Gerard Houllier's warning to his players
The derby day in the 2nd largest city of England could not match the magic of the derby in North-East between Newcastle United and Sunderland.
In the end, it was a tame goalless draw but one man made the headlines and interestingly, he wasn’t on the pitch for even a second. Stephen Ireland was left on the bench throughout the 90 minutes even though the game was crying out for some creativity.
Houllier surprised everyone when he introduced youngster Barry Bannan in the 57th minute but he explained the decision and his reason behind to prefer the youngster over the more established Stephen Ireland.
“He (Ireland) needs to work harder. He played against Chelsea and did well, then played against Sunderland and was not good enough for me. The skill is one thing but you need to compete. It is a difficult period for him but we will support him and back him.
He's come to a new club with a different manager in between”, Houllier explained.
"We know he is a good player but I don't want to have players who say 'he's a good player but...' If you say: 'he's a good player but he doesn't defend, but he doesn't run back, but he loses too many balls in crucial areas' that's difficult. He needs to
get rid of these 'buts' and be a good player."
Gerard Houllier is an experienced manager who knows that he is the boss and his statement on Sunday has now laid down the law for every player at the club, not just for the poor Stephen Ireland.
Houllier inherited some good players but not enough of them. Too many of them have got ‘but’ against their names. These remarks by the Villa manager will be noticed by every Villa player. It certainly is a pretty clever way to get the message across.
Houllier is still looking at his squad numbers and analyzing the quality he has at his disposal. His appointment was not done at the ideal time, thanks to the departure of Martin O’Neill only 5 days prior to the start of the season.
Derby is not the game to judge your players, he acknowledges the fact that it will take him time and his players too, to get used to each other. During O’Neill’s time, Villa would become one dimensional at times. If they could not break a team down, one
could notice the frustration and the panic creeping into their play.
Houllier is different to O’Neill, he might not allow his team to play as freely as O’Neill did but he can get results out of this team. However, for the time being he has to be content with what he has got and hope that owner Randy Lerner would be opening
his cheque books during the January transfer window.
It is still too early to suggest how Houllier will tackle the job and what changes would he like to bring to the system and to the personnel. One thing is certain, that he will require time and fans will have to be patient.
He has lost his skipper, Stilyan Petrov with a long term injury. He can wait until January to shake up the team according to his requirements; however, it will not be until summer before he can start making major adjustments.
So far, he has done well to introduce youngster Marc Albrighton, who has looked good every time he has played. He is still missing the pace of Gabriel Agbonlahor and rumours that he might like a reunion with Micheal Owen, suggest that he is looking for a
goal poacher.
Houllier has laid down the law; he wants his players to follow his instructions and work hard and get rid of the ‘buts’ from their game. If not, then they will probably need to find a new club.
He has done the right thing and now it’s up to the players to respond. If only Stephen Ireland can have a look at what Houllier did to Danny Murphy, then he too can reap the rewards and take the next step in his career.
Houllier has laid down the marker and now it’s up to the players to stand up and be counted.
Tags: