Gerard Houllier

[theleftside]

i enjoyed that! but then i cannot say it either.  looking into the man and his methods though i did think his "mobile phone off NOW please" was a bit of an insight....

[goldenjimi]

Its a funny old game, after we played City over Christmas I was in the 'sack him' camp, since then Houllier has been impressive.  Firstly we had his "I'll pay the fine" after the Chelsea game, which was brilliant and now the way he has stood up for the club against Bruce and Holloway on SSN was brilliant, big club mentality.  Not forgetting his part in bringing in Makoun and Bent, Im very impressed at the moment, I just hope he can get a few results now to really take the pressure of himself and stop the twats on facebook!!

[1_Pablo_Angel]

Sorry; could someone explain the 'i'll pay the fine' and 'mobile phone off NOW please' comments to me? Must have missed them both at the time...

[goldenjimi]

After the Chelsea game when he was told about the fine for getting too many bookings he said that he would pay the fine if we got one.  As it goes I dont remember us getting one, was still a nice touch tho.
As for the mobile thing, I have no idea!

[KevinGage]

Decent bit of business thus far in Jan.

A feature of management should be the ability to get the best (or at least a decent reaction) out of your available resources. He hasn't done it with the players he inherited, lets be frank. But maybe he'll feel more motivated and will -in turn- start firing up the playing personnel with his own players on board.

I'm still not sold on him, I must admit. Always respected him rather than liked him at other clubs. And he does seem to have a chronic case of foot in mouth.

Signing players is one thing, he now needs to ensure we show more resolve defensively and more quality in the final third in the last phase of the season. I'm back to where I was in Oct/Nov, thinking I wouldn't mind him seeing things through until the end of the season and being reasonably confident he can at least keep us up. Whereas at the end of Dec/ early Jan I thought  a parting of the ways was inevitable.

I still wouldn't be distraught seeing a change of manager early summer, in a less fraught and frantic scenario than we faced last August.

The Makoun and Bent signings don't alter that for me. They're good players and a good manager coming in should still be able to work with them (and the rest) and get a decent response.

That said, if we have a strong finish to the season I wouldn't begrudge GH getting another crack at it next year.

It's up to him from this point onwards.

[ROBBO]

Houllier is not with us long term as manager, he has been bought in to restructure the side and get rid of the high paid rubbish that Oneill left us with. The scouting situation is now being dealt with and i can see after about three years he may be used in a different way at the club.

[eastie]

He told the press to turn off their mobiles as the press conference started - I hope he is here at least the 3 yrs of his contract, I think he will achieve great things here with us and hope people chant his name in a positive manner tomorrow- we are in this together , let's show milner what he's missing and stuff those mancs!

[pauliewalnuts]

When I read this just now, I started to find myself warming to GH for the first time

However, the former Liverpool and Lyons manager is not overly concerned by the grievances of his counterparts. "When I heard it first of all, I thought it was not gracious, and our club has been more gracious in a previous situation [with Gareth Barry and James Milner]," he added. "I thought, 'Hang on a second, why is he [Bruce] having a go at me?' Is he trying to protect himself from his fans? All he has got to do is say this is football now.

"He has made transfers before. I'm not culpable in any way. If he feels that, well, I feel sorry for that. I was kept informed, I assume he was kept informed. We did the right thing. The same with Ian Holloway. We did the right thing, we went to the club, we didn't go to the player and, funny enough, it came out from their side.

"There was nothing from Aston Villa, and he said we are insulting him and the player and God knows what. By the way, I don't care"

[TheSandman]

Slowly but surely he is growing into the role.

If we start upon a decent run of results then things will start looking up, the pressure upon him will dissipate and the fans will be completely won back.

[Sexual Ealing]

When I read this just now, I started to find myself warming to GH for the first time

However, the former Liverpool and Lyons manager is not overly concerned by the grievances of his counterparts. "When I heard it first of all, I thought it was not gracious, and our club has been more gracious in a previous situation [with Gareth Barry and James Milner]," he added. "I thought, 'Hang on a second, why is he [Bruce] having a go at me?' Is he trying to protect himself from his fans? All he has got to do is say this is football now.

"He has made transfers before. I'm not culpable in any way. If he feels that, well, I feel sorry for that. I was kept informed, I assume he was kept informed. We did the right thing. The same with Ian Holloway. We did the right thing, we went to the club, we didn't go to the player and, funny enough, it came out from their side.

"There was nothing from Aston Villa, and he said we are insulting him and the player and God knows what. By the way, I don't care"

Ha! Yup, he did well.

[KevinGage]

One thing I will say about GH, if he targets a player he doesn't seem to mess about. If you look at a fair few of MON's signings, they were quite convenient for the selling club at the time. Boro had gone down and needed to cash in on Downing; NRC and Harewood fell out of favour with Curbishley at West Ham, ditto Dunne at Citeh, Chelsea weren't exactly distraught to see Sidwell go and so on.

Exceptions to that might be Warnock, Heskey and Milner, though there was little acrimony with those deals.

So far we've seen GH target  players that their club at time did not (in the case of Adam still don't) want to part with, they're obviously going to be a bit pissed. 

[Salsa Party Animal]

As recently his action made me think hang on he might not be too bad and let give him a chance to stamp his authority and we will get better. We want instant fix but it can't be done that quickly.

[ROBBO]

Mods is it possible to clear the existing poll and start again? Would be very interested to see how the voting goes now.

[Legion]

Yes.

[PaulWinch again]

My view is the same as before, back him.