Glen Johnson has lifted the lid on Roy Hodgson's short-lived tenure as Liverpool manager and criticised the ex-England boss as unprepared for the task of handling such a big club.
Hodgson took up the Anfield hotseat in July 2010 only to be booted out six months later after picking up just 13 wins.
Now Johnson has spoken out about why Hodgson, 72, was doomed to fail on Merseyside, and what it was like to be a part of his Liverpool squad.
The former marauding right-back retired in January, and despite making 200 appearances for Liverpool in six years, Johnson claimed the 2012 League Cup as his only piece of silverware.
He told the Anfield Wrap: 'Well Roy, no disrespect, had come from smaller clubs and I don't think he was ready to manage Liverpool.
'We had players like Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano, players like that and we'd be worried about playing a smaller team at Anfield.
'No disrespect to the smaller teams but you have to grab the bull by the horns and just go and put them to bed, and he just didn't have that sort of mentality, it was all a bit straight line and defensive.'
After Hodgson left Liverpool by 'mutual consent', the veteran manager went on to take charge of West Brom, England and now Crystal Palace.
His spell at the Hawthorns in 2011-12 helped restore the manager's reputation as a safe pair of hands, before his tenure as England boss ultimately ended in humiliation as the Three Lions bowed out to minnows Iceland in the round of 16 at Euro 2016.
This season, Hodgson has steered Crystal Palace to an impressive 14 points from eight games in the Premier League - a return which has left the Eagles in joint fourth alongside Leicester and Chelsea.
