calling a team with two holding midfielders ‘negative’ (naughty Rafa) and two strikers as ‘positive’ (brave Roy; see Andy Gray before Manchester City drubbed the Reds 3-0, saying that Liverpool fans will be pleased to see this approach, rather than the one taken at the venue by Benítez, who, though Gray neglected to mention it, had gained four points from the previous two visits to the Eastlands. Er, yes, Andy, we were chuffed to bits to be stuffed 3-0).
But under Benítez – whether Gerrard was in the hole or in midfield – against teams such as Wolves, Liverpool would have two incredibly attack-minded full-backs; not the horribly average Konchesky, and not the quasi-winger Johnson hanging back for fear of a telling off from the sidelines.
If fit, there’d be Agger at centre-back, bringing the ball into midfield to change the dynamic. Kuyt, Gerrard and Torres would all feature – with the captain often in central midfield against the fodder – and basically eight of the ten outfield players had licence to get forward, around the pivot of a holding midfield and one stopper at the back. The only teams to beat Liverpool at Anfield under Benítez in the Premier League were Chelsea, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Manchester United; not the likes of Blackpool and Wolves. [Edit: Liverpool also lost to Birmingham, in November 2004. Just looking at the side that was available to Benítez makes you wonder how the hell Liverpool won the Champions League that season.]
But Hodgson couldn’t even gamble with both Maxi and Kuyt on the wings; he had to play a holding midfielder on one side, and switch Kuyt to his unfavoured side. (I know Meireles isn’t ‘just’ a holding midfielder, but then nor is Lucas, and nor was Alonso, but they had the same label.) And it’s not like Maxi and Kuyt can’t defend, either.
Even with Meireles at right-midfield – a fine passer, but not someone who’s going to play like a winger – there was still no scope for Johnson to get forward. Instead of three forward-thinking defenders (Johnson, Agger and Insua), it was just Johnson, albeit now apparently scared of crossing the halfway line.
The obsession with Gerrard in central midfield and two big strikers is Liverpool as if managed by Andy Gray. No wonder he never criticises Hodgson. We’ve gone from a manager who averaged 75 points a season and racked up four Champions League quarter-finals or better, to one who’s on course for … 46 points.
“He didn’t beat you, boss” was a line Houllier claimed a player had texted him after Rafa was sacked. Well, Hodgson – whose coaching methods were shared by the Emile Heskey-loving likes of Houllier and Sven Goran Eriksson – has already lost at home to two Premier League teams who were worse than any to win at Anfield between 2004 and 2010; and even though a second-tier team did get the better of Benítez in a domestic cup, this season a 4th-tier team triumphed on the hallowed soil. Progress, eh?
Add to that a negative goal difference, a horrific away record and the worst turn-of-year position for Liverpool since the Reds were last relegated over 50 years ago, and you can conclude that in terms of unenviable achievements, Hodgson has also beaten Benítez. By a country mile.
Style
Liverpool have a group of players who are mostly used to playing between the lines; not in straight lines. While the Reds were no Barcelona in recent years, at least they’d take the game to teams at Anfield, and at least players weren’t in regimented formations like a fusball table. In the end, as well as just one forward-thinking defender (Johnson), there were only two forward-thinking midfielders, with Lucas and Meireles unlikely to pop up in the box. Two up front? Well, what good is that if the rest of the team is so negatively constructed?
If you leave out one of your in-form attacking players (Maxi) to play a holding midfielder on the wing, and it doesn’t work, you deserve all the criticism you get. If it had been a case of the tactics working but luck against Liverpool, I could have accepted that. I can handle defeat. But the tactics were shocking, and it contributed to an awful display.
At times I find myself feeling sorry for Hodgson. Then he opens his mouth. Or then I watch us play. From a distance, it may seem like he’s been harshly treated. But the team’s lack of ideas and his lack of understanding about the Liverpool way are ‘crimes’ against our club. It’s also not the Liverpool way to publicly harangue managers, but if he doesn’t respect our traditions, then the Kop will struggle to do likewise.
No-one expected Hiddink or Mourinho to pitch up at Anfield this summer. But Pellegrini – fresh from a club-record 96 points at Real Madrid, and, as also seen with his lovely Villarreal side, a purveyor of the kind of pass-and-move football Reds have grown up on – was passed up because the club (key executives and key players) wanted to go English. Quite why, aside from parochialism and xenophobia, is beyond me.
Ah, but Hodgson was a ‘continental’, too, after such a nomadic career. Except he exported a basic, solid English 1970s approach to Scandinavia at a time when English football was strong in Europe, and he took advantage of an out-of-date fascination with the sweeper system in that part of the world. But once back in England – especially at a big club in the new Millennium – he was in effect now importing ice to the eskimos. And not even good ice at that. Meanwhile, the big clubs had moved on.
