One R or Two: Gerrard versus Gerard
By Cam and Steve Kelly
From Issue 59, Winter 2002
All the concern for Steven Gerrard did not start
just after the Basle game – this has been
going for fourteen months or so. The press he
received after the Germany game went to his head
a little bit and his form dipped slightly. The
shit he got from them after he had a few late
drinks almost a week before the Greece game knocked
the game out of him.
He went through an awful time on the pitch and
should have been dropped. An injury crisis on
the right meant he had to be picked there –
where he was consistently crap. He then had a
very average run-in to the end of the season back
in the centre. That level of form has carried
on into this season. He’s been ‘rested’
then brought back. He has contributed to a number
of ‘leaked’ goals and indirectly to
a few more (including all three at Basle).
I’m his biggest fan but he deserved to be
dropped on form alone, particularly when Hamann,
Murphy and Diao are performing so well - but there
are also concerns about effort, application and
confidence.
We know he’s always been trying the “Hollywood”
ball when a simple pass was on, but he’s
also stopped running. He doesn’t track back.
He’s not running forward, either. He’s
never really been one to get into the box, but
he’d always get on the edge and have a crack.
All good football is based on Pass & Move
– and he’s not doing either at the
moment.
So whether it’s drink, nightclubs, a girlfriend,
a break-up, a gangster’s wife, dickhead
mates, a family illness that this alleged “problem”
behind the scenes – he still needs to concentrate
more on his game.
Some have said it’s unfair that Houllier
has never criticised Heskey or Murphy or even
Owen in this way. First of all, their work ethic
was usually spot-on (even if nothing else was)
and Owen, despite his goal drought, was in great
form and his attitude could never be faulted.
Some say it was unfair to do it in public. As
I said straight off, this has been going on for
14 months. GH has had private words, encouraging
as well as bollocking. The staff has had words
with him. Senior pro’s like Hyypia and Hamann
have had a chat. Alan Kennedy has said even he
and Rushie have had a private word at Houllier’s
request. What else was left?
This was a last resort by the manager. The player
likes to read about himself (is he Posh in disguise?)
and likes the media attention. This was a very
public cul-de-sac. Sure. It’s a gamble that
may blow up in Houllier’s face, but it’s
up to Stevie now. He hasn’t seemed interested
all season. I’m not saying it’s deliberated,
but it’s got to end. If this doesn’t
work, then we’re better off without him.
CAM (via the web-site forum)
A lot of good points made there, but I still
think it was a bad thing to do – yet another
indication that the manager’s finely-tuned
sense of self-preservation comes before his own
much-touted “team first” philosophy.
I’m not totally against players being publicly
hauled over the coals, you understand. The general
consensus now seems to be that Steve was given
plenty of private warnings, none of which were
heeded. There have been plenty of other examples
of talented young footballers going off the rails,
and for a manager who can claim to have reversed
the ‘Me’ culture at Anfield any sign
of rebellion was bound to be stamped on swiftly.
It was the timing, and previous managerial lapses,
that concerned me the most. Those who read the
editorial and diary will know I’ve become
fascinated with Gerard’s unique talent for
putting his foot in his mouth, whether he’s
piling praise on himself or heaping criticism
on anyone but. He always used to have the odd
little turn now and then, but since his return
from illness the number of idiotic comments seems
to have increased. “Ten games from greatness”,
“you keep possession, we’ll keep the
result”, “no, it wasn’t wrong
to sub Didi” (it bloody well was), “I’ll
tell Alex how to beat Bayer Leverkusen”
(even though you couldn’t), “D’ya
know who we need? Lee Bowyer!”, “unhappy
players are a cancer”, “Henchoz’s
an unsung hero”, “I rated Baros but
my staff didn’t”, “the Valencia
game was too much for Diouf” – and
now this.
We should be getting used to his style of management
by now, but it has become a little unnerving how
many times Houllier asks us to take his side against
an individual player. Ultimately, that’s
how it should be, of course. He runs the show,
and it’s his neck on the block if anything
goes wrong. It’s still interesting to count
the number of furious Internet debates about whether
a particular player was ill-treated or not: Fowler,
Litmanen, Camara, Westerveld, Thompson, Anelka,
Diouf. That’s before we get onto the still-prickly
issue of whatever possessed him to chase Bowyer
in the first place. And now it’s Steven
Gerrard’s turn. I wouldn’t be at all
surprised if John Arne Riise was next up on the
chopping block.
