I rake up the barney because both men are still pained by it. However, the team performed inconsistently in the qualifying stages, and finally faced Bulgaria in Paris, still needing only a draw to qualify. At 1-1, with less than a minute to go, everything went poire-shaped. The substitute, David Ginola, gifted the ball to Emil Kostadinov, who scored the killer goal. Houllier, reportedly, was so furious with Ginola that he branded him “a criminal.”In football terms, with France the reigning world champions and Ginola’s international career long finished, this is all ancient history.

Michel believed that football at the top level was about detail, even the position of the players’ feet at set-pieces.”In 1992, Houllier succeeded Platini as head coach, and was firmly expected to guide France to the 1994 World Cup finals. If anyone has been his inspiration, it was the Noeux manager, Guy Debeugly “He was so clever and progressive,” Houllier recalls. “He was 20 years ahead of everyone else.” When Debeugly retired, Houllier took over, and gradually acquired a reputation himself for progressive thinking and tactical acumen. He moved to Lens, guided them into Europe in his first year there, then won the league title in his second season with Paris St Germain. In 1988, he was invited to coach the national team as assistant to the great Michel Platini What did he learn from Platini? “Detail. “Nobody knows everything about football but I am prepared to live and die by my ideas,” he says.Those ideas began to take shape at Noeux-les-Mines, an unfashionable club in northern France, which Houllier joined as assistant manager in the mid-1970s. But not even Tommy Smith, sticking the boot in, will easily deflect this admirable, purposeful man – who never played professional football himself – from his methods.

Off the top of my head I can think of Alan Hansen, Mark Lawrenson, Ian St John, Graeme Souness, Mark Wright, Kenny Dalglish, David Fairclough, Steve McMahon, and for that matter Kevin Keegan, not to mention Tommy Smith, author of some studs-up diatribes in the Liverpool Echo No wonder Houllier is sensitive to their criticism. I don’t take myself very seriously.”Now that he mentions it, he’s dead right, an inordinate number of ex- Liverpool players are regularly employed as football pundits. And there is a tradition of success so present in people’s minds that it makes expectations even higher Also, the local media were frustrated. They used to travel everywhere with this club and now they were going nowhere. And remember, too, that there is no club in England with so many former players involved in press, or TV, or radio Leeds? No Arsenal? No. But Liverpool? Ooooh! I can name more than 10 pundits who used to play for Liverpool and they are all telling me what to do and what not to do Woooh! You’re the first journalist to say that to me It is not an ordinary job.

It is not like being manager of Aston Villa.” So how does he cope with the pressure? “I try to take some breaks And humour helps. Having maintained an almost English level of self-possession, Houllier suddenly becomes all animated and Gallic.”Ooffff!” he says, flinging his arms in the air “When I took a job here, I broke the boot room tradition That was the first handicap. With me, by contrast, he is affable and charming although a little guarded, until I suggest that Liverpool’s rich heritage, while obviously a source of pride to him, must also be something of a millstone. Ince, for one, did not want to leave, and told the press that he had been tempted to punch the manager in the face. This was testimony, if nothing else, to the 52-year-old Frenchman’s toughness. Mobile phones were banned from Melwood, an edict I myself fall foul of on arrival. “You can’t use them in here, pal,” the gateman grunts.
Not only did Houllier get rid of mobile phones, he also, more significantly, got rid of the alleged troublemakers.