Continental divide

"We have had more shots on goal than any other team in the league.” “Remember that the average age of our team is 23.” “We are ten games from greatness.” “We have turned the corner.” “Judge me in five years.” “We don’t have to prove anything, our fourth spot is there to see.”

Connoisseurs of pathetic excuses will certainly miss Gérard Houllier, even if Liverpool’s long-suffering supporters won’t. And to be honest, so will I.
Let’s face it, the man’s been treated like a dog here. He oversees an annihilation of Everton at Goodison Park, plots a magnificent win at Old Trafford, reaches the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup, and finally steers Liverpool to a triumphant fourth-place finish, guaranteeing £12 million of European income next season… and this is how the board repay him for his sterling work? This is how they reward a man who almost gave his life for the club? There’s no goddamn loyalty in the game any more.
I jest, of course. Houllier has spent the past two years so far upriver that no search party could ever have brought him back. Anyone who saw that recent press conference where he worked himself up into a curious flurry of indignance, then suddenly slumped his shoulders inwards and just walked off, will know what I mean. Whenever he talked of his “Bunker”, the cubbyhole that replaced the famous Boot Room demolished by Souness years ago, it conjured up a vision of him sitting at a huge black table, poring over 500-page dossiers detailing the strengths and weaknesses of French league players, while muttering to himself about corners won and shots on target. And all the while, his twitching index finger would stray ever closer to the mysterious pulsing red button on the corner of the desk.
At first glance, Houllier’s record – a couple of prestigious cup wins, some meaningless baubles like the European Super Cup, no league title – would seem to cast him as Liverpool’s equivalent of Ron Atkinson at Man United. He is actually more like their Dave Sexton, a manager with certain undoubted strengths, numerous blind spots and questionable judgment, who got worse the longer he stayed at the club.
In early 1999, just after Roy Evans had been ousted to leave him in sole charge, Houllier made his first signing. In some ways, it was one of his most interesting buys. Jean-Michel Ferri, a midfielder, was purchased from Nantes for £1.5 million. He left four months and no appearances later.
What the point of the signing was, presumably only Houllier knows – but it was clearly a dire one.
Houllier’s biggest problem was that he rarely displayed the shrewd eye for a good signing that has characterised the careers of Ferguson and Wenger. He bought so many players that the law of averages dictated a certain amount of them would work out. But for every Baros or Hyypiä, there have been six or seven Traores, Barmbys, Zieges, Biscans, Smicers, Kippes. (If you don’t know who Frode Kippe is, don’t ask.)
The moment it became obvious that Houllier could never give Liverpool what they wanted – the title – was when he froze out Jari Litmanen in favour of Emile Heskey. Even though Liverpool were getting good results at the time (2001-2002), it was still clear that a manager who could favour such a bad player at the expense of such a fine one, at a time when his team was crying out for an injection of footballing imagination, was never going to have a serious hope of outwitting Ferguson or Wenger.
That said, Houllier wasn’t fired on aesthetic grounds. He was fired for not delivering the goods trophy-wise. For all their misty-eyed guff about “pass and move”, Liverpool’s board and supporters alike would happily stomach another few years of Stone Age football as long as it meant they won the league.
Ironically, Houllier may have done much to ensure that the man wanted by most Pool fans to replace him never arrives. His dispute with Martin O’Neill, where he accused O’Neill of actively seeking his job, culminated in angry late-night phone calls between both men, and sparked a still-running feud between O’Neill and the Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry.
O’Neill has sued and won money from several newspapers over these allegations. He wasn’t on the shortlist of people to replace Houllier, and he won’t be on the shortlist to replace the next guy either, unless there’s some regime change in the Liverpool boardroom.
If they fuck up their next managerial appointment, that regime change could come sooner than expected. So it’s down to the bookies with me, then, to stick a tenner on either Alan Curbishley or, preferably, Steve McClaren to take up the reins and continue the excellent work of Agent Houllier.