By looking merely at results and how he got on with players, you can say that Houllier was a failure. But the truth is that Houllier's plan was to leave us after three seasons in a better and healthier state than what he inherited. Judging by the improvements at the end of last season and his previous record it isn't uninmaginable that he could have done that. As he had to leave after less than a simple season, we will probably continue to disagree on the merits of his spell as manager.
One season is probably not really enough to give a fair opinion of what he was trying to do. I think the signs were there that we wer moving forward in certain areas, and the football we played was far better to watch than the previous few seasons. It's sad that he married this with making our defence as fragile as I can remember (although the negative attitudes of the likes of Warnock, Dunne and Collins almost certainly contributed to that) and displaying appalling interpersonal, man management and PR skills.