Each individual case can be argued persuasively,
I’ll grant you that – but look at
the number of times it’s happening. Brian
Reade, not Gerard’s biggest supporter it
must be said, put it best when he wrote “MY
FAULT – the two words Houllier cannot say”,
and he’s absolutely spot on.
Let’s really get into the full text of what
Gerard told journalists the day after the Basle
debacle. The printout I was sent came from an
article by Henry Winter, so I assume it was originally
in the ‘Telegraph’. Let’s not
have any of that “word-twisting hack scum”
subterfuge. Winter is one of the good guys, so
there’s no hint of a stitch-up here. It’s
not an isolated comment blown out of proportion,
it’s more or less a tirade. And no-one,
not even the usual GH derriere-smoochers, is denying
that it’s something Gerard has done on purpose.
The more you read this thing, the more you wonder
whether it was simply an attempt to shock Stevie
out of his complacency - or something a bit more
sinister.
“Once a player thinks ‘I am king of
the world’, there is difficulty and danger”.
So far, so not-so-good. “The problem isn’t
physical. He didn’t go to the World Cup,
so he can’t say he’s tired”.
No, but you can say this is a young lad whose
fitness problems have been a matter of record
for two years, who had also been stretchered off
during an England game a month before.
“Maybe it is a matter of his environment”
………now Houllier later denied
that he’d made any comments about Gerrard’s
social life but, like Boateng’s “brethren”
comment about Nicky Barmby, surely the manager
must have seen how his words could be interpreted
as such? It certainly sparked off a stream of
Internet lunacy, involving underage sex, family
feuds, gangland ransoms, drugs – and all
of it could easily have been avoided. Bluenose
taxi drivers must have had a field day!
Then there was stuff about “you notice it
more in a good team like ours” – this
just after the lowest ranked CL side had raced
into a 3 goal lead against us, so how “good”
that actually makes us is unclear. We’ve
been top and the results have been great, but
only the sycophantic could possibly believe that
our football merited such results. Compared to
last season, the performances of players like
Dudek, Riise, Hyypia, Heskey and even Owen have
also been below par at times, so clearly Steven
Gerrard is not the only one performing below his
best.
“I gave Stevie five times the opportunity
to show my trust in him”………well,
look, I’m not going to be a smartarse here
because my French is utterly appalling! Still
and all, “5 times” isn’t a significant
run (and not always in central midfield, either)
for a player to rectify the current flaws in his
game. If we wanted to be really mean about it,
we could mention a certain striker who was given
about 20-30 matches in a row last season before
he actually managed to start scoring in any acceptable
games-to-goals ratio at this level. Houllier has
often had to fend off accusations of favouritism,
and a plea of guilty wouldn’t come as a
complete surprise after this.
Then it got truly surreal. This is a first for
me, and maybe there are more anally retentive
Reds around who can recall the last time a Liverpool
manager attacked one of his own players by deliberately
listing the games he’d appeared in (and
we’d lost) and compared them to the games
he’d missed (and we’d won). It’s
a new one on me. “Without him the team beat
Leeds and Spartak in a very efficient way”
………”I brought him back
for Tottenham, Valencia and Middlesbrough”.
It is at this point that the charge of Scapegoat-ism
is strongest. He didn’t play here –
we won. He did play there – we lost. How
can anyone not come to the conclusion that Gerrard
was actually being BLAMED for the bad results?
And how come the 3-1 Worthington Cup win over
Southampton (when Stevie captained the side!)
was omitted? If you’re gonna start spewing
out facts and figures – and Le Boss sure
loves his stats – then let’s hear
the whole story. Or does Houllier only like ‘facts’
so long as they say what he wants to hear?
“Players need managers when they are going
through a bad spell – he cannot say we haven’t
been supportive”. Saying that during what
amounts to a public roasting is laughable. “I
don’t know if he’s a listener, but
he must be a good reader”. Henry Winter
kindly added the words “of headlines”
in brackets at the end, just in case the manager’s
snottiness hadn’t been completely clear
to the Telegraph’s readers. Winter also
added a few paragraphs of his own further on.
“Some may see Houllier’s comments
as a plan to deflect attention away from the manager’s
own tactical mistakes against Basle” –
now there’s a thought………
And it wasn’t just Basle, actually. A lot
of fans thought the boss had screwed up at Middlesbrough
too. Top of the league by four points: were McClaren’s
side really deserving of such respect? The verbal
diarrhoea poured out after that fiasco, too. “I
thought we controlled the game” –
sorry, Gerard, but you were the only one who did.
So the invective unleashed against Gerrard really
did seem as if he didn’t want people to
look too closely at his team selection, and he
needed a distraction.
