by azriahmad » Thu Aug 24, 2006 4:39 am
I grew up watching and falling in love with Bob Paisley managing Liverpool since 1975. Not surprisingly, Sir Bob is at the very top with Shanks second. Paisley did it his own way and not entirely with Shanks' players yet built his own Liverpool ruthlessly and moved on the conquer England and Europe. Third is a bit hard to call as both Kenny and Fagan and (in with a shout due to his successes so far) is Rafa. If Rafa wins us the Premiership or another CL, he'd be definitely third.
Third is hard to call because although Joe Fagan won a unique treble in his first year in charge, he did it with a Bob Paisley built team. In Fagan's second season, Liverpool started badly as we initially failed to cope with the loss of Graeme Souness and at one stage was in the bottom three of the old First Division before rallying to finish second to Everton. Fagan also took us to a second successive European Cup final but those days there were only 4 two legged ties before a final and we'd only met with Benfica in the Quarter-Finals who gave us some fight, with Kenny Dalglish getting sent off along with a Benfica player in the second leg in Benfica when we lost 1-0, yet progressed.
Kenny's team were ageing and going into decline by 1991, but his Liverpool are capable of playing such beautiful football, especially in 1987-88, when our football was so free flowing we almost played like Wenger's Arsenal in full flow yet with more steele. In 1991, up to Kenny's shock resignation, Liverpool played the best football in England but did not have the consistency of a pragmatic George Graham's Arsenal and we lost a lot of games we should have won in that season after Kenny departed and Souness made too many changes. Still, Kenny won us 3 League titles and 2 FA Cups during his tenure.
Rafa's feats are more amazing when one considered the rot we were in, the mediocre players he inherited and the state of the club's finances against the might of Chelski's owner or the CL money fuelled Manure and Arsenal.
Any of the three - Fagan, Dalglish and Rafa could easily be the third best manager in Liverpool's history IMHO.