The Rule
09-10-2003, 11:47 AM
Alright, own up. Come on. How many people out there thought that if we didn't beat Everton on Saturday Gerard Houllier wouldn't have a job to go this otherwise fine September morning? Not many of you, eh? Bloody liars! Not many people gave him much hope of clinging onto his job in the event of being beaten by the Bluenosed gypsies at the weekend. And yet here we are, at the beginning of a new week, and the man is still there, safely tucked up in his dugout, mopping the sweat from his brow and thinking: "Thank Christ for that!" While the rest of us wonder a) how the hell he managed to pull it off, b) how much longer he can carry on, and c) which prospect of getting Jobseekers' Allowance put him off most of all.
There was nothing special about the result, about beating Everton in a Merseyside derby. Nothing special at all. As we know, local derbies are notoriously unpredictable affairs. They could go either way. A team at the top of the league can be playing against its local rivals who are two divisions below them, and the form book goes out of the window. So, was Gerard Houdini's escape act borne out tactical prowess, the kind of nous that scrapes good managers out of such tricky situations? Or was it sheer and unadulterated fluke? The way I see it, whatever was the cause of the result, all it has done is buy him a few more weeks to try and start turning things around.
It's the same old story: we lose a few games, draw a couple, lose a few more, and suddenly Houllier's position is in jeopardy; we manage one win...and all is forgotten. Reading the papers, the newsgroups and other views about the current situation with regards Houllier's position, it would appear that the piss-poor start to the new campaign never happened. The defeat against Chelsea, the two shitty goalless draws against inferior opposition...none of it happened. And why? Because we managed to beat a very, very poor Everton side on Saturday. As far as I'm concerned, the 3-0 win changes nothing. It doesn't change the fact that, for the first three games, Houllier was playing some of his top professionals out of position. You could argue that, as he changed Kewell et al to their normal, anticipated positions for Saturday, he has realised the errors of his ways. I don't think so. Houllier's track record suggests that, come the next game, or perhaps the one after that, he will once again be tinkering about with the workings of the squad. Carragher will be on the wing, Smicer will be in the centre of the defence, Diouf will be up front and Emile Heskey will be deep-lying midfield kind of half-sweeper right back who plays on the left up front.
You know it will happen.
You see, this is the big problem with Gerard Houllier. The man simply cannot leave things alone. He has to fiddle about with things. He reminds me of one of those Sunday afternoon amateur car mechanics. You know...with a Ford Capri up the drive that is perfectly roadworthy, yet which has never moved an inch because every time he looks at it he decides to piss-ball about with something else under the bonnet.
"Why are you tinkering about with the car when there's nothing wrong with it?"
"Just thought I'd rip the carb out, swap it with the starter motor, put the track rod ends where the windscreen wipers are and see what happens."
No need to see what happens. It won't bloody go anywhere, because you're always sticking your head under the bonnet and twatting about with it.
Gerard Houllier should realise - and he really should - that what he has at Anfield are all the right spare parts for a machine that could run brilliantly, given the right mechanic to do the job. It doesn't need an AA man with a degree in the complexities of the internal combustion engine; all it needs is someone to take a look at it, realise that it's running alright, and leave the bloody thing alone. Like that old saying: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." People might argue that things need fixing at Liverpool Football Club, that things are broken. But you know what? I don't think they are. The squad is good. The players are talented - when played in their true positions - and the fans will always get behind the team no matter what. If Houllier wants to go out and buy a player like Harry Kewell, then that's fine. But at least he should have the sense to realise what his best position is. Very few players can adapt themselves to play in more than one position, and do so with any great potency. Harry Kewell, good player that he is, is not one of them. He is not a central midfielder, nor is he a wide-right player. He is a decent striker and a threat to any opposing team, when played in his right position.
But we beat Everton, always a pleasing thing. And where does it leave us now? Well, you could look at it on paper and say that one defeat in four games isn't bad - two draws and a win. But it's only one win in four. That's the down-side. All these cretins who have been saying we're too far behind The Scum and The Arse already...well, they want blowing up. It's all bollocks until December anyway. If Portsmouth are still in the top half come the New Year, I'll personally crawl over broken glass to Fratton Park and wipe Harry Redknapp's arse. It's not going to happen. The first few games of the new season mean bugger all. Come to think of it, the first couple of months of the new season mean bugger all. Look at last year - top of the League by - what was it? - five points, unbeaten...then what happened. The biggest drop since Mike Smith gave up flying his chopper. Last week The Scum were seven points ahead of us; this week the gap is only four. Big deal.
