When you listen to Gerrard & Carragher, they've only got great things to say about GH & have both said that they've done so well because of working under him.
Interested to read that Bradley, bent and makoun all put a great deal of emphasis on the fact that gerard houllier was the manager and that was a huge part in joining villa because they wanted to play under him.Houllier has a high profile as manager across the globe and Having managed the French national team and also being involved on the staff of their world cup win , he has won major trophies at Liverpool and lyon , so is well known to players abroad , Bradley on the official site and bent in his webcam chat both were full of respect and singing geds plaudits.Maybe he will attract a higher calibre of player to villa because of his extremely high reputation?
So what would have happened at Aston Villa had he not fallen ill during the closing stages of the 2010-11 season?Villa had endured a difficult period but were showing signs of recovery. Darren Bent proved to be a valuable signing, Kyle Walker impressed on loan and with the right support network, Jean Makoun might well have flourished in midfield.Michael Bradley, it must be accepted, was a mistake and just didn’t fit in, but with time, Houllier was slowing planning to move from the Martin O’Neill era and create a team that believed in his methods.His health scare cut that short, though, as owner at the time Randy Lerner decided that he should be replaced.Houllier had other plans, and offered an alternative, but it fell on deaf ears.“I wanted to stay at Aston Villa as a sporting director and put Macca [Gary McAllister] in as boss,” he recalls. “The owner didn’t feel the same — he decided he wanted to take Alex McLeish from Birmingham City.“The Frenchman also explains that exciting plans were already in place for 2011-12, with Villa in the process of lining up four summer signings with the aim of transforming the team. Yohan Cabaye was on the way from Lille, but instead opted for Newcastle United when Houllier was moved on.“We showed [Cabaye] around Villa Park and he was looking forward to joining,” Houllier says. “He would have improved the team so much.”Cabaye’s Lille team-mate Gervinho, fresh from firing his club to a surprise Ligue 1 title triumph in 2010-11, had also looked set to move to Villa Park, but instead opted to join Arsenal.“I knew him from France,” Houllier says of the Ivorian forward. “He had one year left on his deal and he was coming.”Former Villa defender Gary Cahill — at the time a Bolton player — was also targeted for a return to Villa Park. He stayed put until the following January, when he moved to Chelsea and soon became a European champion.”Discussions were under way,” Houllier says. “A centre-half was a priority and we felt confident we could get him back. Why Aston Villa let him go in the first place, I’ll never know.”The final piece of the jigsaw was set to be Blackpool’s Charlie Adam, who had performed superbly in his debut Premier League season.“Macca said we should go for him,” Houllier continues. “We had to be creative with our recruitment because there wasn’t much money available even though we were losing Ashley Young to Manchester United.“I had a plan with Macca. If my health had been fine, I would have stayed on as manager and helped develop the talented, young players that we had coming through.“With my health not fine, I said I will stay in the shadows and help Macca, but that wasn’t to be.“It could have been a very different outcome in the end because the club has everything in place — the history, the fan base, the stadium, the training ground, and it used to have the players.”Houllier had inherited a group who were on Champions League wages but unable to actually seal a place in the top four.Gabby Agbonlahor scored just four goals for the Frenchman and was one of the top earners, although Houllier says the striker, who scored the last goal of his reign in the last minute of that game at Upton Park was “a good player, so fast”.But others like Stephen Ireland and Stephen Warnock didn’t quite meet his high demands. Both were travelling down from Manchester and the surrounding areas which Houllier wanted to change. Habib Beye also failed to make an impact, and soon moved on.On top of that there was a drinking culture developing among some players at the club.“I knew things needed to change,” Houllier admits.There were players who bought into his methods. The boss admired his captain, Stiliyan Petrov, who he says “understood the demands of modern day football”, and Ashley Young.“I liked Ashley, he was very professional,” Houllier says of the winger who left for Manchester United in the summer of 2011. “Even though he often drove up from London, he would always be at the training ground on time. Sat there in his Bentley, smiling!”Houllier hasn’t been back to Villa Park since his exit but says he would like to return soon. In 2015 he watched Aston Villa beat Liverpool at Wembley in the FA Cup semi-final, and recalls being greeted warmly by the supporters of both teams he bumped into on the day.“Jack Grealish was brilliant,” he says, looking back on Villa’s shock 2-1 victory. “He was a player I was looking at closely when I was at Villa. He was about 15 years old and I knew he had what it takes to succeed.“Villa had a good academy but there was no long-term vision. They were far behind and bad habits needed to be broken. But change is always difficult to implement and needs time.”
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Topic: Gerard Houllier (Read 436997 times)