Gerrard wasn’t given a chance to challenge
the manager’s words where it would done
have most good – on the pitch. If the verbal
battering really had been for his own good, why
deny him a chance to hit back straight away? Riise
was also dropped for the Sunderland game, and
you start to flinch slightly because it began
to look as if he’d also cop for some flak.
He was many fans’ Player of the Year last
season, a thrilling left-sided midfielder who
scored some memorable goals. He has barely featured
in that role this season, but another player has
– Emile Heskey. Now if we were to take a
poll and ask everyone who they think SHOULD play
in that position, how many hands would be raised
for Emile? Only ones with six fingers………but
have you noticed that the Riise song, so popular
six months ago, is never heard any more? Maybe
that’s a good thing? Maybe John was starting
to think he was “king of the world”,
too?
It started a week of headlines, claims and counterclaims.
It was great copy for the press leeches who’d
normally get zero respect from any of us. We couldn’t
beat Sunderland, but Gerard had his stats ready
for any complaints. In fact, they were the same
ones he produced after Middlesbrough. We can’t
be boring, we’ve had more goal attempts
than anyone except Manchester United. Taken to
its ‘logical’ conclusion, that makes
us more entertaining that Arsenal, yes? Well,
we’ll abstain from this vote because of
our natural bias, but let’s give the nation
a chance to choose who they’d rather watch
between us and Arsenal………on
second thoughts, let’s not.
Saying such a thing after the rubbish that was
served up at the Riverside was only slightly less
ludicrous than the “control” quote.
We were credited with ELEVEN goal attempts at
Middlesbrough, but in all seriousness can anyone
name one of any note, apart from Heskey’s
stretch late on? That such a statistic is Houllier’s
proof that we’re not boring would normally
defy belief, if it weren’t for the fact
that we’re getting used to such far-fetched
claims now.
The manager’s call for unity after Sunderland
took everything into Lewis Carroll territory.
After he’d singled out one of his own players
for special public criticism after a result that
could have far-reaching consequences for the club
(and thus for Houllier’s job), to then ask
everyone for a show of solidarity is utter hypocrisy.
“There are times when you go through difficult
periods as a club and that’s when you need
everyone to stick together” – it’s
a shame he didn’t heed his own philosophy
a week before that.
He also drew attention to the fact that we did
not boo the team after Sunderland. Things really
have taken a weird turn when you have to thank
the fans because they didn’t have a riot
after a 0-0 home draw! Are we really so pathetic,
so spoilt, so demanding? Or are there other factors
at work here? In the cold light of day, Gerard
is absolutely right: we are in a very good position,
still in Europe in a way and almost top of the
Premiership after two very good seasons. It seems
strange that this can be called a “difficult
period”.
In-depth examination shows otherwise. Liverpool’s
support is split three ways – not equally,
but there are three definite groups. Group One
is absolutely thrilled with everything: the manager
is a genius and never wrong, the football is good
to watch and everything’s just hunky dory.
Shut your fucking prattle, boo boys, or piss off
to Goodison where you belong.
Group Two is a little less enchanted, but is mindful
that results have been very good. They’re
not too pleased with the kind of football that
Liverpool play, and if they were being honest
they’d admit they haven’t been happy
for a couple of years now – but they’re
delighted we’re involved in the title race,
and made up that we were in the Champions League.
So they’re gonna turn a blind eye. For now.
And then there’s Group Three, the miserable
bastards who are never satisfied. At least that’s
how we’re always portrayed. Another way
of looking at it is that we don’t accept
any old propaganda. Houllier isn’t perfect.
We don’t have to play this way in order
to win. Just because we have 11 attempts at goal
on Teesside doesn’t mean that it wasn’t
an excruciating experience. And Emile Heskey will
never be a left-sided midfielder as long as he
has a hole in his arse. I’ll keep quiet
while Group 1 whines on and on about what I know
in comparison to Houllier, Eriksson or O’Neill
– I’ve heard it all before (and the
“you want Evans back” shite, too).
But it’s not people like me or the Mirror’s
Brian Reade who are the problem. It’s the
fans from Group Two, the blind-eye merchants.
They’ll accept what’s going on as
long as we win. To outsiders, it may look as if
Liverpool fans get shirty far more quickly than
anyone else, but there’s a lot of bottled-up
frustration out there. Liverpool’s football
is results-oriented, it has no other purpose.
And if we’re not winning, then there is
NOTHING else to commend it. That’s when
the middle group starts to act up. Liverpool fans
didn’t get angry last season merely because
we couldn’t beat Southampton at home –
it was the manner of the draw, and the culmination
of weeks of percentage football that didn’t
even produce wins!
