When I saw the teamsheet for today’s derby game I leapt to the assumption that Gérard Houllier was going to use a 5-4-1 system with Collins, Dune and Clark as a three man central defensive team. As it turned out, Ciaran Clark would play just in front of the back line in a holding midfield role that raised just as many eyebrows.

Perhaps not at Clark playing such a role, he’s surely an assured and skillful player with the ball at his feet, but his inclusion in the middle came at the expense of Stephen Ireland. Ireland hasn’t impressed as part of a central midfield duo and when finally given the opportunity to play as the attacking point of a triangle backed by Reo-Coker and Petrov at Sunderland he didn’t fare much better.

In fact, Houllier brought Ireland off after 55 minutes and later said that he “looked lost”.

Today, during the second half, I said in the usual Twitter based match chatter that the game was crying out for some creativity and was set up for Stephen Ireland to come on and deliver on the potential he’s shown. Instead though, and this might have raised eyebrows further, GH decided to bring on Barry Bannan in place of Steve Sidwell just shy of the hour mark.

Naturally, when you leave a player of Ireland’s stature on the bench in favour of a youngster just breaking into the first team (twice) there will be questions asked in the post-match press conference. Houllier didn’t dodge them and was brutally honest:-

Gerard Houllier
He 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.

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.

That’s the most complete quote I’ve seen, it’s been broken up and will be used for soundbites, but it’s still pretty brutal. It’s also not unfair in any way I think.

I’ve expressed my frustration with Stephen Ireland here already. He’s clearly a very talented player, although he might be what is frequently described as a “confidence player” and Houllier’s public criticism could go one of two ways.

Ireland will either take it on board, work hard and deliver on his promise, or will go off the rails, end up transferred and disappear into football oblivion. Well, okay, that might be overstating it a little, but it’s easy to see him heading into obscurity if he doesn’t get his act together.

What is most frustrating is that he could be exactly what we’re missing in the middle of the park skill wise, but, while I’d never expect him to be at Milner levels in terms of application, he does need to put himself about an awful lot more.

It’s very much up to him, but it certainly appears that Houllier’s far less likely to stick by under-performing players in the same way Martin O’Neill did and, as Phil McNulty suggests in his blog, that ought to stand as fair warning to everyone in the squad.

Except Richard Dunne. Obviously. Well how else do we explain Carlos Cuellar’s exclusion?