AND so the King is dead. But make no mistake, his legend – his living legend – continues.

It always will at Anfield, where Kenny Dalglish is revered alongside Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley in an elite trio who will forever resonate uniquely on the Kop.

Today it is largely a desperately sad, wounded, hurting, grieving, even angry Kop. Certainly a good many of its component elements are. And there is understandable concern among many Liverpool fans as to whether or not FSG really do know what they are doing.

Because in sacking Kenny Dalglish FSG – aka Liverpool FC – have taken a bold and blatantly ruthless step. And they have done so at the end of the most difficult season to fathom, interpret and explain in Liverpool’s recent history.

It’s been a season in which they have played Champions League finalists Chelsea four times – and beaten them three times – only to suffer that one defeat in an FA Cup Final this month.

It’s been a season in which they defeated Premier League Champions Manchester City over two legs on their way to a Carling Cup triumph, one in which they dumped Manchester United out of the FA Cup, and in which they recorded a rare victory at Arsenal.

It’s been a season in which having never before visited the new Wembley, they went there three times.

But equally, it’s been a season where they have recorded their lowest points tally since 1954. Just 52 points saw them finish 37 points behind City and well off the Champions League pace. Just six home league wins were recorded – and one more goal scored than relegated Bolton.

Many say if his name hadn’t been Kenny Dalglish he’d have gone before now. But that misses the point.

Because the reason Liverpool fans craved the return of Dalglish less than two years ago was not because Roy Hodgson was failing woefully and they felt he’d do a better job. Though that was true.

No. The real reason Liverpool’s fanbase audibly wanted him back above any other was because after seeing their beloved club battered by a civil war involving Tom Hicks, George Gillett, Rafa Benitez and Rick Parry; after seeing it on the brink of administration and at the centre of an unprecedented and unseemly court case; and after sensing an effective caretaker manager in Hodgson just didn’t get it, they longed for someone who understood. And who really cared.

Kenny Dalglish, like no other, did. And still does. And he was prepared to put his own legendary Anfield status on the line to give it another go.

Being sacked by the club he loves and has supported so incredibly down the years, hurts him terribly today, of that there is no doubt.

There is also no doubt that a manager of Dalglish’s proven worth deserved more time to put it right, to get it right and build a team into next season.

Bill Shankly and Bob Paisey would have been given that time; Gerrard Houllier and Rafa Benitez were given such opportunity until things really were conclusively beyond repair.

The told-you-so merchants may have been printing the tee shirts and may in time have been able to wear them. But to conclude that Kenny Dalglish was a busted managerial flush at this stage seems today premature and lacking in patience, perhaps perspective.

So what has happened marks a seismic shift in the cultural landscape of Liverpool FC.

John Henry and Tom Werner – smart, hugely successful businessmen who have impressed so much since taking over – will believe they know exactly what they are doing.

In fairness, they stress they haven’t done it lightly or happily.

But it’s likely that for patience and perspective, these Americans read sentiment and complacency. That support and harmony when the statistics scream ‘do something’, represent weakness and self-delusion.

There will be a level of sympathy and support for a stance that perhaps insists Liverpool FC needs radically reinventing, shaking out of old fashioned ways and delusions of faded grandeur.

It may be right. And that such is the gamble which Liverpool Football Club does now need to take.

But it is a very big gamble.

If it comes off, Liverpool fans will come to see it as a saddening but shrewd and brave move, One which rocked a sleeping giant out of its slumbers and signalled that failure – however transient – will not be tolerated.

Not long ago Manchester City fans were disgusted by the removal of Mark Hughes. Newcastle fans not long ago were up in arms over the treatment of Chris Hughton and the installation of Alan Pardew as manager.

Neither set are complaining now.

As Dalglish recovers from the ignominy of it all, as many fans feel angry, worried and misunderstood, FSG know they need to be proved quickly right if they’re to be forgiven for slaying not a legend, but THE legend.

They’ll need to convince fans they do know what they are doing and prove it with more investment and the installation of a manager who can deliver instantly.

Whoever he is, it’s clear he won’t be given time. But if he gets it right under a new and impatient pressure of expectation, then this may come to be seen as painful surgery on behalf of a patient which badly needed it.

For all the concern, Liverpool’s hugely tested fans probably need to keep the faith and not lose the plot with the owners today.

Because if the are on the right track now, if it is a wake-up call and the start of a new and successful cultural era, the first person to smile and applaud will be Kenneth Mathieson Dalglish.

He deserved better than this – much better. But he’d be the first to remind everyone that Liverpool FC ultimately means more than any one individual.

The fans will have to hope that others share the same philosophy.

But right now it’s asking a hell of a lot after all they’ve been through.