From our Merseyside correspondent

[dave.woodhall]

As written by Liverpool supporter and journalist Steven Kelly.

Ever seen The Producers? Remember the facial expressions on the audience at the end of Springtime For Hitler?
Chances are you’ll be seeing those faces a lot if Gerard Houllier reproduces his Anfield years at Villa Park. Of course that will also mean you winning three cups in one season, so your performances can be as boring as he likes and he can say whatever he wants. Winners get to do exactly whatever they please, but it’s not a pretty sight or sound when the gravy train is unceremoniously shunted into the sidings. It can in fact become extremely unpleasant.

He still gets under the skins of Liverpool fans today. Not difficult, I hear you snigger, but in a recent Evening Standard interview (when he seemed to be snuffling after the Fulham job) he continued to ludicrously claim all the credit for Istanbul, gave the knife in Roy Evans’ back another little twist and insisted one of our players gloated that he’d won more trophies than Benitez.

And he’s still pecking away at David Ginola for France’s World Cup demise in 1993, his first ugly confrontation with failure, to the point where the magnificently coiffured one is talking about legal action.

With Gerard, things are never quiet. Perhaps I’m being unfair and six years out of the English cauldron has smoothed over his eccentricities; after all managers, like goalkeepers, appear to regard madness as prerequisite number one on the CV.
But it’s almost as if insanity stalks him. The only thing we knew about him when he arrived in 1998 was that somehow France had lost two home games with an astounding array of talent and screwed up their World Cup spot, that the manager started to vilify one player for the hideous crime of losing the ball deep in opposition territory. Suddenly there he was, sharing the manager’s office at Liverpool in a bold experiment. Did I say bold? I meant cracked, obviously.

Evans later wrote that if a player needed to be dropped Houllier would simply vanish and miss the arranged ‘showdown’, something which makes Houllier’s recent claim that Roy was “weak” all the more galling. Anyway, it didn’t work as everyone knew it wouldn’t so Evans did the Captain Oates bit and we were left with Gerard and a motley crew of arrogant wasters and lower level chancers.

What Houllier did in those next two years was remarkable, and something he rarely gets credit for outside of L4 and sometimes not even within. He not only produced a turnover of players that would make even Harry Redknapp’s face spasm into overdrive, a dozen in and a dozen out, but also triggered a complete change in attitude from the Spice Boy era to a squad of players dedicated and workmanlike. So what if there weren’t many goals, so what if the sheer weight of boredom snapped the matchsticks that were propping your eyelids open? These players cared and this team was climbing the table again.

Liverpool had to sell 10% of the club to give him any kind of transfer budget but it was very interesting where that money went; on a solid keeper, two excellent centre halves and Dietmar Hamann just in front of them all. Belt AND braces. You could immediately see where Houllier was coming from and it worked. By the time Heskey was recruited most of Evans’ pretty football had been binned, carted off and recycled. The New Pragmatism had arrived.

The Treble has often been derided by rivals as ‘plastic’ featuring as it did two cups no one really wants, except beggars who have lost the right to choose. That’s not a dig by the way, we’ll also take anything this season (survival is looking good right now). What Houllier did was unique; we played the maximum number of games it’s possible to play in a season, barring replays, won all the finals and qualified for the Champions League. You may also recall that he made Trevor Francis cry like a little girl. There was plenty of luck of course, even Birmingham were kind of hard done by, but Liverpool were back winning trophies and making progress in Europe.

Then he fell dangerously ill and was out of the game for most of the following season. The surgeons couldn’t operate unless they induced a coma and after that he was on the table for eleven hours. It is said you need one month of recuperation for every hour in surgery - Gerard returned to the Anfield bench in six. There had always been eccentric tics and quirks and more than a smidge of arrogance, but he did seem to get worse after that. Hardly a surprise, really.

Even now cynics place the blame for this on his own self absorption; that he quietly seethed as Liverpool got better and better under Phil Thompson’s careful caretaker guidance. Even though the nasally blessed one was merely following orders, the lure of leading Liverpool into the business end of the Champions League and the title race was altogether too tempting. He didn’t exactly wreck everything, though he had a tactical nightmare in Europe which denied us a semi final with Manchester United, but there was just something not quite right.

The next two seasons aren’t remembered too fondly, despite another cup. He spent £20 million on Diao, Diouf and Cheyrou when he could have kept Anelka and signed Duff; he even wanted to sign the hideous Bowyer at one point before common sense and/or decency prevailed. And the football somehow got worse. Benitez handed him his arse in Europe, and Steven Gerrard’s collapse in form was treated with what many still regard as cold callousness. But not by the player himself, strangely. He can be quite the diplomat when he’s not lamping wankers in wine bars, and both Gerrard and Jamie Carragher speak highly of Houllier to this day.

