Poor old Gerard Houllier

Sunday 12th March 2006
ANFIELD ONLINE LFC NEWS

POOR OLD GERARD HOULLIER

by Gabrielle Marcotti

For Olympique Lyonnais, it would seem the transition from dark horse to contender is long overdue. The French club have won four straight Ligue 1 titles and have reached the quarter-final stage of the Champions League for the third consecutive year. This season, they have lost just twice in all competitions, both defeats, ironically, at home.

It would seem Gerard Houllier’s revenge has finally been consummated. Mocked and derided, he left slamming the door at Liverpool. Twelve months later, his own achievements – winning the Uefa Cup, FA Cup and League Cup in the same season – were rubbished as some kind of ‘tin pot’ treble, compared to his successor, Rafa Benitez’s in helping Liverpool to their fifth European Cup in his first attempt.

Indeed, when it emerged that he showed up un-announced in the Liverpool dressing room in Istanbul to bask in the reflected glory of the Reds’ triumph, even his own former assistant, Phil Thompson was somewhat critical.

“I would not have gone down to the changing rooms,” he said. “It was Rafa’s day, the players’ day and there was no need to be there.”

Or consider the words of Lyon’s Sylvain Wiltord, speaking out shortly before Houllier’s appointment: “I don’t really mind who we get ... as long as it’s not Houllier!”

Shades of 1994 when, after failing to lead France to a place in the World Cup, Houllier came out and seemingly blamed everything on David Ginola for giving the ball away late in a qualifier against Bulgaria. For a manager to blame his own men is the ultimate no-no in the footballers’ fraternity and it was enough to make him something of an outcast among the players. Once outside, he was never let back in.

Yet now his vengeance is being served ice-cold as Lyon seem to be the connoisseur’s choice to ruin it all for the European aristocrats in Milan, Turin and Barcelona.

The difficult part is assessing where Houllier’s influence begins and that of his predecessor, Rangers’ new manager Paul Le Guen, ends. Le Guen painstakingly built a side which operated like clockwork. Players were bought specifically for his 4-5-1 system, an innovative scheme featuring a tight midfield three, wingers with licence to cut inside and a central reference point up front.

The system is predicated upon the central trio of Juninho Pernambucano (below), Mahamadou Diarra and Thiago, whom Houllier brought in to replace the departed Michael Essien. Juninho is the long-range threat – indeed, he may be, alongside Andrea Pirlo, the best free-kick taker in the competition – while the other two provide workrate and ball-winning.

Their presence allows the full-backs to push on and support the front three who, particularly under Houllier, are heavily rotated. Indeed, none of the striking corps – including Florent Malouda, Hatem Ben Arfa, Wiltord and Sidney Govou as wide men, and Fred and John Carew as centre forwards – has started as many as two-thirds of Lyon’s league matches this season.

Houllier’s critics say this is very much Le Guen’s team and the former Liverpool man is simply the Forrest Gump in the works. Put another way, Le Guen made the wind-up toy, wound it up and now Houllier gets to watch it go. It may be a harsh assessment; indeed Thiago has been a revelation and was very much Houllier’s choice. The two strikers he brought in – Fred and Carew – have been serviceable, if not prolific, netting just 14 goals in 42 combined league appearances.

Still, the impression remains that Houllier has taken over a turnkey operation. Lyon’s trademark defensive solidity pre-dates his arrival and many times it has felt as if the club’s game plan consisted primarily of shutting up shop at the back and waiting for something at the other end. With six useful forwards, plus Juninho’s ballistic exploits from set-pieces, the club usually found a goal from somewhere.

If you view European football as a yin and yang landscape split between the attacking philosophy of Arsenal, Barcelona, Real Madrid or Milan on the one hand, and the defensive solidity of Chelsea, Juventus, Bayern or Liverpool on the other, there is no question Lyon belong in the latter camp. And in a Ligue 1 campaign which saw the trad itional powers – Marseille, Paris Saint Germain and Lens – seemingly hell-bent on self-destruction – it has been enough to run away with Le Champ ionnat.

The thing about Lyon, and the reason the sceptics are still out in force, is that they have yet to be consistently tested against Europe’s top sides. In the last three seasons, they’ve faced teams from the continent’s big three leagues on three occasions. They had the better of Real Madrid in the group stage this year, winning 3-0 at the Stade Gerland and drawing 1-1 at the Bernabeu, but it was classic counter-attacking fare against shell-shocked opposition, not the kind of football to truly impress.

Last year, also in the group stage, they drew at Old Trafford and lost at home to Man United. And in 2003-04, they beat an out-of-their-depth Real Sociedad (a side with other concerns: they were fighting to avoid relegation domestically) home and away.

In light of all this, it’s hard to judge just how good they are. Most pundits look at their league position and the frequency with which they reach this stage of the competition and presume they must be a tough nut to crack. For the time being, they exist in a parallel sphere, like all foreign clubs did in the days when we thought of them as mysterious and exotic, before Sky and the web turned Michel Salgado and Gianluca Zambrotta into (quasi-)household names. What they need is a resounding performance on the big stage, a convincing win against a top European power in a game that truly matters. Like, say, a quarter-final against last season’s runners-up, AC Milan. They’ll get that chance come the end of the month.

And if they overcome the rossoneri, perhaps then Houllier will get his due. After all, when Liverpool won in Istanbul, nobody paid him any attention and all the credit went to Benitez. Which means that if Lyon too beat Milan, people will stop saying this is Le Guen’s time and finally give Houllier some respect, right?

Probably not ... poor Gerard.

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