MAY 25
Curbishley approached last
month over Anfield job

By Sam Wallace - Daily Telegraph

Liverpool board members met Alan Curbishley as long ago as Easter Monday to discuss the possibility of the Charlton Athletic manager taking over from Gerard Houllier, who was finally sacked by the Merseyside club yesterday.

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that the meeting, on April 12, minutes after Charlton had won at Anfield, took place in the boardroom and was attended by chief executive Rick Parry who, one Liverpool source said, "bent the ear" of Curbishley about the possibility of taking charge this summer.

The dignified departure of Houllier, who warned there would be no "quick fix" for his successor, has left Parry and his chairman, David Moores, to decide between the three most obvious contenders: Curbishley, Valencia's Rafael Benitez and Jose Mourinho, of Porto. It is understood that 46-year-old Curbishley has emerged in the last week as the most likely candidate. There is a strong faction within the Anfield boardroom who would like to see him appointed immediately.

However, Parry has also approached Benitez, who has won the Spanish league and the UEFA Cup with Valencia this year and is negotiating an extension to the one year he has left on his contract. But the 44-year-old, who speaks very little English, would appear to regard the interest from Liverpool as a useful negotiating tool with Valencia, rather than a serious option.

Beyond those two, the remaining option for Liverpool is Mourinho, 41, the Portuguese coach whose young Porto side have conquered Europe in the last two years. A fluent English speaker, Mourinho has long coveted the Liverpool job and it is understood he approached the club's board six months ago and boldly offered his services as a replacement for Houllier.

Although Liverpool flatly refused then, they went back to Mourinho three weeks ago to ask him if he would consider managing the club. On that occasion it is understood the Porto coach told Parry he had virtually agreed to take charge at Chelsea this summer, although yesterday sources within Anfield indicated that the club had since been told Mourinho was open to offers.

MAY 24
Why Houllier had to go

By Alan Hansen - BBC Sport football expert

Gerard Houllier's departure from Liverpoool is the result of two simple, but crucial factors - too many bad results and too many mediocre performances.

Houllier's final programme notes of the season hailed the "magnificent" achievement of his players to seal fourth place in the Premiership and entry into the Champions League.

I think this may have summed up that what Houllier thought was good enough for him was not good enough for Liverpool Football Club or its directors.

Houllier might have survived had Liverpool finished fourth, but in touching distance of the contenders - instead they were miles behind.

What Houllier thought was satisfactory was not satisfactory for a club like this.

And Houllier also had more difficult opponents to deal with as Liverpool fans started to turn against his methods in the latter stages of the season.

Managers are not sacked by a chairman and a chief executive, it is supporters who get them out of a job and there was no getting away from the fact that there was genuine disenchantment about the team's style.

The writing was on the wall when I attended the Easter Monday defeat against Charlton Athletic and tickets were on sale before a game - this is almost unheard of and a pointer to the fact that fans were disgruntled.

There was just too much mediocrity for the fans to accept.

Supporters may accept an unadventurous style of play if you are challenging for the major prizes, but Liverpool were not and some of the performances at Anfield, in particular, were desperate.

Liverpool's fans were becoming disillusioned and I think this played a massive part in the decision.

There were times when they could have been more adventurous and aggressive and it was hard to see Michael Owen stranded on his own up front at Anfield, of all places.

I also think the fact that Liverpool Football Club, one way or another, is about to have a massive cash injection of £60m, may also have played a part.

The next two or three signings will be crucial to the future of the club, and maybe the board were worried about Gerard's recent track record.

I always feel if you sign five players and three work out, that's a fair ratio. Too many of Liverpool's were not working out.

There is always an element of gamble when you buy big, for example I was one of many who thought the signing of Juan Sebastian Veron would ensure Manchester United regained the Champions League.

Wrong.

There may have been a turning point in Gerard's reign in 2002, when he signed Salif Diao, Bruno Cheyrou and El-Hadji Diouf for a combined £20m.

None of those signings have worked, and no matter how big the club is, that outlay for little return cannot be sustained. It is a massive drain on resources.

Which brings us on to the subject of Houllier's successor and what awaits him at Anfield.

I've heard the talk it is between Charlton's Alan Curbishley and Rafael Benitez of Valencia, but this is only speculation and I actually have no firm view on who it should be.

What I do know is that this is a dream time to be taking over at Liverpool. It is not as if you are replacing a manager such as Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, who have won so many titles.

There is really only one way Liverpool can go now, and that is up.

Liverpool have two of England's world class players in Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard, and will have big money to spend.

The new man must first of all get Owen to sign a new deal and assure Gerrard that ambitious moves are in place to take the club forward.

And then, as Houllier would have had to do if he stayed, he must get the club's next three signings right because they cannot afford to fall further behind Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United.

But, come what may, Liverpool can only move forward.

It is very sad that Gerard has gone because he is a nice guy, who is a brilliant organiser and has transformed the training set-up.

