Kenny Dalglish has paid tribute to former Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson and expressed his delight at returning to the Anfield hot seat nearly 20 years after he left the job.
Dalglish flew into Manchester on Saturday evening ahead of Sunday's FA Cup third round tie at Manchester United, and he will take immediate control of the first team for the game.
"It's a great honour to be asked to come back," Dalglish told Sky Sports News. "It's under horrible circumstances because a very good man with great dignity and integrity has lost his job."
Asked how he will approach the United fixture, Dalglish replied: "We'll do our best. I'll have a kip and we'll go from there. I've just come off a plane!"
Liverpool's decision to axe Hodgson just six months after appointing him has not been welcomed by fellow Premier League managers, who claim the 63-year-old was not given enough time at Anfield.
"I am shocked because I rate Roy Hodgson as a great manager," Arsene Wenger said on Saturday. "It puts our job into perspective because he was Manager of the Year in July. It shows you how quickly we lose our qualities because he had to go six months later. Of course it is a shock and I feel our job suffers today."
Former Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier, himself stumbling across hard times at Aston Villa, also had sympathy for Hodgson, who managed just one away league win during his time as Liverpool manager.
"Roy got Manager of the Year last season so he was a great manager then and he still is today," Houllier said. "He's a fantastic person, I know him well but this world has become brutal, I mean it - if you lose two games you are in the firing line. I feel for him but Kenny has been a friend for a long time too."
Mark Hughes, who replaced Hodgson at Fulham, has backed his predecessor to bounce back from his latest disappointment, insisting he deserved longer to prove he was worthy of the job.
"It's very, very disappointing when you see a fellow manager lose his job," Hughes said. "But it's a league that thrusts focus on you every minute of the day and, at the end of the day, we're always judged on results. I'm sorry for Roy because he obviously was fantastic for Fulham for two years and deserved his chance to manage a top club. He's a good manager and I'm sure he'll come back.
"There's always that thinking that people who take over a club will always try to appoint their own man and there's many examples of that. There's a little bit of that in the Liverpool situation, I would suggest. But, listen, we're all grown men, we understand what happens. Sometimes, even when it's a little bit unfair, you've just got to get on with it."
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