And let me state quite clearly that I don’t
think it’s all Houllier’s fault. There’s
also the greed of the players, and the club’s
desperation for success to pay what is now an
obscene wage bill. Elimination from the European
Cup is no longer the cue for sadness and a shrug
of the shoulders. After all, you can’t win
every game. No, the draw with Basle sent a shudder
through this club, and if we are not in the top
4 come May 2003 I honestly think heads could roll.
We’re not in Leeds’ precarious position
yet, but there is definitely huge pressure on
the manager to secure results at any cost. There’s
an awful lot of money at stake. That could also
explain why our morality went out of the window
during the Bowyer saga.
Look at the start of this season. We were playing
with greater attacking freedom, but we weren’t
taking our chances and we weren’t devoting
all of our attention to defensive solidity. Points
were dropped through carelessness, but that was
only to be expected during what would have to
have been a period of transition. And don’t
kid yourselves that it isn’t necessary:
we are not going to become one of the best sides
in Europe by continuing with the cautious style
of the last two or three years. We have to change.
But what can the manager do? He can see how the
players aren’t used to taking their chances.
The draw with Sunderland was put down to bad luck,
but the finishing was poor. The opposition goalkeeper
was lionised out of all proportion to what he
actually did. 24 attempts at goal, and he made,
what, three great saves? We hit the bar and one
was cleared off the line. That makes 19 attempts
that didn’t push him too much or didn’t
even hit the target.
That’s feeble, and not uncommon. Newcastle
and Birmingham should also have been battered,
but they weren’t. We have to keep playing
like this, though, because the players can’t
practise taking chances in high-pressure situations
– not unless 40,000 of us turn up at Melwood
and shout “HIT IT!!!” just before
they’re about to shoot. Ironically, it was
Basle who made GH run for cover. We hammered them
too, but could only draw. The next game was at
City; grab a goal, shut up shop, hit them on the
break. 3-0. Houllier decides we’ll go back
to what he knows works, and in truth we haven’t
seen a lot of good football since then.
But it only works up to a point, and we were “found
out” by Valencia. That’s no disgrace,
they’re a quality team, but we’d been
on a knife edge for a good long while before that.
It could have gone either way: we’d start
producing performances to match the results, or
results to match performances. As I write, the
recent record is W2 D2 L2. Not devastating, but
the wins were against West Ham (who are awful)
and Southampton (in a competition no-one cares
about).
So the pressure’s on, and I believe that’s
why the manager attacked Gerrard like he did.
It’s not something we haven’t been
saying ourselves, in fairness. Steve has been
showboating for a lot of this season, always looking
for the killer pass instead of a good short pass
– but even that could be put down to the
way the team is asked to play. Long passes, throw
ins and free kicks have become the regular source
for Liverpool nowadays. Check the Treble video
– half the goals come from set pieces or
a long ball, but nobody was complaining then,
nor were there moans about Stevie G at Leeds or
Ipswich last season. What we were moaning about
was the inaccuracy of the passing, not the fact
that he was trying it at all. And if his form
is woeful, then who is it who selects him for
the team? I’ll give you a clue: it’s
the same bloke who threw El Hadji into the lion’s
den at Valencia, then complained that he wasn’t
up to the job. I’m sure that was also for
Diouf’s own good…………
So what do we want? Well, a bit of consistency.
Team First should also apply to the manager. I’m
not asking for a blinkered refusal to accept criticism
and a wave of obscenities – the words “Ferguson”
and “Veron” and “fucking great
player” spring to mind – but if Gerard
is not yet aware that the press is out to slaughter
us for every fragment of discord it can snuffle
out, then he is a very stupid man indeed. When
he hands it to them on a plate, deliberately,
the result is not pretty and we are still feeling
the after-effects. If he has a squad of players
who are wondering who will be sacrificed next,
success will slip through our fingers. And it
will be Gerard Houllier himself who pays the ultimate
price.
SK
Ps, after I wrote this I went and had a look
at the 2001/02 video. For someone who “had
an awful time on the pitch”, he seems to
have made a crucial input to the season. Some
of the passes (Old Trafford and Stadium of Light,
to name but two) were match winners, and without
the second goal in Kiev, we’d have been
knocked at the first stage last season too.
There was also the alarming drop in the
team’s performance at White Hart Lane, when
Gerrard was missing – or is arbitrarily
picking out moments and ‘coincidences’
the sole preserve of the manager nowadays?
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