BY Phil Thomas
The Kop idol was axed four days after a disastrous campaign which saw Liverpool limp home in eighth, with their worst home record in more than half a century.
Arguments have raged whether King Kenny would have survived the chop had he followed the Carling Cup triumph — their first trophy in six years — by making it a Wembley double three months later.
Yet now Henry, front man for Kop owners Fenway Sports Group, has finally ended the debate, after revealing Dalglish would have been dumped even if they had beaten Chelsea in the FA Cup.
Henry admitted: “The FA Cup would not have made any difference had he won it, no, no. For us we were 17th over the second half of the season and Liverpool should not be in that position.
“I don’t place the blame on Kenny and assistant Steve Clarke but I think it was obvious to every fan that something was wrong and something needed to be done.”
But despite 2012’s woeful form and the Luis Suarez race storm, Henry insisted there were others in the dock beyond Dalglish and his backroom team.
He added: “That Suarez situation did not really play a part. It did not come into play.
“No one man is bigger than the club and no one issue is going to determine the long-term viability of the club.
“We had a very poor second half to the season last year. You could say the response to Kenny and Steve from the players was lacking, the play was lacking, so that entered into our considerations.”
Henry also admitted Dalglish knew he was only ever going to be a short-term solution, after he returned to replace Roy Hodgson 18 months earlier.
And he paid tribute to a man still feted as the greatest Liverpool legend of all. Henry revealed: “When I first discussed making a change before he took the job, we danced around it and discussed what role he would take at some point.
“He did say that if it was the manager’s job, he would only do it until we had the right young man to come in for the long term. We spoke two or three times before he actually took the job.
“Kenny was always saying no one man is bigger than the club. Everyone knows what it meant when he came back, how he did right the ship and brought all the disparate elements back together.
“There were a lot of different directions and he unified the club internally and externally — he did an incredible job of getting us all on the same page.”
