Kenny Dalglish wouldn’t have been able to remain the Liverpool manager even if he’d have won the FA Cup, according to club owner John Henry, saying that the club’s terrible form in the second half of the season resulted in Kenny Dalglish receiving the termination meeting four days after the disappointing campaign ended.

Too much money spent on players who didn’t do enough, like Andy Carroll, Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam. Dalglish did win the Carling Cup and reached the final of the FA Cup, but according to the American owner and the more prominent face of the FSG, it was all about the league form and the way the players didn’t react to the manager anymore.

The FA Cup would not have made any difference had he won it, no, no. For us, we were 17th over the second half of the season and Liverpool should not be in that position. I don’t place the blame on Kenny and assistant Steve Clarke but I think it was obvious to every fan that something was wrong and something needed to be done.

We had a very poor second half to the season last year. You could say the response to Kenny and Steve from the players was lacking, the play was lacking, so that entered into our considerations. 

Henry tried to dance around the subject while discussing the replacement of Dalglish by Brendan Rodgers, talking about how Dalglish himself kept saying that no man, even the club’s biggest legend, is bigger than Liverpool. He also stated that Dalglish saw himself as somewhat of a caretaker until the right young man came along to take over.

When I first discussed making a change before he took the job, we danced around it and discussed what role he would take at some point. He did say that if it was the manager’s job, he would only do it until we had the right young man to come in for the long term. We spoke two or three times before he actually took the job.

Kenny was always saying no one man is bigger than the club. Everyone knows what it meant when he came back, how he did right the ship and brought all the disparate elements back together. There were a lot of different directions and he unified the club internally and externally; he did an incredible job of getting us all on the same page.

It’s interesting to see Henry’s view on the Luis Suarez matter. Suarez himself spoke out last week against Manchester United and Alex Ferguson, blaming their political and media influence for the 8 match ban he received for the Evra row, pretty much ruining his season. Kenny Dalglish and the club backed their Uruguayan striker completely until a 180 degree turn was landed on him by the ownership.

That Suarez situation did not really play a part (In Dalglish’s sacking). It did not come into play. No one man is bigger than the club and no one issue is going to determine the long-term viability of the club. We had a very poor second half to the season last year. You could say the response to Kenny and Steve from the players was lacking, the play was lacking, so that entered into our considerations.

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