ITS BEAT BOLTON OR BUST FOR ROY HODGSON

After Wednesday's nadir in losing so abjectly to bottom-placed Wolves, Roy Hodgson has to beat Bolton on New Year's day or his days as Liverpool Boss are over.
In six stormy months, on and of the field, Liverpool sit 12th in the Premiership with just 22 points and 8 losses in the League already this season.
With the Anfield faithful up in arms over his poor management at our club, 90% of us want him out now, it is hard to see how he can continue in the job for much longer.
Hodgson is a decent man, as were Houllier and Benitez before him.
He was last season's League Manager of the year at Fulham but his reputation has been badly tarnished during his six-month stay at Anfield.
NESV are patient and thoughtful people who are loathe to rush into knee-jerk reactions, but, after the humbling by Wolves and, more importantly, the hostile reaction of the fans along with the petitions and pleas to John W. Henry pleading for a new manager, it seems the owners are willing to react.
Strong rumours suggest that Kenny Dalglish will be appointed in a caretaker position until the end of the season.
So its vital for Roy and for Liverpool that we beat Bolton on Saturday or there will be upheavals at Anfield.
Expect major changes very soon.

LETS HOPE FOR A WIN AGAINST FULHAM TO LIFT THE GLOOM

Following the defeat at Newcastle and Wednesday's dull draw with Utrecht, lets hope for a good win against Hodgson's old team Fulham at Anfield tomorrow evening.
The beleaguered Liverpool Manager must rally his team to put on a good performance against Mark Hughes side.
Fulham lie in 17th place in the Premier League on 16 points, but they are no pushover as many teams have found playing against them this season.
Liverpool are expected to play their strongest possible team at Anfield tomorrow with Torres, Miereles, Kuyt, Maxi and Lucas all returning to the side.
The situation with Steven Gerrard is less certain with the Captain still recovering from that hamstring injury picked up on International duty five weeks ago.
Although he is named in the squad, doubts remain as to his full fitness.
I hope the skipper is fit to start the game as we have badly missed his energy and driving runs from midfield of late.
Let us hope also that Fernando Torres gets back to scoring goals for us again. The Spaniard has had a poor start to the season by his own very high standards and he needs to get a goal to kick-start his and Liverpool's season in earnest.
I didn't include any quotes from Roy Hodgson as I think he has far to much to say for himself as it is!

Prediction:

Liverpool 2 Fulham 1

JUST 22 POINTS IN THE LEAGUE, SHOULD ROY GO NOW?

With Liverpool languishing in ninth in the table following our hopeless display at Newcastle.
Is it time to bring an end to his sorry regime or is a time to be patient with the man who guided Fulham to the Europa League final only last season.
After two good wins against West Ham and Aston Villa, I was begining to see the green shoots of recovery.
However the display at Newcastle was abject.
I am in two minds about this, on the one hand, when he gets it right, we are a good team to watch and we have topped our Europa League group, unbeaten, with a reserve team.
However, 7 defeats already in the League is simply unacceptable.
Still I think he needs to sign another experienced, quality striker and one or two more players this January and then let us see how he does.

THE STATS DO SOMETIMES LIE

Despite a very depressing defeat at St. James Park on Saturday, there are some positives which I am trying to take from the game, hard as that is.

                             Liverpool Stats:
                             5 shots on target
                           12 shots off target
                           55% possession
                                27 crosses
                                 3 offsides
                                 5 corners
With statistics like those, you would expect to win most games that you play, but it was not to be, largely due to poor defending by Liverpool's back four.
Yes it felt like a wretched defeat and is still very hard to take as we had a great chance to move up the table again.
But we just have to take it on the chin and move onto the Fulham game next Saturday, when we will have our Captain Stevie G back.

SO WE WON'T WIN THE LEAGUE THIS YEAR

Well, after tonight's debillitating defeat to the  Wounded Lion's of Newcastle United, we have to take yet another setback in our quest for sucess at Liverpool.Without Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher and an out of form Torres upfront, we looked a pale shadow of a team.

Losing 3-1 was hard to take as we were the better team for most periods of the game and we deserved at least a point to take away from St. James' Park tonight, but it was not to be.

We played well enough, with Raul Miereles and Lucas dominating the midfield but we were let down at the back by some poor marking for the first, second and especially, the third goal.

Newcastle played too well on the night for Liverpool to get a real look in.

The faults at the back I can understand but Fernando Torres did nothing upfront, he had a clear chance one on one with their keeper but he drove it straight at him insteadd of lifting the ball over the keeper as he was trained to do by Benitez.

So we are stuck on 22 points and we are lucky teams above us haven't taken advantage this weekend.

JOVANOVIC DESERVES A BETTER CHANCE ROY

Liverpool won Group K of the Europa League with a 1-1 away draw with Steau Bucharest tonight.
Roy Hodgson opted to give youth its chance again in this competition, they did enough to garner a commendable point in Romania.
Milan Jovanovic scored a very impressive headed goal on 19 mins following a lovely cross by the enigmatic Ryan Babel.
Steau attacked for much of he game thereafter , as they had to at home in front of their own fans and desperately needed the points as they try to qualify for the knockout stages of this tournament.
The equaliser arrived in the second half when Pepe Reina, Captain for the night, allowed a tame header slip between his legs and go across the line to make it 1 all on the night.
So, all well and good, we top the group and qualify for the knockout stages of the Europa League with young players getting chances to shine for the team.
However, I have one gripe with Roy Hodgson and that is his reluctance to use Milan Jovanovic more often in the first team.
The guy is a good player, he scored 69 goals in 153 games for Standard Liege, was named Belgian player of the year in 2008 and won the Golden boot in Belguim in 2009 with 16 goals in 29 games, so the Serbian knows how to find the back of the net and I would dearly love to see Roy Hodgson start him upfront alonside Fernando Torres more often.
He has the pedigree, the ability and the desire to be a success at Anfield.
Give him a chance Roy.