Out With The Old and In With The New
Over the last seven days Liverpool Football Club has become a hive of activity on the coaching side. That though has left a myriad of unanswered questions. Late last Wednesday evening Sky Sports News reported that Sammy Lee had left Liverpool. As you can all imagine this sent immediate shock waves through not only the English media but supporters worldwide as there had been no indication that anything was amiss amongst the coaching staff at Liverpool.
The following morning, although the press had picked up the story, there was still no statement from the club and it was a case of waiting to see if it was forthcoming. It was not and of course the rumour-mill kicked into action. All sorts of stories were beginning to form as to why the club suddenly got rid of Sammy, who apart from a brief spell at Bolton had been an extremely loyal servant at the club.
Sammy joined the club as an apprentice in 1977 from Merseyside Schools and his first appearance as a player came in 1978 against Leicester where his debut was marked with his first goal for the club. For the next two years though, as apprentices often do, he was in and out of the team and it was 1980 before he got a sustained run in the team.
Bob Paisley took a shine to Sammy after seeing a lot of
himself in the player and his stocky 5ft 7 inch frame and fantastic work rate
ensured that he was one of the first names on the team sheet. Sammy quickly became a major part of Bob's
fantastic tenure. A tenure that saw him win a cascade of medals and also marked
the beginning of his England career.
Itching to get back into the club set up, he joined Sam Alladyce at Bolton as his assistant manager. It was during this time that he was given the nickname of Little Sam to match Sam's which of course we all know is Big Sam. Three years later in 2007 he became Bolton's manager after Sam decided to move on to 'greener pastures'. Unfortunately as these things often do, it did not work out and after only winning one game out of eleven Sammy was sacked.
Several months later, Rafa Benitez invited him to re-join the Liverpool family as part of the coaching staff where he remained until last week.
This though signalled that a new coach was needed and very quickly the rumour mill sprung into action with Kevin Keen of West Ham, Ian Rush, Phil Thompson and perhaps Robbie Fowler being tipped as his successor.
The press picked it up on Saturday evening stating that Kevin Keen was the man, Liverpool were looking at. This turned out to be true, when late on Sunday evening Liverpool issued a statement stating that Kevin had accepted the position of 1st team coach and would be at Melwood for the start of the team's pre-season training.
Steve has had a varied career playing in teams such as West Ham, Wolves, Stoke City Macclesfield and Wycombe. Up until the weekend he was the first team coach at West Ham, where he worked with Steve Clarke under Gianfranco Zola. Steve moved to Liverpool as we know in January whilst Steve Keen continued to work under the then West Ham manager Avrum Grant.
Kevin has also had three separate spells as caretaker manager at West Ham and it was felt that he would continue his career there when Sam Alladyce took over as Manager several weeks ago. He was I understand offered a contract by Sam but having be made aware of Liverpool's interest declined to sign this and has subsequently signed a three year deal to work alongside Steve Clarke once more.
I wish him well of course in his career with Liverpool, but part of me wishes that Sammy was still there working amongst them. Will it happen at some point in the future, I honestly don't know but I would certainly not rule it out as there are some strange things going on at Liverpool at the moment.
Extra special wishes though go to Sammy for whatever he decides to do next. I would also like to thank him for all the years' of service he has given the club both on and off the pitch. His laughter and fun making I know will be sorely missed.
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