But the bottom line is results and performances, and it is the lack of those two things that led the Anfield gallery to become disgruntled and led to Houllier's departure.

MAY 24
Houllier's goodbye to 'the bunker'

By Phil McNulty, Chief football writer - BBC Sport Online

Gerard Houllier's reaction last week to fevered speculation that he would be sacked as Liverpool manager was typical - he took sanctuary in the club's luxurious Melwood training headquarters and plotted the future.

Houllier's focus was not to be deflected by suggestions that he would soon be part of Liverpool's past.

His reign now is now over, however, and he must clear his desk at the huge complex he helped design.

It was the base Houllier jokingly called "the bunker" - and that is what it may have seemed like as he came under siege from those wanting to know whether he was in the final days at his beloved Liverpool.

Houllier's intensity and single-minded determination to prove he could bring the title back to Liverpool will not have lessened until the very moment he was told the job was no longer his.

That is the sort of bloody-minded defiance that drove him to return to Anfield after life-saving heart surgery, that brought silverware back to the club with a treble in 2001.

The stamp of Houllier's personality is all over Liverpool and all over Melwood.

The old place in the suburbs in West Derby has been transformed from what looked like an army training camp into one of the most sophisticated training grounds in world football.

Gone are the days when Liverpool used to change at Anfield then take a bus over to the training ground 10 minutes away.

Graeme Souness started the changes - but Houllier took change onto a different level at a club that hardly embraces revolution.

Houllier's all-consuming desire for involvement meant he was heavily involved in specific designs, from ensuring the views out of windows were pleasing on the eye to insisting there were no pillars in dressing rooms for players to "hide" behind.

Pitches for training. Pitches for tactics. No stone was left unturned in Houllier's search to develop the perfect environment for modern footballers to flourish.

This is the complex which will be inherited by his successor - be it Alan Curbishley, Rafael Benitez, or another.

Houllier arrived at Anfield in the summer of 1998 as part of an ill-fated joint manager set-up with Roy Evans.

It was a clash of footballing cultures, albeit an amicable one, between the boy from Anfield's bootroom and the foreign football philosopher who had helped France win the World Cup.

And when Houllier eventually took sole control, the changes were sweeping.

Out went the "Spice Boys" drinking culture and in came the professionalism and minute attention to detail that Houllier insists upon in every aspect of Liverpool life.

After finishing his first interview as Liverpool manager, he told me: "I can't stop. I need to meet my new family."

And for the man who first sampled Anfield as a teacher working in Liverpool in the late 60s, this is what the club was - a family.

If players give him everything and adhere to his philosophies, he will mount any defence for them, but step away from that and it is over.

Houllier deliberately chose a home with his wife near to Liverpool city centre so he could be in among the fan base and hear what the supporters on the street were saying - good or bad.

This is why he regarded the claims from some former players that he did not understand the history and unique feel of Liverpool Football Club as a grave insult.

Houllier can be a complicated figure to some, hating defeat and ready to battle his detractors, but he is fiercely loyal to those who support him and a formidable adversary to those who choose to criticise him or take him on.

He may have many critics, but this fiercely-driven man could never be accused of lacking professionalism or a burning desire to succeed.

That will have to be applied to another job now. The Bunker belongs to someone else.

MAY 24
Man who gave his all to LFC

Paddy Shennan looks at the agony and the ecstasy
of Gerard Houllier's reign at Liverpool

Monsieur Gerard Houllier - or, if you prefer, Le (Ex) Boss or Toulouse Le Plot - wasn't, in the end, a man for all seasons.

The man with a plan, a five-year-plan, was actually a man for six seasons. Six seasons which brought much silverware (as the man, himself, continually reminded his many detractors), but six seasons which did not see the once all-conquering Liverpool FC do what it became so used to doing.

Win the title. The Premiership crown, which eluded other managers before him (the last time Britain's most successful ever side were champions was 1990) became Anfield's holy grail.

In olden times, for everyone connected with the club, first was first and second was nowhere. Fourth? That was unthinkable. Some of Houllier's latter-day critics believed he had come to see fourth spot as the new holy grail. The beall-and-end-all - a passport to the money-drenched Champions League.

But, to borrow the motto of their "friends" across Stanley Park, the fans had a different view: Nothing but the best is good enough.

So how will Merseyside remember the, at times, enigmatic Frenchman? In many different ways, owing to an often turbulent reign.

When Houllier took sole charge at Anfield, in November 1998 (he had arrived, to work in tandem with Roy Evans in the summer of

1998), he was a man with a five-year plan to restore Liverpool to the pinnacle of English and European football - that was five years and six months ago.

But, for many, it was a miracle that this most defiant and determined of individuals fought back from the major heart surgery he underwent in October 2001 to continue in one of the most pressurised jobs in football.

He could have spent much longer away from the club recuperating. He could have walked away for good. But he didn't. Showing immense bravery, Houllier headed back to Anfield - the place he had fallen in love with in the late 1960s when he was an assistant French teacher at Alsop high school in Walton.

