Should NESV cut their losses on Hodgson?

IT began quietly and picked up a couple more times as the game ebbed away from Liverpool.

Chants of ‘Dalglish’ began in the away end as the drip, drip effect of mediocrity continues to course through Roy Hodgson’s squad.

Again the limitations were laid bare to end a six-match unbeaten run and the same nagging questions were doing the rounds just six days after a memorable and deserved victory over Chelsea.

However reasoned Hodgson was in his assessment of this loss, the one thing that he did not say was that his Liverpool side lost, simply because they were inferior to Stoke, which was the most damaging observation for most Liverpool supporters.

The Britannia Stadium is a horrible place to watch a game, never mind defend for an hour and a half against a bunch of giants as the ball is hurled into your box at all angles.

If there is a chink there, Stoke will expose it. Yet neither Chelsea or Manchester United have dropped a point here in their visits since the Potters’ promotion in 2008.

Yes, it’s unpleasant, but you deal with it in the knowledge that your superiority will tell at some stage.

At the weekend, Liverpool’s trouble was that Fernando Torres, struggling with an ankle problem, was once again playing on one leg and they offered next to nothing going forward, which, in turn, placed intolerable pressure on their defence.

Hodgson rightly praised the way his back four stood up to the task but the first goal was always going to be crucial and with no respite, it was no surprise when the breakthrough came just after half time.

To sum up Liverpool’s deficiencies, 10 players started each of the three matches played over six days and Stoke had too much energy and desire for them.

Put simply, their squad lacks the options to take them close to where they want to be.

There may be plenty of revisionism on Merseyside right now, with people forgetting their predictions for Liverpool in the summer, but few expected Liverpool to be quite so average so soon.

The question now has to be whether John Henry’s New England Sports Ventures cut their losses on Hodgson and allow a new man to take the club into the January transfer window and with each passing week top names become harder to recruit and harder to keep.

Singing the name of Dalglish, who put himself forward for the job in the summer, is better than booing the team, but only just, although Hodgson is adamant it does not worry him and he remains untroubled at continued talk about his future.

“The fans can chant for whoever they want and it will be up to the club to decide what they want to do,” Hodgson said. “There is nothing I can do about it, and I can only continue to do the best job I can do under these circumstances.

“And if the club decide they want to give the job to somebody else, then I’ll have to accept that, if that day comes. I can’t get upset every time the fans chant someone’s name, and furthermore, we have got a lot of fans, we have got millions and millions of fans.

“Maybe the travelling fans are just showing their frustration because they have lost, and they are entitled to do that. Fans make their frustrations felt every time we lose a game.

“But unfortunately they may have to do that a few more times this season, because I can’t see us going through a season winning every single game.”

That may be an obvious understatement but it has never been more true.

Rory Delap’s throw had not created a goal this season before the weekend but it wreaked havoc from the start.

It did its job 10 minutes after half time when, after the ball pinged around the Liverpool box for about half a minute, Ricardo Fuller prodded in.

With the visitors then piling forward, Steven Gerrard’s pass was intercepted and Jermaine Pennant fed Kenwyne Jones, who guided in a second.

Lucas was also sent off late on to compound another miserable day for the Reds and it comes to something when their former player Pennant is able to criticise their lack of options.

“Liverpool have been up and down, they got into some form and now we’ve beaten them,” Pennant said. “But obviously with everything going on with the owners, takeovers and all that drama, they’re just going through a bad time.

“The fans want to see the old Liverpool back but it’s not as easy as that. Great teams can play a different team within the squad and get results but Liverpool are struggling to do that at the moment.

“They’ve got players missing, when I was playing there was big Peter Crouch but certain players have gone and others have come in but it’s going to take them time.

“Some are struggling to cope with the pace and demands of the Premier League it seems but they’ve got to battle through and shine.”