He may be a big softie when it comes to supporting charity but former Liverpool star John Barnes has a tough skin. He will need it. Just hours after confirmation that he has taken over as manager of Division One side Tranmere Rovers, the knives were already out, criticising his lack of experience off the pitch.

And he’s going to have a very tough act to follow if he is to silence the critics. Fans will be expecting an awful lot. Ex-manager Ronnie Moore was sacked after three seasons, finishing ninth, eleventh and seventh this summer and just narrowly missing out on a play-off place.

Whatever success he achieves, his appointment will certainly raise the profile of the Merseyside club and give it a bit more glitter. Attendances over the last three years have dropped 19 per cent, an obvious concern for the board and not all necessarily due to the recession. Barnes will provide some glamour, together with ex Liverpool team-mate Jason McAteer.

You can bet your bottom dollar the crowd will be adopting Barnes’ chart-rapping success World in Motion when the season begins. On the face of it, Barnes has not had a lot of managerial experience. Now aged 45, he had eight years out of football, returning to soccer in late 2007 to run coaching clinics across the Caribbean for players with Sunderland spotting in mind.

In September of 2008, he was appointed manager of Jamaica and guided them to first place in the 2008 Caribbean Championships. This February, he announced he wanted to return to club management but a widely-tipped move to Port Vale did not materialise and he has gone to Tranmere instead. Jamaica have stressed he was not sacked but released because of his new commitment.

Whilst Barnes may have been successful in the Caribbean, fans will well remember his ill-fated spell as head coach of Celtic in 1999-2000 working under Kenny Dalglish. The unfortunate highlight was an embarrassing Scottish Cup defeat to lowly Inverness Caledonian Thistle.What Barnes will bring to Tranmere is plenty of enthusiasm, loyalty, an understanding of the fans, hunger for success and plenty of backbone.

Liverpool fans loved him and nicknamed him Digger Barnes which stuck ever since. As a player, he achieved plenty in his 20 years, making 754 appearances for four clubs and scoring 198 goals. Who could ever forget his fantastic individual goal on June 10, 1984 in a friendly against Brazil which received world-wide acclaim. Barnes played for Liverpool, Charlton Athletic, Watford and Newcastle. He was spotted as a 17 year old schoolboy and signed by Watford under Graham Taylor for the price of a set of kit!

Barnes is no stranger to conquering adversity. As a black player, he had to overcome barracking, racial abuse and threats and was widely criticised for not playing to his best ability at international level. But he scored some spectacular goals for Liverpool and still became England’s most capped black player.

After the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, he was one of the players very deeply moved by the tragedy and attended many of the funerals, as well as visiting the injured in hospital. He gained plenty of respect and deserves it, even though he is often the butt of jokes about his rap songs! Barnes has been a football pundit on TV and a chat show host, an ambassador for Save the Children and a guest on Strictly Dancing which he says worked wonders for his figure.

He knows what the game is all about and is under no illusions about how difficult it is going to be to better the success of the last three seasons. But Digger Barnes has shown he is no quitter. The fans and the board just need to give him a chance.

The day Kenny Dalglish steps back on to the turf at Anfield, the Kop will be chanting his name again.

Liverpool still regards him as a legend, both on and off the field, and fans say they will welcome him with open arms if speculation about a new management role becomes a reality.

It may be 18 years since Dalglish quit as Liverpool manager, describing himself as a person pushed to the limit but Koppites still have the greatest respect for a man who witnessed three terrible football tragedies but always held his head up high.

Fanszone sites have been buzzing with the news that Rafael Benitez apparently wants Dalglish as part of his backroom staff, dividing his time between the often under-fire youth acamedy and Anfield itself. Talks, it is said, have already taken place between the two and Benitez has officially approached the American owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett with his idea.

One wit has written: “Oh yes, I am sure Dalglish’s sparkling personality will light up the dressing room!” Oh, how they miss the point. Dalglish may be a man of few words and sombre appearance but behind the façade is a person who cares, who has challenged himself to the limit and acts, rather than speaks.