Playing like an English team from the 1970s is what plenty of struggling and fair-to-middling teams tend to do in the Premier League; although to their great credit, the likes of Wolves, Bolton, Wigan, West Brom and Blackpool are all playing a far more progressive game than that; and indeed, in the 1970s and ‘80s, Liverpool themselves were playing a continental passing game, not some basic homespun tripe. The Kop would have hated Hodgson’s tactics then, so why accept them now, when the best teams all respect a possession-based game?
If Coyle, Holloway, Di Matteo and Martinez can get humble collections of footballers playing positive, expansive football, then there’s no excuse for Hodgson failing with the current crop at Liverpool. No matter that he didn’t sign them all (though he did sign five of the first team squad and release Aquilani); it took Owen Coyle next to no time to turn Megson’s Hodgsonesque Bolton into something more Shanklyesque. By contrast, Hodgson has a squad full of stars that went to the World Cup, many of them integral to major nations, and has them chasing long balls and shadows.
Hodgson talks of a love of getting he ball quickly to the front men and midfielders then joining; in other words, pretty much the Wimbledon approach. What about passing the ball accurately into the front men having worked the ball upfield? Whatever he did at Fulham, including getting the ball up to Bobby Zamora and winning the LMA award, means nothing at Liverpool. The approach needs to be very different to a mid-table outfit. But Hodgson’s whole career has been a ‘one size fits all’ approach. It fit Fulham brilliantly. Bravo. It fits us like Fatty Arbuckle squeezing into Cheryl Cole’s bikini.
Even if he has a target-men more suited to bringing the ball down (get rid of Torres, buy Carlon Cole), being so direct will never be accepted by the Kop. This is Liverpool; this is Anfield. We don’t live in the past, and don’t expect trophies every season, but certain qualities are part of the club’s DNA.
Pass and move is one of those qualities. There are different ways to do it, but style has it been so lacking. Right now, it’s like going to a Michelin-starred restaurant, only to be served a Big Mac and charged £100 for the privilege. In Torres, Hodgson has a white truffle; the manager, it seems, would rather make use of a pickled gherkin and a ketchup sachet.
This is not to absolve Torres from blame for his sulking on the pitch, but Jesus Christ, if I’d been brought up in Spain and won every major international honour with my country, and was asked to risk blindness by staring into the floodlights to locate a snow-covered ball descending out of the haze, I’d be in a strop.
Again, I noted back in the summer that Benítez’s high-pressing style got the best out of the Liverpool no.9. In his previous two injury-ravaged seasons he was still getting a goal almost every game, even if just coming back from a six-week layoff; now we’re lucky if we get a goal a month.
If Benítez had to go, so be it. I’ve accepted that; that can’t be changed, even though we have clearly traded down.
But the longer the media continue to blame solely him for Liverpool’s woes (even though he left a team that finished with more points and more wins than the one he inherited in 2004, and had something like 15 World Cup participants), then the greater the outcry from knowledgeable fans who, whether they liked Rafa or not, know that Hodgson – with his kowtowing to ‘Sir Alex’, his disregard of the fans, his timid, gutless, artless football – is not the answer to our greatest question. No-one forces Hodgson to get so many men behind the ball, whether winning or losing. No-one forces Hodgson to have the defence sit so deep and hit the ball so long.
Mock us if you want – “they all laugh at us”, as the song says – but we know our football, and we know our club. Patrick Barclay, Paul Hayward and their cohorts may know Roy Hodgson and Fulham Football Club better than us, but we knowour standards. And if such people told us that 7th place with 63 points fell below the accepted standards – sack Rafa! (they did) – then this is so far below it’s almost off the scale. Frankly, it’s an insult.
I express my huge disappointment when knowing that Liverpool have won the match against Napoli.
Recently it become a norm and very dislike me to hope Liverpool FC to lost the game. Not that i not support them anymore, no, i do support as always. But until Roy Hodgson being replace by someone i like or at very least to change the playing style, i will continue to hope LFC to loss the match and change the Manager for the benefit of Club in long term.
Anyway, i just hope this will be over very soon, so that i can support the club like before, The Daglish, Souness (even him), Evan, Houllier and my favorite, Benitez time.
European nights at Anfield form a central part of the folklore. Some are mundane, some underwhelming but, every now and again, one provides a glorious goal, a tremendous comeback and a final, concluding chorus of You'll Never Walk Alone that should live long in the memory of any newcomer.