But the thing is...the thing is that we all know that the Drunken Tramp will pick his best team week in, week out. He will pick his best players and, what's far more important, he will play them in their best positions. Because, and it pains me to say this about the red-faced Scottish turd, he knows what he's doing. The same goes for Arsene Wenger. Would Ferguson play Van Horseface on the left wing, or in midfield? Would Wenger stick Ljungberg up front or Patrick Vieira on the flank? No, they wouldn't. But Houllier...hmmm...his idea of tinkering shoves Harry Kewell and Vladimir Smicer in the middle of the park, Heskey out wide and Danny Murphy on the bench. I don't rate Smicer, never have. But according to some reports he was our best player in pre-season friendlies. So what does Houllier do? He misses the start of the season and Houllier plays him against Villa in a central midfield role. Smicer plays shite and gets dropped for the game against Spurs. I don't know what the man expects sometimes, I really don't.
"Alright, Mr Houllier, I want you to rewire my house for me."
"But I'm a football manager. I can't rewire your house. I'm not an electrician."
"Tough. And if you do it wrong, you're sacked."
And when he does get another chance, make him plumb in a new shithouse.
If Gerard Houllier had everybody fit and ready to play, he should have a team capable of really challenging for the League Title. In Kirkland and Dudek we have two excellent goalkeepers. The defence should pick itself. Carragher has always done a great job, wherever he's played at the back but with Steve Finnan at the club now, Carra becomes a utility back-up. So Finnan on the right. In Hyypia and Henchoz I still reckon we've got one of the best defensive partnerships in the country(although i wouldn't complain about replacing Hyypia with Mexes). Riise should be on the left every game. With a midfield of Gerrard and Hamann in the centre, Diouf on the right and Kewell wide on the left, I see no problem. Up front...Owen and Baros. You could argue with a couple of the places, but as far as I'm concerned, that would be our best starting eleven every week. No Cheyrou, no Smicer, no Vignal, no Heskey, no Biscan and no bloody Djimi Traore!
Alright, Houllier hasn't had the chance to pick that side every week, but I'm willing to bet that if he did, we'd be in the running for the major honours come next May. But he won't. He won't do it. I don't know why he refuses to stick with a settled side, persists in playing players out of position, and I don't think I ever will. Like the man with his Ford Capri up the drive, he will continue to fiddle about, poking here and prodding there, tinkering, trying this and trying that. But the bloody thing won't go properly until he has all the right bits in all the right places. As long as Gerard Houllier, the amateur mechanic, thinks he's up to the job, it will never be seen tear-arsing along in the fast lane of the Premiership. The best we can hope for is to see it stuck up the drive, going nowhere, rusting away like some relic of a bygone age.
Which is, I suppose, what we are in danger of becoming
There was nothing special about the result, about beating Everton in a Merseyside derby. Nothing special at all. As we know, local derbies are notoriously unpredictable affairs. They could go either way. A team at the top of the league can be playing against its local rivals who are two divisions below them, and the form book goes out of the window. So, was Gerard Houdini's escape act borne out tactical prowess, the kind of nous that scrapes good managers out of such tricky situations? Or was it sheer and unadulterated fluke? The way I see it, whatever was the cause of the result, all it has done is buy him a few more weeks to try and start turning things around.
It's the same old story: we lose a few games, draw a couple, lose a few more, and suddenly Houllier's position is in jeopardy; we manage one win...and all is forgotten. Reading the papers, the newsgroups and other views about the current situation with regards Houllier's position, it would appear that the piss-poor start to the new campaign never happened. The defeat against Chelsea, the two shitty goalless draws against inferior opposition...none of it happened. And why? Because we managed to beat a very, very poor Everton side on Saturday. As far as I'm concerned, the 3-0 win changes nothing. It doesn't change the fact that, for the first three games, Houllier was playing some of his top professionals out of position. You could argue that, as he changed Kewell et al to their normal, anticipated positions for Saturday, he has realised the errors of his ways. I don't think so. Houllier's track record suggests that, come the next game, or perhaps the one after that, he will once again be tinkering about with the workings of the squad. Carragher will be on the wing, Smicer will be in the centre of the defence, Diouf will be up front and Emile Heskey will be deep-lying midfield kind of half-sweeper right back who plays on the left up front.
You know it will happen.
You see, this is the big problem with Gerard Houllier. The man simply cannot leave things alone. He has to fiddle about with things. He reminds me of one of those Sunday afternoon amateur car mechanics. You know...with a Ford Capri up the drive that is perfectly roadworthy, yet which has never moved an inch because every time he looks at it he decides to piss-ball about with something else under the bonnet.
"Why are you tinkering about with the car when there's nothing wrong with it?"
