Liverpool FC Forum

[JBG]

THE TWILIGHT ZONE

WHAT HAPPENED WHEN HOULLIER STAYED AT ANFIELD

REPORTING FROM ANFIELD MAY 2005

So Liverpool at the same point again. Another season trophyless. Another season of hype, another season of hope and ultimately another season of disappointment.

It isn’t that the fans of Liverpool Football Club don’t deserve success. Their team does play good and attractive football. It is based on solid foundations; a tradition of pass and move, the players supporting and working for each other, a great team ethic and fantastic team spirit. Once upon a time this team was untouchable in not only domestic football but in Europe.

Fearless players whose names grace the famous old Anfield stadium: Yeats, Smith, Souness, Case, Dalglish. Goalscoring machines: Hunt, Keegan, Rush, Fowler…..........…and Owen?

So we have to try and figure out where it all went wrong.

At the end of the now infamously disappointing 2003-04 season, Liverpool had managed to cling onto the consolation fourth spot for the Champions League, even though it was a very disappointing campaign for the club.

The general compromise for reaching this fourth spot was to give manager Gerard Houllier one more season to prove he could take Liverpool to the next step. By no means was it acceptable that Liverpool ended the season trophyless or that Liverpool qualified for Europe through the back door.

Houllier was in the Last Chance Saloon - and he knew it.

In the close season of 2004/05, Liverpool brought in new faces to freshen up the squad for their assault on the title. Houllier had promised that these players would not fail. They were to be the cornerstone of a new and exciting Liverpool. These players would help them compete with the now near invincible Arsenal, who had gone the entire previous campaign undefeated in the Premier League.

The over-hyped Djibril Cisse arrived from Auxerre for £14 million. Phillipe Mexes was brought in for £10 million in order to bolster Liverpool’s leaky defence, and from Chelsea’s mass exodus, Jesper Gronkjaer arrived (£1.5 million) along with Houllier favourite Joe Cole (£5.5 million).

Of course, the many fans who had publicly been questioning Houllier on TV and radio phone-ins were livid. Chelsea had reached the Champions League semi-finals the previous season and finished second to Arsenal in the Premier League. Liverpool fans were unhappy signing players who were not even deemed good enough for Chelsea’s first team. “Houllier Homes Chelsea Cast-Offs” screamed the tabloids.

The situation was somewhat diluted by the fact that Roman Abramovich’s Chelsea were again the talk of the football world. Once more having claimed all the back pages, they spent an approximated £170 million over the summer, signing players such as Christian Vieri, Francesco Totti, the Brazilian former World Player of the Year Ronaldo and England captain David Beckham.

Liverpool had a cull of their own. Amongst others, Dietmar Hamann left for German club Werder Bremen for £3 million. Houllier finally cut his losses on the hugely disappointing Igor Biscan who was sold to Portsmouth for £1 million. Birmingham paid £7 million for Emile Heskey. Marcus Babbel’s contract was cancelled and he subsequently signed for Kaiserslautern. The biggest surprise of all was young Jon Otsemobor, a highly promising full-back, who made his way across Stanley Park to Everton for £1 million, echoing the Nicky Barmby move a few seasons earlier.

Otsemobor himself, a lifelong Liverpool fan, was shocked. “The gaffer hadn’t spoken to me about the deal. I was previously on loan to Bolton last season, but it didn’t work out so I came back to Anfield. I never wanted to leave.”

The season started with massive disappointment. In the Champions League qualifiers, Liverpool could only draw with SV Austria Salzburg 1 – 1 over two legs, exiting the competition on away goals. Liverpool were back in the UEFA Cup. Houllier’s face at the end of the Salzburg match told the whole story. It was the pained expression everyone had seen far too often before.

In the opening game of the 2004/05 season, Liverpool ran out for the first time in their new home kit. Recently promoted Norwich City were typically welcomed back into the Premier League by the Anfield crowd. Just as Norwich were the last team to win in front of the old Kop, they did not let themselves down on their return, leaving Anfield with all three points. A goalkeeping blunder by Jerzy Dudek spelled his time at the club was surely up. Djibril Cisse was substituted after a poor display.

Liverpool’s season was once again stuttered and frustrating to say the least. Joe Cole was injured for most of the Christmas fixtures, Cisse looked uninterested anything but a £14 million player. Michael Owen was again looking perplexed. Liverpool were already out of the Carling Cup losing to West Ham United. They were through to the latter stages of the UEFA Cup, and had made the fourth round of the FA Cup. Their two outstanding players, Gerrard and Mexes would both make the Premier League Team of the Season.

Meanwhile Chelsea and Arsenal were trying to make history of their own as they battled it out for trophies on all fronts. Both teams remained undefeated in all competitions at Christmas.

In April 2005, with Liverpool now out of all competitions and out of contention for the championship, it was clear to nearly everybody that the club was losing ground on the teams above them. On the pitch they were short of ideas and looking unlikely to recover. Injuries and bad luck had again taken their toll. The anti-Houllier graffiti on the walls of Melwood was becoming more vulgar with each and every new message. More and more websites were appearing calling for Houllier’s head. He was quickly labelled a laughing stock.

