FULHAM HAVE STOKED tensions ahead of their Premier League meeting with Liverpool on St Patrick’s Day with a match programme article criticising the treatment of Roy Hodgson at Anfield. 

Having led Fulham to the Europa League final in 2010, Hodgson left to succeed Rafael Benitez at Liverpool, but endured a miserable spell that was made brief when he was fired in January 2011. 

He was hectored with ironic, ‘Hodgson for England’ chants as his Liverpool reign reached its end, and he was replaced by Kenny Dalglish having won just 13 of his 31 games in charge. 

Whereas Hodgson remains unpopular among many Liverpool fans, he retains the warmth of Fulham supporters and on Sunday he was the subject of a recurring feature in the club’s matchday programme which reflects on people who might have been better served staying at the club. 

The piece aimed a series of jibes at Liverpool and their supporters, many of them laden with sarcasm. 

“He was given a frosty reception on his subsequent appointment at Liverpool” read the article, “with fans being unmoved by his success with smaller provincial clubs like Inter Milan. 

“Realising that Roy was not going to win the league immediately and angered by his failure to buy the world’s best players, who would obviously jump at the chance to sign for the team that had dominated Europe a mere three decades earlier, fans quickly lost patience.

“Demonstrating the cool-headed pragmatism that has endeared them to the footballing public, the Liverpool faithful demanded Roy’s replacement be an exciting young manager befitting the club’s stature.

“Setting the time circuits to 1991, the club’s executives piled into the waiting DeLorean and floored it to ’88, returning with a fresh-faced and energetic Kenny Dalglish, ready to usher in a new era of dominance spearheaded by future club legend Andy Carroll, a shrewd purchase at just £35m.

“Unfortunately, however, Alex Ferguson and Wayne Rooney recovered the time machine, went back to 1991, stole the Sports Almanac and brutally laid out Jan Molby at the ‘Enchantment Under the Sea’ dance.

“This left the club with no option but to drag present day Kenny out of the pub and into the dugout, skewing the timeline and culminating in an underwhelming eight-place finish and Kenny’s departure (again).”

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