He was a great servant to Liverpool on the pitch and as manager but is equally hailed for the part he played in helping the city to cope through the atrocities of Heysel in 1985 and Hillsborough in 1989. He dedicated hours, days and weeks of his time, consoling relatives, attending funerals, reading lessons, helping with counselling and answering heart-broken pleas for help in the middle of the night. He was instrumental in rebuilding not only the club but Liverpool itself and it’s a place where his heart remains.

If Dalglish returns to Anfield, part of his role will be to spot and nurture young talent, ironically something which helped to shape his own future. He was just 15 years of age when he went to Liverpool for a trial in August of 1966 when Bill Shankly was manager. He played just one game for the B team and they won by one goal but the young Dalglish never heard anything from the club. A few years later, so the story goes, Shankly saw Dalglish playing professional soccer and went mad, blaming his staff for not spotting his potential when they had the chance. It would be eleven long years before Dalglish became a Liverpool player. By the time, he was a seasoned international and his fee set a British record at £440,000. An expensive mistake Dalglish would be certain to avoid should he take up the coaching role being touted.

Dalglish, the son of an engineer, knows what it is like to come from humble beginnings. He was born in the East End of Glasgow but was brought up in the docklands of Govan, just a stone’s throw from Ibrox. At school, he once played in goal but by the age of 15 when playing for Scotland’s youth team, was on the attack and was singled out for his brilliant ball play. Rangers were always his heroes but he signed for Celtic in 1967.

It was a huge blow to the club and the fans when he left to join Liverpool because he wanted a new challenge, particularly in Europe. He replaced Kevin Keegan who was leaving to play for Hamburg. Keegan was considered a god so Dalglish faced the task of winning over the Kop whilst wearing the No 7 shirt. Koppites were sceptical but Dalglish scored on his away league debut after just seven minutes and scored on his Anfield debut too. The love affair had begun.

When Liverpool met up with Keegan again, they were playing Hamburg in the Super Cup. Dalglish dominated proceedings and the reds won the game 6-0! Critics well and truly answered. Dalglish also scored the only goal when Liverpool retained the European Cup against Bruges at Wembley.

Throughout his playing career, Dalglish has been hailed for his talent, once being described as “heaven sent”. He has never shirked a challenge or rested on his laurels but witnessing three football tragedies did take its toll. In 1971, he was with the Celtic team at Ibrox when a stand collapsed and 66 fans were killed.

In 1985, on the eve of the Heysel disaster in Brussels, he was told he would become Liverpool manager the day after the match, taking over from Joe Fagan. Following crowd trouble, a wall collapsed and 39 Juventus supporters were killed. Liverpool were blamed and English clubs were banned from Europe. It was a baptism of fire for Dalglish. Nevertheless, he rebuilt the team, retaining the championship in 1985-86, scoring the winning goal against Chelsea to take the title, winning the FA Cup and being named Manager of the Year.

In 1989, lightning was to strike again with the Hillsborough disaster. Liverpool were to face Nottingham Forest in the 1989 FA Cup semi-final when crowd trouble began. From the resulting chaos, 96 fans died. Heart-broken too, Dalglish called for dignity and led rebuilding of both the club and Liverpool from the front. Liverpool has never forgotten his own heroism and his devotion. When the team went on to win the Cup, it was dedicated to those who died.

When Dalglish quit Liverpool in 1991, he told the board that it felt as though his head was exploding. Who could blame him? It was a shock eight months later when be became the manager of Blackburn Rover, followed by Newcastle United and then director of football at Celtic in 1999. It seemed as though Dalglish could never really settle again and since 2000, he has dedicated his life to other causes, including broadcasting and raising huge amounts of money for charity, particularly breast cancer from which his wife, Marina had survived.

He has been linked with a number of managerial vacancies, including Liverpool in 2004, and now his name is being talked about again. His return to Anfield would be sensational as the 58 year old has still so much to give and has earned his place as a legend in football. Any young player able to walk in his footsteps would be proud to do so.