Gerrard and Co must take blame for Reds’ plight

LONDON: Roy Hodgson did not fit. Even King Kenny did not fit. When will it occur to Liverpool that maybe the manager is not the problem?

Senior players such as Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher, Pepe Reina and Glen Johnson need to look at themselves and ask ‘ Have I done enough?’

Maybe I’m stuck in the past but, as a player, your pride should be hurt when a manager loses his job because it means you haven’t done yours.

That’s what i felt when brian clough left Nottingham Forest after we were relegated in 1993.

Kenny Dalglish was sacked after Liverpool finished eighth, 37 points behind manchester city and manchester United.

That’s not good enough for a club of their standing but winning the League Cup and reaching the final of the FA Cup should have bought him a bit more time.

I’ve said before that, as it stands, Liverpool are a Cup team and, on that score, they’ve done pretty well.

Once Liverpool were known as a classy club. Anyone who dealt with them would say they acted with dignity and honour but they seem to have lost that.

There were two messy takeovers, the poor handling of the Luis Suarez situation, the departure of Damien Comolli and now the ditching of Dalglish after only 18 months.

It seems to me the American owners in the Premier League – at United, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Sunderland – have a different mentality from what we are used to. They want instant success.

Splashing £100mil might bring immediate results in American football but soccer is different and they need to get their heads around that.

You could throw £100mil at Liverpool tomorrow, no matter who the manager is, and they still wouldn’t be any closer to winning the League.

In the past, Liverpool used to buy ready-made players like Peter Beardsley and John Barnes. Now they bring in younger ones who might have a higher resale value.

How that is compatible with instant success, I don’t know. These things take time.

The search is on for a new manager and despite the problems it’s still a big job which will appeal to a lot of people.

Roberto Martinez has done well enough at Wigan to earn a chance to make the step-up.

If Martinez gets it and it doesn’t work out, will we hear the same old excuses about how the job was too big for him blah, blah, blah — or will people realise that maybe it’s the players rather than the manager to blame? — The Sun, London