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Posted by PAUL on May 3, 2003, 7:28:06
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READ THIS OPINION IT INCLUDES A LOT OF POINTS EVERYONE MENTIONED IN THIS FORUM TAKEN FROM THIS IS ANFIELD WED SITE It’s easy to complain about a team and its manager when they’ve just lost a game. Or when they’re in the middle of a dreadful spell. But it takes quite a bit to whinge after being on the right end of a 6-0 drubbing and with the possibility of Champions League football next season very real. But that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not sure whether we will qualify for the elite competition by going to Chelsea and winning. That may be beyond this clutch of players. But getting there gives Gerard Houllier another season in charge and that maybe worse than only playing in the UEFA Cup come September. Of course Champions League football would be great because in the two seasons we’ve qualified we’ve seen some fantastic football from both Liverpool and their illustrious opponents. But making the quarter-finals of that competition in 2002 may well be the high point of the Houllier way of thinking. Many Liverpool fans who still keep the faith with the manager do so in the belief that we will be playing better football at some point, that somehow there will be a radical change the team’s approach not far off. From what I’ve seen, Houllier’s one-dimensional counterattacking policy seems like the only trick in his book. Can a leopard ever change its spots? Fans point to the admittedly excellent football we played earlier in the season when the goals were flowing as well as the passes as evidence of Houllier’s Liverpool at their potential-meeting best. I would not disagree with that. We did play well and while we looked a little shakier defensively I was willing to see more of that given its distance from the tedium we are fed most of the time. But a wobbly defence does not fit with Houllier’s gameplan – strong defence, swift attack, remember? So a bit of retrenchment here and there and we had a very dull team once more. The turning point might well have been the dreadful display at the Riverside when a 4-5-1 formation screamed ‘we’ve come for a point’ from the off. But still strong defensively, right? Well, no because it was at this point that our Polish version of Fabien Barthez reared his head and our season just collapsed. Jerzy Dudek’s clangers, not so long ago considered unthinkable, were now on a level and frequency of that other calamity king, David ‘Flapper’ James. Hadn’t we sold another dodgy keeper in Sander Westerveld in very similar circumstances? Soon enough though Dudek was out of fashion and favour and Chris Kirkland got an overdue chance between the sticks. Anyway, you get the picture – an unreliable defence = a malfunctioning team. Injuries to key players, especially Didi Hamann, didn’t help but the bottom line is that the attack that Houllier has expensively assembled just didn’t work. Houllier would be the first to acknowledge that the defence is the most important part of the team but I doubt Arsene Wenger would concur. OK, his Arsenal side may well have thrown the title away but there isn’t an honest Liverpool fan here who wouldn’t mind a bit of the old va va voom. And it’s not like you can say the board hasn’t backed him because they have to the tune of more than £100m. That’s an awful lot of cash for some pretty inconsistent seasons. And there we get to the crux of the problem. We are a team full of inconsistent players. And with inconsistent players you get inconsistent football and inconsistent results. It’s not the sort of inconsistency that say Aston Villa are so painfully afflicted by. Or Middlesbrough or even Spurs. Because these clubs are used to their team being mostly shit with some good thrown in. We are used to so much better than that. No, our inconsistency manifests itself in spells that produce either amazing or dreadful results. The quality of football remains pretty much constant though and the difference between a Houllier Liverpool team working efficiently and it not is massive. Every team has bad spells but its how quickly you can arrest a slump and start winning again. The great Liverpool teams all had their off days and weeks but they knew how to win when the going got tough. This team has proved it takes too long for them to turn a bad situation around. Houllier’s team have always had these streaks of inconsistency. His 1999-00 team that missed out on the Champions League by losing to Bradford on the last day of the season had gone more than five games without scoring. Five games! Ridiculous – and costly. Then we had the run in to the three cups and the Champions League the season after some erratic form in the Premiership until March. Then last season we had the inexplicable mid-season slump that cost us the title. And this season we’ve had three chapters: Seven Points Clear, What’s Gone Wrong? and Belated Reawakening. You could argue that the team’s form mirrors Michael Owen’s and that would have some foundation given that we play to his strengths. A man whose form blows from ice cold and red hot irritatingly often is only ever going to get goals in bursts. The man himself has said that seems to be how he performs. Throw in a non-scoring striker as his partner and midfield packed with up-and-down performers and you’ve got yourself a team of nearly men: Vladimir Smicer – the man would desperately like his middle name to be ‘Sporadic.’ Unfortunately he’s saddled with ‘Shit’ instead. Bruno Cheyrou – great buy. El Hadji Diouf – it’s amazing what £10m doesn’t get you these days. Emile Heskey – somebody shoot him. Danny Murphy – seemingly Mr Dependable, but is in fact as inconsistent as the rest of them. Always has been, always will be. Steven Gerrard – class though he may be, he has his great games and but his unfair share of anonymous ones too. Jerzy Dudek – damaged goods? John Arne Riise – consistently good first season, consistently average this time round. Jamie Carragher – solid defender but his attacking play ranges from the barely competent to the painfully inadequate. Only Dietmar Hamann, Sami Hyypia (a few early season wobbles notwithstanding) and Stephane Henchoz are exempt. But their excellence is in stopping, rather than scoring, goals and therein lies the problem. Arsenal and Manchester United’s best players are all attack-oriented – hence their position at the head of the table with Champions League football assured. My argument is thus: Houllier has built a team that has too many players who have too many off days. Or perhaps to look at it slight more positively, not enough on days, and whose on days are seldom that special. When we have played well it is because the counterattacking tactic is working. I am not arguing that we can’t play good football – Roma, March 2002 was a very special night (thank you Jari) and there have been other fine performances. But they are few and far between. Even the poorest teams can play well from time to time. I’m not saying we’re poor merely making the point that bad teams don’t always play badly, just like good teams don’t always play well. It’s just how often you do play well that matters. Most of the time our football is unadventurous, narrow and found badly wanting in the creativity department. We’re essentially a negative team with unreliable performers in key positions. Yet somehow we win enough games to keep Houllier in a job (much in the same way the reviled Hector Cuper is grinding out the wins for Inter). I don’t think that not even qualifying for the Champions League will cost Houllier his job. Outwardly at least, he has become a bit of a Teflon manager in the boardroom, despite the fact that this season his one saving grace – the ability to win games without deserving to – has eluded him at key moments. Well, another season of UEFA Cup football – secured by missing out on the Champions League in the next two weeks or by finishing third in the first group stages of next season’s Champions League – is a distinct possibility. How exactly are we to catch Arsenal and Manchester United if this team remains broadly in tact? Because it will. Houllier confirmed as much this week when he said that we only needed one or two players to win the Champions League. Unless those players are Zinedine Zidane and Raul, and securing their signatures is of dubious likelihood, I don’t quite see how we are going to win the UEFA Cup again, let alone the league title. If fans are satisfied with fourth placed finishes, Worthless Cups and a smattering of top class European football, then that merely highlights how far standards at Anfield have fallen. We were all pleased to see the back of Roy Evans but his final league positions weren't much worse than Houllier's. In fact, I'd call them comparable. And weren't thirds and fourths enough to see him shown the Boot Room door? We should be genuine title contenders – the money’s been there and the support’s been there but the players haven’t. Or at least haven’t been there enough. For inconsistent, read not good enough. Good enough is that elusive Premiership title and we’re 13 points shy of good enough as it stands. We were the greatest club in the land. We’re nowhere near that now. Under Gerard Houllier we may win games, but we will do so functionally. Under Gerard Houllier we will never be great. Neale Graham nealegraham@thisisanfield.info IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING THAT HE SAID AND YOU?

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Message Thread: Article - PAUL May 3, 2003, 7:28:06 Re: Article - tonio May 3, 2003, 7:49:02 « Back to thread

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