Kenny Dalglish: Red Devil Bidding to Knock Alex Ferguson off His Perch

Kenny Dalglish was the last Liverpool manager to stand in Sir Alex Ferguson’s way. The signs are that he is going to be the first one at Anfield to do so for 20 years.

Graeme Souness and Roy Evans couldn’t do it, nor could Gerrard Houllier or Rafa Benitez. Roy Hodgson never had a chance.

All of those who succeeded Dalglish after he walked alone in 1991 have suffered by the experience of attempting to stop Ferguson’s systematic dismantling of Liverpool’s standing as England’s post war ultra-club.

Two of them, Souness and Hodgson, endured only the kind of collateral damage that can hit any manager. In other words, they were sacked because they failed. The others are scarred for life.

Evans was left emotionally distraught and feeling betrayed, having first started the task alone of stopping Ferguson and restoring Liverpool’s status on his own, before the set-up of Houllier arriving as joint manager.

The Frenchman almost died trying and underwent emergency heart surgery. The doctors saved him, but he was never the same again after his recent departure from Aston Villa over health issues.

Benitez became embittered and increasingly paranoid and his failure to restore himself at Inter Milan suggests that the Spaniard, in his way, will also never be quite the same mentally. 

He did make it “five times” in the European Cup/Champions League, but that 2005 triumph was, if anything, even more bizarre than that of Ferguson’s in 1999.

He had promised on his arrival from Valencia to reboot the Anfield success system in terms of the domestic championship success, and when he arrived in 2004, Liverpool were still very much the title kings of England, with United three short of their record haul of 18.

He left sad and screwed up and without the holy grail, while the Old Trafford club is now one ahead of the mark no one connected with Liverpool ever thought would be overhauled back in 1991 when Dalglish so dramatically departed.

How wrong they were. Ferguson, writing in United’s official magazine, revels in his club’s dominance over the rivals he promised all those years ago to “knock off their perch,” singling them out by saying: “It was Liverpool’s time in the 80s. It’s our time now.”

Ferguson’s statement, however, will be like a red rag to a bull for Dalglish, who had long regretted quitting over the emotional distress brought on by the Hillsborough Disaster and had for several years wanted to take on his fellow Glaswegian again; he is now doing so with a vengeance.

Hodgson spent six months trying to clear up the mess left behind by Benitez, but things just got worse. Within weeks of his return, Dalglish transformed a squad and a club that was wallowing in self-pity.

He has inspired new optimism and confidence within the club he loves and now Jordan Henderson, for almost all of last season, tipped to join Ferguson as one of the English game’s more intellectual young midfield talents, has made it clear he wants to gain his master's degree by learning at the feet of Dalglish.

Henderson’s signing would be a significant success for Dalglish, especially as Sunderland manager Steve Bruce is very much an acolyte of the man he played under at Old Trafford and still worships—and with whom he has already done quite a bit of business.

It would also be a further statement of intent following the January intake of excellent young strikers Andy Carroll and Luiz Suarez—Dalglish is overseeing a rapid revival. The steadying of the ship is done. Silverware, title silverware, is his target now, and preferably ASAP.

Once upon a time, after a particularly explosive meeting between United and Liverpool, when Dalglish was first in charge, he came across Ferguson giving a media interview in the bowels of Anfield.

Carrying his baby daughter, he sneeringly told reporters: “You’d get more sense out of her than you will out of him!”

It was a typically caustic aside by Dalglish, who could make such remarks back then with the impunity of knowing he was the manager of the rulers of modern English football.

The boot, now, is very much on the other foot and Ferguson enjoys putting that boot in where it hurts.

He may want to enjoy it while he can. Dalglish is back, maybe more devilish and determined than before.

The reversal of roles is almost surreal. Two decades on, it is Dalglish who is intent on doing to Ferguson what Ferguson did to Liverpool: knock him off his perch.