"Just thought I'd rip the carb out, swap it with the starter motor, put the track rod ends where the windscreen wipers are and see what happens."
No need to see what happens. It won't bloody go anywhere, because you're always sticking your head under the bonnet and twatting about with it.
Gerard Houllier should realise - and he really should - that what he has at Anfield are all the right spare parts for a machine that could run brilliantly, given the right mechanic to do the job. It doesn't need an AA man with a degree in the complexities of the internal combustion engine; all it needs is someone to take a look at it, realise that it's running alright, and leave the bloody thing alone. Like that old saying: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." People might argue that things need fixing at Liverpool Football Club, that things are broken. But you know what? I don't think they are. The squad is good. The players are talented - when played in their true positions - and the fans will always get behind the team no matter what. If Houllier wants to go out and buy a player like Harry Kewell, then that's fine. But at least he should have the sense to realise what his best position is. Very few players can adapt themselves to play in more than one position, and do so with any great potency. Harry Kewell, good player that he is, is not one of them. He is not a central midfielder, nor is he a wide-right player. He is a decent striker and a threat to any opposing team, when played in his right position.
But we beat Everton, always a pleasing thing. And where does it leave us now? Well, you could look at it on paper and say that one defeat in four games isn't bad - two draws and a win. But it's only one win in four. That's the down-side. All these cretins who have been saying we're too far behind The Scum and The Arse already...well, they want blowing up. It's all bollocks until December anyway. If Portsmouth are still in the top half come the New Year, I'll personally crawl over broken glass to Fratton Park and wipe Harry Redknapp's arse. It's not going to happen. The first few games of the new season mean bugger all. Come to think of it, the first couple of months of the new season mean bugger all. Look at last year - top of the League by - what was it? - five points, unbeaten...then what happened. The biggest drop since Mike Smith gave up flying his chopper. Last week The Scum were seven points ahead of us; this week the gap is only four. Big deal.
But the thing is...the thing is that we all know that the Drunken Tramp will pick his best team week in, week out. He will pick his best players and, what's far more important, he will play them in their best positions. Because, and it pains me to say this about the red-faced Scottish turd, he knows what he's doing. The same goes for Arsene Wenger. Would Ferguson play Van Horseface on the left wing, or in midfield? Would Wenger stick Ljungberg up front or Patrick Vieira on the flank? No, they wouldn't. But Houllier...hmmm...his idea of tinkering shoves Harry Kewell and Vladimir Smicer in the middle of the park, Heskey out wide and Danny Murphy on the bench. I don't rate Smicer, never have. But according to some reports he was our best player in pre-season friendlies. So what does Houllier do? He misses the start of the season and Houllier plays him against Villa in a central midfield role. Smicer plays shite and gets dropped for the game against Spurs. I don't know what the man expects sometimes, I really don't.
"Alright, Mr Houllier, I want you to rewire my house for me."
"But I'm a football manager. I can't rewire your house. I'm not an electrician."
"Tough. And if you do it wrong, you're sacked."
And when he does get another chance, make him plumb in a new shithouse.
If Gerard Houllier had everybody fit and ready to play, he should have a team capable of really challenging for the League Title. In Kirkland and Dudek we have two excellent goalkeepers. The defence should pick itself. Carragher has always done a great job, wherever he's played at the back but with Steve Finnan at the club now, Carra becomes a utility back-up. So Finnan on the right. In Hyypia and Henchoz I still reckon we've got one of the best defensive partnerships in the country(although i wouldn't complain about replacing Hyypia with Mexes). Riise should be on the left every game. With a midfield of Gerrard and Hamann in the centre, Diouf on the right and Kewell wide on the left, I see no problem. Up front...Owen and Baros. You could argue with a couple of the places, but as far as I'm concerned, that would be our best starting eleven every week. No Cheyrou, no Smicer, no Vignal, no Heskey, no Biscan and no bloody Djimi Traore!
Alright, Houllier hasn't had the chance to pick that side every week, but I'm willing to bet that if he did, we'd be in the running for the major honours come next May. But he won't. He won't do it. I don't know why he refuses to stick with a settled side, persists in playing players out of position, and I don't think I ever will. Like the man with his Ford Capri up the drive, he will continue to fiddle about, poking here and prodding there, tinkering, trying this and trying that. But the bloody thing won't go properly until he has all the right bits in all the right places. As long as Gerard Houllier, the amateur mechanic, thinks he's up to the job, it will never be seen tear-arsing along in the fast lane of the Premiership. The best we can hope for is to see it stuck up the drive, going nowhere, rusting away like some relic of a bygone age.
Which is, I suppose, what we are in danger of becoming