Off the pitch, even the most loyal of players like Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher were privately contemplating their futures. Real Madrid were once again circling dangerously around Michael Owen. Both Gerrard and Owen had made the situation very clear during the negotiations for their previous contracts that they would only sign a one year extension to their existing deal, thus keeping them at the club until 2006. Houllier had let the situation of the club’s two best players deteriorate to the point that he would go into the new 2005/06 season with neither of them secured on a long term deal, or more frighteningly, with the possibility they would leave the club on a Bosman free.

Then there was the now infamous FourFourTwo magazine interview with Michael Owen in May 2005. When asked about the interest from a host of overseas clubs, he would not comment on the line of questioning.

Significantly, by not commenting, he had said it all.

The media had a major story on their hands. Owen, who knew how to use them to his advantage, still had a year left on his contract at Liverpool. But the continentals could smell the blood. Real Madrid president Florentino Perez broke with his usual protocol, publicly saying how he would love to bring Michael Owen to the Santiago Bernabau.

Soon, Barcelona, the two Milan giants and Roma joined the queue for the race for Owen’s signature. Arsenal even showed interest at one stage. It was painfully clear to everyone at Liverpool Football Club that Michael Owen was on his way out of Anfield. Who could really blame him? Owen was one of the wealthiest men in the game. It was trophies that now fuelled his desire. Privately, Liverpool knew they would have to work miracles to keep him.

Ironically, Liverpool found themselves with four games to go, still in with a chance of the final Champions League spot, mirroring the previous year’s campaign. Their main rivals for the spot were Manchester United.

United were going through a transitional stage themselves. With the domestic dominance of Arsenal and Chelsea, their own ageing squad, the previous summer’s transfer of Ruud Van Nistelrooy to Real Madrid as a replacement for Chelsea-bound Ronaldo, had all culminated in a shift in the balance of power in both the domestic and European game. Alex Ferguson was still in control of the team, but like Houllier, was expected to be replaced at the end of the season.

The official line coming from the Board of Directors at Anfield was that Owen was going nowhere. Chairman David Moores gave an interview to BBC Sport saying Owen would not leave Liverpool at any price. On the contrary, Owen gave no interviews, would not speak to reporters after training or after matches, preferring to communicate through carefully placed statements or through his agent. After an excellent Man of the Match display at West Bromwich Albion, he refused to partake in the obligatory after match interview citing 'a suspected muscle injury needing immediate attention' as a thinly veiled excuse. Steven Gerrard awkwardly but professionally took his place.

In the final game of the season, Liverpool needed three points to claim the final Champions League spot. They could only draw, as bad luck would have it, with Graeme Souness’ Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park, Owen netting twice in a two all draw. It was sweet for the former Liverpool midfielder, as the draw meant his Blackburn side themselves qualified for Europe, after a torrid start to the season. Manchester United took all three points at St Andrews and Liverpool finished the season in fifth place, one place worse off than 2003/04 - and missing out on the lucrative Champions League.

The Board had finally lost their patience with Gerard Houllier. He was by now a Dead Man Walking. There was no way Houllier was going to be left in charge of the Owen negotiations, having left it this late. Houllier did the only thing left he could do and resigned, Phil Thompson following him out of the door the next day. It was whispered that the squad had not been genuinely committed to Houllier for some time now. The discipline he had installed so profoundly in the early years of his reign had gone. He never knew his best team, always swapping and changing formations from one match to the next and never keeping the same side for two consecutive games. Many say he was never the same after his life threatening heart surgery. Steven Gerrard’s position at the club was immediately put in jeopardy, with Manchester United uncomfortably hovering once again due to Roy Keane finally signing for Glasgow giants Celtic.

The knock on effects were devastating.

David Moores was eventually bought out of the club by local businessman and lifelong fan Steve Morgan. Moores was devastated, the heartache clearly showing on his face at the press conference. Morgan has promised a cash injection of £50 million of his own money for transfers to return Liverpool to the Champions League.

The plans for the new stadium in Stanley Park were shelved for another twelve months in order to see what dividends the new season would bring.

Owen is expected to move to Barcelona this summer. A cut-price figure of £12 million is being floated, involving a rumoured swap deal with the ageing Davids, Overmars or Kluivert coming this way. Steven Gerrard has signed a one year extension to his existing deal, keeping him at the club until the summer of 2007. He is now the highest earner at the club.

Acting manager Hughie McAuley will take charge of the team’s affairs during the summer.  The club is rumoured to be interested in Martin O’Neill of Celtic, a man consistently linked with the manager’s job during Houllier’s reign and the talented Valencia manager, Rafael Benitez.

Houllier was invited to be an honorary ambassador for UEFA and regularly commentates on Premier League matches for French TV. It is not known whether he will be tempted to return to management.

Anfield should be a very interesting place over the coming months.

© Jonnymac1979 2004.