Do we really see Roy as a solution?

TURNS out Newcastle aren’t the biggest joke in English football after all.

With our own issues of ownership seemingly solved — and boy does that ‘seemingly’ scream out at you today — it was expected to be one of the best trips of the season.

Beer? Extra thick coat? Lyric sheet full of hilarious epithets to mock the clueless Geordie hordes? All boxes ticked. Oops. Forgot ‘team with shred of mettle’. You can never remember everything, can you? Oh for the days when they’d sacked Kenny, installed Sexy Ruud in his place and we played them off the park, Owen rubbing his hands in mischievous glee. The King didn’t get his name sung that much when he brought title after title to Anfield.

And the time 40,000 of them baited Allardyce mercilessly before legging it outside to man the barricades once again. Not that we can talk, and now they’re laughing at us. Damn; forgot the travel sickness pills as well.

What’s more you half expect it. That’s where this calamitous year has brought us, not just under Roy but during the final months of Rafa. Gutless, clueless, joyless.

It’s clear that record will never improve under Hodgson in 2011, and yet a cloud of sadness still descends when you hear the clamour for Liverpool FC to join the ranks of the knee jerkers.

Rafa’s getting it in Italy. Moratti’s all loyalty one minute, hinting darkly the next. It’s obvious what needs to be done there, but it seems Ashley is the norm not the exception, even at the biggest clubs where they know impatience doesn’t work.

Houllier’s on the chopping block too. The results are poor but they whined especially loudly when he touched the Anfield sign and didn’t wave to the away end.

Do we really see Hodgson as the solution? We didn’t at the start; what have you seen since then to make you think he’ll live up to even vastly reduced expectations? That was just shocking on Saturday. The equaliser demonstrated emphatically how brittle Newcastle were, yet Torres for the second game running looked irritable and bored before blowing a great chance to put a stranglehold on the game.

Excuses are plentiful of course and Hodgson’s pre-match sleight of hand about our away record amply demonstrates why fans are so worried.

Carragher’s enemies were gleeful that we’d finally get a chance to see what the defence was like without him. I shall just say the word ‘Skrtel’ and move politely on.

When we struggle like this, people pour over the record books for similar lean times, hoping to find oases supplanting deserts. Joe and Kenny started well, but inherited great teams from retirees.

So did Paisley but even he only won 14 of his first 34 league games. Evans, Houllier and Benitez all stepped into dead men’s shoes, making the same atrocious start on their travels as Roy. Rafa had 25 points at this stage of his first season.

John Henry made a nice gesture regarding Utrecht freebies for da kidz. Was I the only sourpuss who wondered who on earth was paying to see the reserves play a dead Europa rubber 10 days before Christmas in the worst winter and recession for decades? When they get their feet under the table perhaps they’ll ask why satellite television has shown 13 of 18 league games, including eight out of nine away’s. Liverpool fans treated like dirt, the club profits.

They don’t know anything about the game which hinders their ability to act decisively. Comolli’s appointment may yet involve more than player recruitment, and the manager seemed hideously befuddled when Lucas’ contract was mentioned.

It’s like they’re moving the furniture while he’s still in the living room. Instead of Owen rubbing his hands, Roy rubs his face, presumably hoping he’ll be granted three wishes.

I can’t believe we’re talking like this; Mike Ashley, the game’s most contemptible fart, is now a role model.

The words ‘hell’ and ‘handcart’ spring to mind.