Houllier arrived at Alsop in the summer of 1969, as a fresh-faced 24-year-old (perhaps you saw him driving around near his digs in the Faulkner Street area of Toxteth in his Renault 5) - and he made a favourable impression, not least as a a centre-forward for Alsop Old Boys Second XI.

One of his teammates, Geoff Maitland, remembers: "He was a robust forward and we were very successful while he was playing for us in the 1969/70 season. He was certainly one of the lads. He would go for a drink with us after the games in pubs like the Royal Oak on Muirhead Avenue."

Houllier fondly recalled his days teaching and carrying out research at Alsop, where he wrote a study paper called Growing Up In A Deprived Area.

He spent many happy hours on the Kop - the first European game he went to see was a 10-0 Liverpool victory against Dundalk in a UEFA Cup tie in September 1969.

Although he never coached a Liverpool side to a 10-0 victory, many fans believe not enough credit has been given to Houllier for leading what, they say, was nothing short of a revolution - a French revolution- at Anfield.

Before his arrival, it has been claimed, the club had been taken over by the Spice Boys, with the Melwood training ground said to resemble more a hang-out for professional models than finelytuned, serious-minded professional footballers.

Just as Arsene Wenger had done at Arsenal, Houllier, was credited with changing the culture, over-hauling the players' training and diet, while keeping an eagle eye on their day-to-day lifestyle.

And everything seemed to be going to plan, if not ahead of plan, at the end of the 2000/2001 season, which was the high point of Houllier's Anfield career, when his team won the Worthington Cup, FA Cup and UEFA Cup.

But it's been one hell of a rocky road since then, with last season's League Cup triumph seen as scant consolation for the failure to build on second place in the 2002 title race - Liverpool finished fifth, thereby missing out on the Champions League.

Houllier this season fought a losing battle to keep pace with the new "Big Three" - Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United. And his range of excuses and explanations grew ever larger as even fourth place looked like being lost, before the Reds finally shook off the attentions of the other contenders.

Some commentators believe Houllier, the man, changed during the 2002/03 season - from charming man to thin-skinned man. As criticismmounted, so, it seemed, did Houllier's prickliness.

Should Houllier and his Premiership colleagues be able to rise above and ignore match reports which detail their teams' failings and the sniping by fans on the radio 'phone-ins?

Perhaps, but even football managers are human.

Photocopies of every line of Liverpool news in the papers were delivered to his office each morning. And, rather than engage in informal daily chats at Melwood, he demanded a press officer always be in the room and that all conversations taped.

The levels of paranoia, according to some Pressmen, were frightening. Houllier claimed that anyone who criticised him had an 'agenda', often hinting at xenophobia. He would use an upturn in his team's fortunes to hit back at his supposed enemies.

The impression was of a man who was becoming increasingly fragile, haunted and insecure. And when supporters saw Houllier's final pre-match new conference, ahead of the Newcastle match, they were shocked to see the face of a man which only the Press had previously seen: defensive, angry, immovable and irrational.

Suddenly, the smiling face of the trophy-laden manager of 2001 seemed a world away. Houllier remained defiant to the end but, in the end, the man who gave so much of himself to Liverpool Football Club - some might say he very nearly gave it his own life - simply couldn't give it what it craves most: the Premiership title.

Sometimes, blood, sweat and tears just aren't enough ...

MAY 24
Houllier leaves Liverpool

Sky Sports

Gerard Houllier has officially parted company with Liverpool after weeks of intense speculation regarding his position at Anfield.

Houllier's future has been the subject of intense speculation in the last week as the club prepare for next season.

The Frenchman spent six years with the Merseysiders and overcame a serious heart problem to lead the team to a cup treble in 2001.

However, despite clinching fourth spot in The Premiership and earning a chance to play in next term's UEFA Champions League, the Reds board have decided that the time is right for change at the helm of the club.

Liverpool finished some 30 points behind champions Arsenal and there will now be plenty of anticipation over who will succeed Houllier.

Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry paid tribute to Houllier's impact at Anfield and felt a change was needed to turn the club into serious title contenders.

"After considerable thought and discussion the board have decided to part company with the manager and Gerard has accepted this with typical good grace," said Parry.

"We have always said we would review our position at the end of the season and that is what we have now done.

"Although we have reached the Champions League that is a minimum standard and not a goal.

"For a variety of reasons the board decided that change was necessary if we were to realistically challenge for the title next season.

"But this is not a day for anger, recrimination or speculation. It is a day for dignity and respect and I want to publicly thank Gerard for his considerable achievements during his time in charge.

"We all have very fond memories of the historic treble and the other trophies won but there were many other special occasions and I will personally never forget the reception given to Gerard after he returned from illness for the Champions League game against Roma.

"We had many good times together."

The search will now begin for Houllier's replacement with the likes of Celtic's Martin O'Neill, Charlton's Alan Curbishley and Valencia coach Rafa Benitez all thought to be among the board's top targets.

Thor Zakariassen ©