Liverpool fans, not so much. Some of us got tired of batting away that terrible “We won, that’s all that matters, stop moaning” bouncer that was inevitably thrown at us, which all dried up when the victories did. We had to put up with some appalling shite, both on the pitch and from the manager’s mouth. True, this was all in comparison to the standards Houllier himself had set, but football fans (and I’ll admit Liverpool’s are the worst, along with United’s) love nothing better than to sing a chorus or two of Janet Jackson; “What have you done for me lately?”

Oh I dunno; rescued the club from cocky overpaid brats who thought they were doing you a favour by turning up, put you right back in the great stadiums of Europe with your head held high, made the Welsh Wembley your second home, made Liverpool a genuine force again. Will any of that suffice?

For some it did, for others it became habitual to focus on awful negative football and a constant stream of verbal drivel designed to protect the chalkboard boss from any criticism whatsoever. To Houllier the plan was perfect; the only flaws were always in execution. All managers tend to behave the same of course, but Gerard took it to a whole new depth and by 2004 it was for the best that he left. He was saved from himself in the end.

Liverpudlian arrogance is such that the expectations are ridiculously high and the country in general revels in our occasional troughs (seventh? Where’s that shotgun?) but Houllier, like Evans before him and Benitez afterwards, popped that laughter right back in the can.

Could he do the same for the Villa? He’s not going to get the Caretaker Year he had at Anfield, where all problems were blamed on his predecessor, especially if  supporters of Martin O’Neill are going to be hovering like hawks over every little slip-up (Hodgson is already getting the same blowtorch treatment up here). His organisational skills are renowned, and given time he will put things in place that can serve Villa well for years, maybe even decades, to come.

Just don’t expect to be singing “It’s like watching Brazil” any time soon.

[Monty]

Which is of course a very different perspective to the one given by many people I know who watch Lyon. But that's Liverpool I suppose.

[Michel Sibble]

He not only produced a turnover of players that would make even Harry Redknapp’s face spasm into overdrive

I'm having my dinner here!

Seriously, very good article. But Villa fans can be just as arrogant, in the other direction.

[TimTheVillain]

It's something to factor in rather than form the basis of any pre-judged style of Houllier's reign at VP.

From what I've read, he's a 'new man' anyway !

[TheSandman]

As I said on another thread I expect Houllier to give us a more technical style but not a more entertaining one.

At least there is a good chance he will sign a decent defensive midfielder.

[Pete3206]

Liverpool are not exactly that much better off now are they?

The article is obviously written from the heart, but the bitterness is all too apparent.

[garyshawsknee]

Liverpool are not exactly that much better off now are they?

The article is obviously written from the heart, but the bitterness is all too apparent.

 Who'll get the job to write one when M'ON gets his next job !!

[Can Gana Be Bettered!?!?]

Looks like all those who moaned at MON for his style of football are in for a treat!

[eastie]

Steven Kelly wasn't as critical of houllier when he wrote the biography houllier- but I suppose then gerard meant money in kellys pocket, seems a bit like sour grapes and hugely two faced to me- I bought kellys book on eBay this week about houllier for £2 and it makes him sound a great manager- fickle lot those scousers!

[dave.woodhall]

Steven Kelly wasn't as critical of houllier when he wrote the biography houllier- but I suppose then gerard meant money in kellys pocket, seems a bit like sour grapes and hugely two faced to me- I bought kellys book on eBay this week about houllier for £2 and it makes him sound a great manager- fickle lot those scousers!

Different Steven Kelly.

[KevinGage]

Pretty much tallies with what I've heard.

Only thing he omitted was threatening to sue Sander Westerveld. We've had two self-servinig blame everyone else waffle merchants recently (DOL and MON). My concern from the very outset was that GH is cut from the same cloth.

The hope is that the good will outweigh the bad, that the contacts he has and broader European knowledge will benefit AVFC in the longrun. Perhaps age has taught him the error of his ways too, and he's mellowed a bit. That might be wishful thinking though. Those type of characters generally get more stubborn/ awkward with age. 'This is how I've always done it, it's got results so why change?'  and so on.

[Mac]

Somebody has already said Houllier is a French Martin O'Neill

[eastie]

Let's wait and see and be positive , it was a few years ago, people change sometimes.

[Monty]

Also he was Monsieur 4-3-3 at Lyon.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

Somebody has already said Houllier is a French Martin O'Neill

(cough)