Beating Bolton a relief but Roy nearing endgame

LET it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Please? When there’s no game, you can always pretend Johnson can pass, Torres is bothered and Skrtel knows what day it is.

No, go and ruin it with a swift thaw and send us the worst team in the league fresh from a home walloping off Wigan after we’ve had a fortnight off.

It’s just one Herculean task after another… Wolves more or less began England’s ventures into Europe. Liverpool are the country’s most successful entrant. This travesty made our fathers spin in their graves.

Some tabloid hack recalled the last time Wolves scored and won here, fabricating a rather tenuous link between The Hodge and Joe Fagan.

There was a sliver of relevance. Genial Joe could also blether the hind legs off an Adams, yet people loved him for it, fans and journalists alike.

A team full of legends and winners provides sufficient camouflage of course, something Roy seems to have blithely forgotten. Houllier won trophies, almost clinched the league and nearly died but when he lectured us that ‘support’ is in the word ‘supporter’, he had his bags packed there and then. What on earth made Roy think he could say this? Did he think at all?

Wounded and cornered, animals always react nastily but the bottom side came and were treated like football royalty. Meireles was shunted to the wing and Kuyt flung onto the left.

Torres was uninvolved and N’gog at least tried his best, but who got dragged off? If Hodgson just once had hinted that he wanted to save himself, would certain Kopites have kept their gobs closed? Probably not. Once numerous ‘twelfth men’ begged him to take the England job and roared for Dalglish, we awaited the vengeance of the broadsheet literati who’d backed the old bugger in the first place.

I sat there dumbfounded. When others bawled out ‘Liverpool’ in furious response, I was tempted to join in.

Until I looked up and saw Wolves — Wolves! — almost score a second.

The press ubermensch had a field day. Roy had apologised and spoken of his loneliness. Here was the Kop picking on a frail elderly gent; what would Shanks have said? Filth, one called us. Tin soldiers, quipped another.

Well, if you’re going to get analogous on our arse try The Caine Mutiny. You want the ship to sink and everyone on it to drown because you feel sorry for Humphrey Bogart, who’s done nothing but sit there babbling? Not gonna happen.

The pundits are racing to their own lifeboats. Fans who thought Roy could bring stability have been proven wrong but at least have the guts to admit it. The experts cannot be wrong so their escape hatch is Supporter Impatience. Phew! Nearly lost your precious aura of omniscience there. Close one.

The Yanks alerted the press that Roy was a dead man walking, and yet left him in charge. What was that supposed to achieve? Bolton was a bit better, yet you felt that without Gerrard and Torres it would’ve been another debacle.

Nobody turned on the manager, even at 0-1. Never mind him, just get three precious points and deal with this later. Dalglish said as much, without once granting Hodgson a shred of support. Canny old Kenny.

But there’s a game tonight, and, er, Sunday too, I vaguely recollect. Will they let Hodgson take the bullet for Old Trafford and hail the conquering hero next time around? Or put up a fight to make the season last a wee bit longer? Tough call.