You can see where they are coming from.

They want to resurrect the spirit of Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley. They see the greatest playing icon in Liverpool's history as a point around which to rally as a great English club careers towards the abyss.

In Dalglish they see a way of keeping Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres and Javier Mascherano and Jose Reina at the club.

But if it happened, if Dalglish returned even as a stopgap manager as former players such as Phil Thompson, Bruce Grobbelaar and Mark Lawrenson have suggested, then a lot of people would be wrong.

Dalglish is not the answer.

For a start going back to the scene of former glories rarely works in football. There are copious examples which prove that theory.

Kevin Keegan's return to Newcastle as manager ended in tears and a court battle. Howard Kendall, whose first spell as Everton manager brought a league title, an FA Cup and a Cup Winners Cup, returned twice to Goodison but could manage only mid-table and near relegation.

Football, like all aspects of life, moves on. And Dalglish has not managed since an unsuccessful short stint at Celtic in 2000.

Yes, he won the Premier League title with Blackburn in 1995 via the millions of club benefactor Jack Walker but it is almost 20 years since Dalglish quit the Anfield manager's chair because the pressure was too great.

Liverpool has always been a big job, but never has it been bigger than in the wake of Rafael Benitez's departure.

The £351million debt, the doubt over plans for a new stadium, the fact that American owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett want to sell, the financial uncertainty and the lack of meaningful transfer funds are all bad enough.

But how does a new manager keep prized assets such as Gerrard and Torres at a club which finished seventh last season, no longer has Champions League football and is showing signs of terminal decline?

The answer is he doesn't. Not even Dalglish. Not if Real Madrid pursue their interest in Gerrard and Torres scores the goals of which he is capable for Spain at the World Cup. Not if Inter Milan or Barcelona come calling.

Liverpool have never been as vulnerable to the vultures of European football.

It is why they need a manager of intelligence and composure, one steeped not in the business of splashing big, after all too many transfer aberrations by Benitez is how Liverpool come to be in their current mess, but one adept at working with a mish-mash of a squad and giving them direction and purpose.

One accustomed, too, to clearing out the remnants of a former regime because Benitez has left behind an inflated backroom staff, many of whom will be disaffected by their leader's departure.

That is not a job for Dalglish, who has been doing fine work with the academy and remains a stately figurehead.

Of the other reported contenders, who include Martin O'Neill, Guus Hiddink, Mark Hughes and Roy Hodgson, it is Fulham's Hodgson who ticks all the boxes.

A sound tactician, a manager of meticulous planning, an experienced hand steeped in European football whose star has never shone brighter.

A manager who would preserve the spirit of Shankly and value the iconic status of Dalglish.