title contenders, but in and around the top teams and capable of upsetting the best.

It appears to have impressed John W Henry and by the time you read this a deal for Dalglish to take the job on a permanent basis may well have been reached.

Henry posted a virtual thumbs up on his Facebook back in February: “Over the last seven matches, I believe, only one goal (and that may have been offside) has been conceded. Terrific effort on defense (sic) with increasing aggressiveness.”

It’s hard to imagine that any other manager could have matched Dalglish’s impact. He was like a coiled spring.

He’d clearly been waiting for his chance and plans were at the ready from day one. Any other man would have had the bedding in period, the pressure from the media, a time when fans needed to be convinced.

Dalglish cut straight through all that and got to work.

He even handled the Torres crisis – because it was a crisis – with ease and emerged the other side of it with credit. Who looks like they’ve got the best side of that deal now?

And it’s not all been some nicey, nicey love-in either.

Kenny might be smiling more than he ever did in his first spell in charge, but there’s been plenty of shaking of the head, too. And when the hands need to be held up, or a finger needs to be pointed, he’s done it.

Essentially, it’s been a no-bullshit approach. Manna from heaven after Hicks, Gillett and Hodgson.

So after the West Ham defeat, Kenny said: “We will sit down and the players can go through the game and make sure we learn from the mistakes that were made.”

And after the Braga bore, Dalglish said: “‘It was a very poor firsthalf performance and we have no complaints about their penalty.”

It’s hard now not to scratch the itch of what could have been.

If only the boardroom had had the foresight to see what Dalglish could bring to the job. And what Hodgson so patently couldn’t.

But we move on, and with the match now an enjoyable and politicsfree atmosphere, it’s an interesting and amusing side hobby to watch those who got it so wrong about Dalglish try to back their way out of the spot they put themselves in.

Stand up Mr Dave Kidd, The

People’s chief sports writer. He staunchly supported Hodgson, and still does. He told us on Twitter: “Outstanding at Fulham, very promising at West Brom, not so good when he had a lynch mob after him, funnily enough.”

He also rained in the low blows before Dalglish took charge, when he took the reins but, funnily enough, not so much after he was in control when results made his arguments redundant.

So he wrote: “The way Hodgson has been patronised and dismissed by the Merseyside public and media, in such a short space of time – and against the backdrop of such inherited chaos – is lunacy of the highest order.”

Then it was: “Should John Henry capitulate to the fans’ wishes and call Kenny Dalglish in from the golf course, Merseyside would host the

‘Liberation of Paris’ scenes which greeted Alan Shearer’s arrival as Newcastle boss two years ago. And we all know how that ended up.”

Then, aside a cartoon of Dalglish failing to control a Liverbird and falling of a cliff into waters containing Leeds, Newcastle, Forest and West Ham crests, he wrote: “They seem to have nailed one great lie at Anfield these past seven days – the one which said Roy Hodgson was the problem. The next piece of perceived wisdom to deal with is the one which says Liverpool are too good to go down.”

He went on: “To anybody outside the rose-tinted Liverpool bubble, the call for Dalglish looked like a desperate move from naive, crowdpleasing new owners, like It’s A Knockout contestants playing the Messiah card as Stuart Hall roars with laughter.”

And he concluded: “So after the ritual blood-letting, a dose of humility is needed, a recognition of present circumstances rather than too much romancing about a glorious past. Otherwise the reality check will only arrive when Liverpool roll up for league matches at Barnsley and Bournemouth.”

Two months later, Kidd described Dalglish as a “footballing demi-god” before slating Wayne Rooney and Alex Ferguson following the former’s elbow against Wigan and the latter’s ridiculous defence of it.

He concluded: “Ferguson, not Dalglish, will go down in history as English football’s most prolific trophywinning manager. Rooney may well end up regarded as one of England’s greatest footballers. Yet neither man enjoys the same adulation from the Stretford End which Dalglish receives from the Kop. And neither do they deserve it.”

Backpedalling scribes aside, it was also heartening to see Ferguson send his seal of approval down the M62.

Remember his sickening old pals’ act with Hodgson? The reason for that was simple – he posed no threat. Kenny does, and that’s why Ferguson bit hard and deep on Dalglish’s quotes about respecting referees (which didn’t directly reference Manchester United) and wrote about them in THE PROGRAMME!

Ferguson said: “People have short memories. Kenny Dalglish looked to be lecturing me in the papers about the need to respect referees, perhaps forgetting that not so long ago his players were tweeting critically all over the place about Howard Webb.”

He means Ryan Babel of course. The Ryan Babel Kenny sold. Cracking up? Rant? Ah yes, no-one’s got the balls to write that in the national media, have they?

Kenny’s got them worried. And they should be. Because Liverpool is a club again. Dalglish will get things wrong along the way. He might sign the wrong player, pick the wrong team or select the wrong tactics. All managers do, they are human.

But what can be guaranteed is that no-one will work harder to make Liverpool successful again. And noone better understands the ethos of the club.

Hopefully the curses of modern football are kept at bay, ironically by pulling on the boots from the past. A manager needs time, patience and understanding to build a team. If anyone is going to be afforded those things at Liverpool, it is Kenny Dalglish.

GARETH ROBERTS