IT says much about Roy Hodgson’s fortunes since arriving at Anfield that the latest unenviable landmark of a difficult season was reached without his team even playing.

The inevitable postponement of yesterday’s Boxing Day clash visit to Blackpool consigned Liverpool to having won only two away league games in the calendar year.

Not since 1936 have the Anfield outfit suffered such a miserable record on the road, with the only other worse campaign coming 99 years ago.

Of course, having only taken over in the summer, not all of that blame should be laid at Hodgson’s door.

And that is something that can be applied to much of the 63-year-old’s rollercoaster reign thus far.

The job as Liverpool manager has lost none of its lure and lustre but few previous incumbents could have stepped into the uncertainty that greeted Hodgson on his arrival in July.

Taking over from a popular and European Cup-winning manager in Rafael Benitez was never going to be easy.

But the task has been made exponentially more testing by inheriting an under-performing squad without the finances to strengthen thanks to the failing ownership of Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

The quest to oust the American pair also drew to a close during the opening months of the season and, despite Hodgson’s admirable insistence to the contrary, must surely have contributed to the air of gloom that quickly enveloped the team and resulted in Liverpool’s worst start to a top-flight campaign since 1953.

To think there was an oft-quoted ‘feelgood factor’ going into the campaign.

Joe Cole arrived on a free transfer, Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard were persuaded to stay and the feared loss of many leading players failed to materialise, although nothing could prevent Javier Mascherano from departing to Spanish champions Barcelona.

Hodgson may have feared the omens were already against him when Pepe Reina, Liverpool’s player of the previous campaign, made an uncharacteristic mistake to gift Arsenal an injury-time equaliser on the opening day.