Maybe I’m just being over sensitive, but it really seems that Gérard Houllier is having his words twisted more than I’m used to seeing. It may well be because he’s reputedly more forthcoming with journalists than many managers, certainly than his predecessor, but it would be a shame if he ended up being punished via the media for his candour.

MON was the master of talking and talking, but saying very little. Houllier gets to the point and his wry sense of humour rarely translates to print. It’s a shame really, but we live in a sound bite driven world, people don’t have time or intellect to listen to or read everything. They want bullet points spoon fed to them and many more can’t be bothered to read beyond a headline. A headline which frequently bears little resemblance to the contents below.

I’ve pulled together as much I can from yesterday’s press conference, mostly from the BBC, but augmented with a few sentences from The Guardian and Daily Mirror, and removed all the fluff. The only narrative I’ve added is the subject matter on a couple of paragraphs toward the end as it wouldn’t make much sense otherwise. I’ve also added some emphasis to a few things which have been quote mined.

Gerard Houllier
I’ve read about dissent in the squad over training methods but it is not true. I know it is different to what it was before but it is not true and the players will adapt gradually. We do a lot of work with the ball, we play a lot of games, we do some tactics as well.

Do people have to adapt to a new manager and methods? In a way, yes. You adapt or you die. We are changing a lot of things and that upsets the comfort of some players. I am not going to talk about the players who are dissenting and not happy. Any manager who runs a team knows the players who are playing are happy, and the players who are not playing are not happy. They think the methods are not good and they think the manager is not the right person but we have to live with that.

We know that we are changing things, we know that sometimes people are whingeing and moaning but they have a fantastic job. They are paid high wages to play and enjoy football. This is a fantastic job and sometimes you forget that.

I think the players have to realise they are at a good club, have good facilities and are paid to come to training, get fit and play in games. A lot of people would like that.

On Richard Dunne:
There was not an incident with Richard Dunne. Not at all. I took a football decision not to play him and Cuellar came in and did extremely well and he will be playing against Wigan.

It is not a punishment when you play a behind-closed-doors game to help players keep their fitness. It is a punishment when you don’t play at all, when you are left out, but I had a lot of players who either had not played for a long time or needed a game to restart like Nigel Reo-Coker. We wanted to have that game. We would probably have done it a week or two earlier but because of the snow we couldn’t do it so it was an ideal opportunity to have it with Leicester.

Robert Pires, John Carew, Nathan Delfouneso, Stephen Ireland; all those not involved for a long time played that game. Some we gave 70-80 minutes, others played the full game. It was just an ideal means of training and keeping the match fitness because the problem is the reserves don’t have many games and, because of the weather, a lot of games have been called off.

On Stephen Ireland:
He said he wanted to go in January, to his agent. I’m not convinced, not so sure about that. Have I told him to move? No, no, no. Once a player wants to go, he goes. Simple as that. I think we will be looking to get the same kind of money back. The club probably would.

I said – and I regret to have said – that he should push more, but somebody asked the question and they saw him play. There is a discrepancy in what I see in training and what we see in the game. I told his agent this. He’s got to sort that out. I like the man, the player. He’s got some skill, touch, an eye for a pass, but he’s got to adapt to modern football as well.

On January signings:
Hopefully there will be at least one signing or two. Is that enough? We are surviving this year and also we have got some young players coming up.

I can’t be certain this was the actual order things came up, but I’ve done my best to stitch it together, you have to appreciate almost everything said is a response to a question, he’s not just stood on a soap box pontificating.

There are some slight variances in verbiage from publication to publication here and there. There are also a few other things floating around, but they’ve been removed from their context so it’s impossible to use them with confidence.

War, what is it good for?

I can’t, unlike Ian at News and Views, feel that Sandy Macaskill at the Telegraph was conveying a public declaration of war from Houllier with this:-

The decision over what to do with Ireland, one of Villa’s highest earners yet a player not even making the match-day squad, comes as manager Houllier, keen to assert his authority over senior figures in his squad with whom he has clashed in recent weeks, seeks to identify players he feels he can “go to war with”.

It’s pretty clear he meant in the sense of war ‘alongside‘ rather than ‘against‘ players, but it’s only four of Houllier’s words and 54 of Sandy Macaskill’s, how could I possibly use it to make a point about Houllier? No other source seems to have included it that I can see, you’d think an open declaration of war might crop up quite a lot, no? It might create a headline or two, wouldn’t you think? Pretty incendiary stuff if that were the case.

Anyway, there it all is, as much as I can find and in as much context as I can provide anyway. Once again, there’s nothing that should cause any outrage or concern that I can see. In fact, it’s quite encouraging to me. That’s probably just me though, I have no axe to grind.

Now, could Houllier be a little more guarded? Well yes, sure he could, he even expressed some regret for publicly berating Stephen Ireland, but then pretty much reiterated his criticism right afterward. A critique most sane observers would agree with by the way, but it’s somehow considered unbecoming for the manager to actually say so himself publicly.

I suppose you might describe it as not being ‘media savvy’, but Houllier’s been around the block a few times, I’m sure he knows exactly what he’s saying. That said, from what I can gather, his demeanour at these press conferences seems to be increasingly more irritated and combative. I can’t say I blame him, what a bizarre world we inhabit where he can’t have an honest conversation with journalists who are interested in simply reporting facts.

I wonder how long we have to continue with this cycle, but I suppose results will define that more than common sense. Houllier could be a little circumspect during these press conferences, but the truth is that few will give a monkey’s what he says if we win games.