The Honeymoon is over for Roy Hodgson at Liverpool

On Friday, Kenny Huangs Chinese consortium abandoned takeover negotiations putting back the much needed sale of the club back to square one.

On Monday, Javier Mascherano’s refusal to play against Manchester City and the teams 3-0 loss, was a throwback to the bad old days of Rafa Benitez.

Liverpool is now place fourth from the bottom of the Premier League ladder after their biggest loss to City in 73 years. A Champions League spot now looks a long way off.

Benitez and Dirk Kuyt’s agent waged a campaign to lure the Dutchman to Inter Milan on the eve of Liverpool’s crunch Europa League play-off with Trabzonspor.

Last night Hodgson hit back at Benitez, telling him to keep his Spanish nose out of Liverpool’s business. He also told Mascherano that his one man strike will end on Sunday against West Bromwich if his move to Barcelona has not gone through.

He denied speculation that the season will be in crisis if he becomes the first Liverpool manager to be dumped out of Europe in August. He repeated his claim the Premier League is his priority saying “I don’t understand why anyone would be saying it is a watershed after just two games.”

No-one wants to go out of Europe at an early stage, but we have had without doubt the most difficult draw of the seeded teams.

“The task ahead is a tough one. There’s no doubt that come May, the league position is going to be of more interest than how we do in the Europa League.

“But we are in no way nonchalant in this competition. If we don’t go through it’s because we didn’t play well enough.

“It won’t be because our attitude or desire is wrong. But by leaving Torres out so he can play on Sunday, I can’t say that this competition is a priority.”

Fernando Torres is in good company back at Melwood and Mascherano, Steven Gerrard, Maxi Rodriguez, Daniel Agger and Milan Jovanovic also did not take the four-hour flight to the Black Sea yesterday.

Hodgson defended his selection policy saying that everyone apart from Torres was in need of rest or carrying some kinds of knocks.

Hodgson is still taking a big risk going out of Europe before the kids have even gone back to school . This is not part of the new era that anyone at Anfield was hoping for when he took over.

Liverpool is facing a formidable challenge against Trabzonspor , as they were beaten 1-0 there in 1976 in one of three defeats the Reds have suffered away to Turkish teams.

Hodgson said “I’ve brought what is the very strongest squad we have available at the moment.”

“It will be a very strong test for this group of players against good opponents.”

“I’m confident the team that plays tomorrow will do a good job. We will work very hard and do our level best to get a result in the game. We’ll see how far that takes us.”

Joe Cole is still smarting over his missed penalty in last week’s first leg and hopes it will not prove too costly as the Reds try to protect a slim1-0 lead.

“I’m anxious that we get the job done so it won’t matter,” said Cole. “We’ve got a job to do and we have got to make sure we do it. We’ve got to be ready to fight.”