Houllier Must Go!

Could you pay good money to watch Liverpool at the moment? On balance, yes, and it’s a good six years since that was the case. Would you put any money on them winning any trophy worth a damn? Still no, I’m afraid.

In some ways, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that this season Gérard Houllier has opted to let what’s left of his hair down. Having signed Harry Kewell to do a job for him on the wing (albeit not necessarily always Kewell’s preferred wing), and Steve Finnan, one of the more adventurous full-backs in the Premiership, he hardly had any other option but to throw caution to the winds.
At one stage last season, when they were in the middle of grinding out a series of unsightly victories in their doomed quest to edge out Chelsea for the final Champions League spot, someone remarked that the only experience more gruelling than playing against Liverpool was watching them.
Now they are relatively (and I stress the word relatively) easy on the eye, or at least as easy on the eye as any team featuring Danny Murphy and Igor Biscan can be. But their switch to a more palatable style of football has only served to expose the hitherto unseen soft centre up the middle of their side.
Most noticeably, the defenders are no longer as well protected as they were in the (again relative) glory days of 2000-01-02. This has had predictably gruesome results, especially on those days when the injured Stéphane Henchoz’s shoes have been filled by either Djimi Traoré, who after three years still plays like a newborn calf trying to walk, or the equally awful Biscan.
The old Liverpool (by which I mean, of two seasons ago) would never have given away goals as cheap as the three conceded to Blackburn in the Carling Cup last week. Then again, the old Liverpool would not have been remotely adventurous enough to rattle in four goals of their own in the first place.
The deeply hilarious antics of Emile Heskey in that game represented proof that some things will never change at Liverpool as long as Houllier is (a) still around and (b) still picking Heskey. Having converted two simple chances to put his team 3-1 ahead, Heskey saw Liverpool win a penalty that he clearly viewed as a perfect opportunity to complete his first hat-trick since 1995 or so. The big man determinedly reefed the ball out of Steven Gerrard’s hands in a manner that brooked no argument, made a pig’s mickey of the original kick, and then buggered up the rebound for good measure.
But I digress. One wonders whether Houllier’s October 2001 heart attack (and the resultant goodwill towards him on Merseyside) has served, over the past two years, to buy him more time in the hotseat than he otherwise would have been granted. Since 2001, has there been an element of “This guy nearly died for Liverpool, so surely he deserves one more chance” among certain sections of the club’s support?
And if that sympathy vote does still exist, it is surely being worn very thin indeed by the sight and sound of Houllier still drivelling on about the amount of new players still settling in, and the young average age of the team (23, as he never tires of reminding us), and how the likes of Sinama-Pongolle, Baros, Le Tallec, Diouf etc are “players for the future”. Eh, surely this is the future?
Anyway, a win for Liverpool, such as the despatching of Blackburn and the easy smiting of Leeds before it, has a silver lining all its own, because it means that Houllier’s job is safe for at least another week or two.
In his meaner moments, Foul Play finds himself sneakily hoping that the ‘Pool manage to string together a good little run at the end of the season and drag themselves to fourth place for a Champions League slot, and maybe also win the FA Cup or something, so that the bug-eyed one can spend another year fucking them up.
I’ll drink to that. Houllier Must Stay.