Dalglish has the cool head that Liverpool need

Gerard Houllier could not have expected more from his troops on the Ukraine front and, though there is never a good time for a winning general to take a wound, plainly he removed himself to the first aid station while his army was in rude health.

As Houllier's promoted lieutenant Phil Thompson was quick to say, Liverpool's Champions' League victory over Dynamo Kiev was not just an extremely competent performance technically. It was also a passionate statement of the team's ambition to preserve the status quo at Anfield. However, the Liverpool board must know that their decision not to call in an interim manager like Kenny Dalglish is going to require a lot more re-enforcement than one emotion-charged win.

Indeed, the more you analyse Liverpool's options in the wake of Houllier's serious heart operation – and the estimation of some medical experts that he will need a convalescence of up to a year – the more you are aware of their difficulties. The truth is that it is a situation beyond any sure-fire remedy, interim or otherwise.

Two factors worked against but did not prevent Liverpool's eventual decision to soldier on with Thompson in charge. One was the inevitably serious question mark against the coach's ability to change his role from bad cop to good, or vice versa, in his new, albeit temporary role as supreme commander. It is hard to imagine someone more at variance with the style of the pragmatic (though not unemotional) Frenchman than the hard-yelling Liverpudlian. Thompson, as we saw in his angry confrontation with Robbie Fowler at the start of the season, is a man not overburdened by any obsession with the value of reflection. Nor has he any background in the wider responsibilities of running a major club.

Inevitably, his role must change over the next few weeks and months and the concern in the boardroom must be that that he lacks the subtlety of manner required to handle the hopes – and the anxieties – of one of the game's most expensively assembled squads.

The other worry was that by changing Thompson's status they would ensure that, even given Houllier's full recovery, and a decision by him to return to the front line, the improbable but undoubtedly successful chemistry achieved by the sophisticated Frenchman and the roughly hewn Merseysider would be gone forever. From being Houllier's voluble enforcer, Thompson becomes for a while the master of everyone's fate at Anfield. He must make decisions about the constitution of the first team, the timing, for example, of Michael Owen's return after injury, and the relative merits of Fowler, Emile Heskey and Jari Litmanen, that will shape one of the most vital seasons in the history of the club.

Thompson made a point of saying that the team he supervised in Kiev this week was drawn up in discussion with Houllier before the manager fell sick during last Saturday's game with Leeds. But clearly Thompson cannot involve Houllier in tricky selection decisions while the manager makes his long-haul effort to regain full fitness. Sooner or later, Thompson must put his own stamp on Houllier's team and having done that he will find it difficult to step back down the ladder to his old position as coach, and this will be so whether his temporary reign is successful or not.

Indeed, on balance it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the appointment of Dalglish as caretaker would have been the safest option.

Dalglish would have had the clear advantage of his iconic status, on and off, the terraces of Anfield. Nor, given his own experiences of pressure in the game, could the Scotsman have been expected to make the kind of personal power play which might have threatened the stability created by three years of Houllier's empire-building. Dalglish, you have to believe, would have been happy to lend his name and his knowledge to a club which he still holds in the highest regard, without striving to rearrange too officiously the body of work built up by Houllier, one for which Dalglish has often expressed his admiration and respect.

Certainly Dalglish has always been most at ease working with players of high ability, and his interim leadership would surely have been supported hugely by the great regard in which he has held by such Liverpool stars as Owen, Fowler and Steven Gerrard – local boys who grew up in the glow of the Dalglish legend. Who better than Dalglish, for example, to tread carefully and knowingly amid the hair-trigger sensitivities of Anfield's corps of strikers – Owen, Fowler, Heskey and Litmanen – all of whom can expect some measure of frustration as Liverpool compete this season on the European and domestic fronts.

In the shadow of Houllier's illness, Dalglish has been candid about the game's ravaging effects on his own health and peace of mind at various stages of his managerial career with Liverpool, Blackburn, Newcastle and Celtic. He has recalled an attack of shingles at Liverpool at that point when he walked out of Anfield, while the club led the League, and his suffering of chest pains on the way to re-establishing Blackburn in the top flight. Doubtless here is a man perfectly equipped with the background – and the hard-won understanding of its demands – to tackle the fleeting but vital stewardship of Houllier's work.

For the moment, Liverpool have foregone the services of one of their most distinguished former servants, but his appeal, we can be certain, is sure to re-surface from time to time. What is not in question is the scale of Liverpool's dilemma. Their deepest desire, understandably, is to return to the sense of momentum and impending glory which Houllier created so dramatically with last season's surge of trophy-winning. How they best do that is a challenge demanding a nerve and delicacy that has rarely been faced by a leading football club.

To pull it off they will require deep reserves of both qualities – and, perhaps, more than a little help from their friends. Of these, no one has more compelling credentials than Kenny Dalglish.

* Gérard Houllier could be back at work at Liverpool in three months, the club's chief executive Rick Parry said yesterday. "The chairman [David Moores] went to see him and was thrilled that Gérard recognised him, and he is doing brilliantly and making steady progress," Parry said. "And I except Gérard to be back in two to three months."