Associated
John W Henry headed to Anfield to see Steven Gerrard turn the game on its head
To judge by John W Henry's reaction, Liverpool's new owner became as energised as any Scouser on his Anfield debut. Having resembled a self-conscious accountant, he then became a celebrating supporter.
By a simple dint of not being Tom Hicks or George Gillett, Liverpool's new owner may have contributed to the feelgood factor off the pitch, but it was their figurehead on it who played a greater part on this occasion. Steven Gerrard's role as the personification of Liverpool has transcended eras and, if Henry wondered why, his answer came in the form of a 15-minute hat-trick.
Sent on for a second-half salvage operation, he executed it to perfection, rousing others with his dynamism. Ezequiel Lavezzi's opening goal for Napoli meant Gerrard couldn't be spared for Sunday's visit of Chelsea. But it brought a benefit, his catalytic contribution putting Liverpool in command of Group K and extending their recent revival in thrilling fashion.
"We owe him a big debt of gratitude," Roy Hodgson said. "His entry on to the field was a catalyst, galvanised the crowd, galvanised the team. It took some Steven Gerrard magic and some Steven Gerrard courage."
It began unusually. Gerrard contrived to score with a tackle, challenging Napoli goalkeeper Morgan de Sanctis for the under-hit backpass that represented Andrea Dossena's gift to his former team-mate. "It is not a pretty goal, but it is a captain's goal - the goal of a man who wanted to get his team back into the game," Hodgson added.
Then Gerrard converted a penalty after Salvatore Aronica tripped Glen Johnson before deftly chipping De Sanctis for the third. Almost six years since his heroics against Olympiakos, Gerrard retains an ability to make his mark on the continent. Only the fact it wasn't the Champions League may preclude a place among the great European occasions.
There was, though, a vibrant atmosphere. Lavezzi's strike brought long and lengthy celebrations from the ebullient Italians. Besides being prominent ports, a fervour for football and a fondness for nostalgia unite Liverpool and Naples. A banner was unravelled among the Napoli fans, wishing a belated happy birthday to Diego Maradona. A wish to turn the clock back to 1990 could be a common denominator: the year of the last title for both clubs, it also marked the final hurrah for their respective iconic figures, Maradona and Kenny Dalglish, on the pitch and in the dugout respectively.
The Argentine was part of Napoli's greatest attacking triumvirate. MaGiCa was an appropriate abbreviation for Maradona, Bruno Giordano and Careca. Their current counterparts lend themselves to no such obvious nickname but Lavezzi, Edinson Cavani and Marek Hamsik comprise a fine trio in their own right.
Hamsik may be the greatest talent. However, Slovakia's captain, and the supposed Manchester United target, was rather overshadowed by his South American accomplices at Anfield. Quick-witted and sharp, Lavezzi, the head of the attacking triangle, and Cavani, the left-sided point, caused untold problems in the first half. A 3-4-2-1 formation has its merits, especially against English opposition who are unaccustomed to facing such a side. It certainly enabled the bright Cavani to remain an elusive figure, roaming with purpose and squat power.
There can be an explosive element to meetings of Argentines and Uruguayans. As Napoli's goal demonstrated, there was when they attacked. Cavani reacted sharply to Christian Poulsen's misdirected header. His sole touch was a header, flicked over the Liverpool defence for the accelerating Lavezzi to steer his shot past Jose Reina.
GettyImages
Steven Gerrard sparked Liverpool back into life
At that stage, Hodgson was ranting on the bench, seemingly to no one in particular. But he took the obvious option and introduced Gerrard. His arrival brought an immediate improvement. De Sanctis blocked David Ngog's low shot. Raul Meireles shot narrowly wide and the captain curled a free-kick just past the post.
Then came the remarkable turnaround. Proof that, while Napoli had MaGiCa in their past, Liverpool possess a little magic of their own at the moment.
MAN OF THE MATCH: Steven Gerrard. A stunning third goal completed a wonderful comeback. The difference between the two halves was simple: Gerrard played in the second.
LIVERPOOL VERDICT: Those who were omitted, such as Fernando Torres, Maxi Rodriguez and Lucas, can rest assured that they will regain their places against Chelsea. Meireles was tried again in what tends to be Gerrard's usual position and, again, suggested he is better in a deeper role. Poulsen's role in the Napoli goal cemented an unimpressive start to life in England. It was telling that cheers greeted his replacement with Nathan Eccleston - the young forward doesn't have that big a fan club yet.
NAPOLI VERDICT: For 75 minutes, they looked a very good side, with the seven defenders and midfielders providing understated support for the three class acts further forward. Then Hurricane Gerrard blew them away. Dossena's fallibility brought back reminders of his failures at Anfield.
