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Gerrard Houllier haunted by Martin O'Neill for a decade

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Big bad John scores at Anfield

The appointment of Gerrard Houllier as manager of Aston Villa will have been met with a wry smile from Martin O’Neill.

For much of Houllier’s troubled time as Liverpool manager, failing to win the Premiership, he was looking over his shoulder fearful of the arrival of O’Neill taking his job.

With every passing failure at Anfield the clamour to replace the blundering Frenchman with the Celtic manager grew.

Liverpool’s soft centre seemed desperately in need of the O’Neill effect. A useful team of losers that constantly fell by the wayside as the pressure increased as another championship headed towards Manchester United.

The contrast between the two men was never more marked than in March 2003 when their clubs were drawn against each other in the quarter-final of the UEFA Cup.

Houllier claimed the spoils in the first leg with a 1-1 draw in Glasgow which put a dampener on the fervour and passion that had greeted his side and the early goal from Henrik Larsson.

The semi-final place seemed certain to be falling to Liverpool with Houllier able to put the threat from O’Neill to rest by seeing off Celtic at Anfield- WRONG!

Goals from Alan Thompson and John Hartson highlighted in his own backyard the failings of Houllier with the profile of O’Neill rising further across the Premiership- and over the Frenchman in particular.

The under fire Houllier constantly voiced his anger at speculation linking O’Neill as his replacement, believing that the campaign was being orchestrated by the Celtic manager.

Even the then Tory leader Michael Howard got in on the act. In January 2004 the Liverpool fan was widely reported to have told guests at a Westminster dinner : “We need O’Neill, but the end of the season is not soon enough. We need him now .”

Looking back at the speculation O’Neill later revealed:”I’d just about had enough. There had been stories going on for weeks, months even, and every time I’d knocked them down and hoped it would all go away.

“Then I saw a piece where Gerard had said Otmar Hitzfeld had immediately denied he would be replacing Sven Goran Eriksson and wondered why I didn’t do the same thing to kill the speculation.

“I told Gerard I was definitely unhappy with his comments. I wasn’t phoning to apologise, I had nothing to apologise for. I told him I hadn’t initiated the speculation, nor had I perpetuated it as he seemed to think by making comments like ‘Martin must have good friends in the Press’.

“In fact, the opposite was the case. I had constantly denied that Liverpool had made direct or indirect contact with me – and had never done so during Gerard’s reign. In fact, on the back of a recent newspaper story, saying I’d met with the Liverpool board, I’ve had to seek legal redress.

“I also told Gerard that no agent claiming to work for me, had made contact – mainly because I don’t have an agent!

“Gerard replied that my constant denials didn’t seem to be migrating south of the border where they could be read in England. I said: ‘I can’t control that’, but that I’d send him a year’s worth of newspaper cuttings and TV snippets where I’d done so constantly.

“By the end of the conversation, I’d hoped he’d accepted my stance. We were talking quite amicably but I had to make sure he heard from me that there had been no first-hand, second-hand or even fifteenth-hand contact between myself and the Liverpool board.

“That remains the same to this day. I haven’t spoken to chief executive Rick Parry or chairman David Moores, and I certainly haven’t solicited any meeting or telephone conversation with them.”

The length, terms and get-out clauses of O’Neill’s contract at Celtic was the subject of constant speculation, interestingly tonight Houllier wouldn’t reveal any details of the length of his Villa contract.

Spinning the Frenchman’s appointment to the Villa supporters will be a major task for the club with fans lukewarm to the appointment.

The Villa website claimed: “But it is for the trophy-laden period at Liverpool that Houllier is best known to followers of the Premier League.

“He won five major trophies overall and achieved second place in the top flight in 2002 – the Reds’ best finish in the Premier League era.”

Like Gordon Strachan at Celtic Houllier is bound to find the shadow of O’Neill hanging over his every move at Aston Villa.

Nine years after surviving heart surgery the new boss of Villa is going to find an old wound with O’Neill re-opened unless he can improve upon his predecessor’s record of sixth placed finishes in The Premiership.

Alan Thompson’s winning feeling

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