Gerard Houllier has finally been confirmed as new permanent manager at Aston Villa, succeeding Martin O’Neill. He has resigned from his position of technical director at FFF.
I’ve put together a mini-biography here and compiled his Premier League statistics while at Liverpool here for anyone who is interested.
Gerard Houllier
I am very happy and proud to join this great and historic club. It was a very difficult decision for me to leave the FFF [French Football Federation] but I could not
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I thought I’d pull together a Gerard Houllier mini-biography of sorts while we wait for the inevitable announcement, expected sometime very soon.
Lens & PSG 1982 – 1988
A significant part of Houllier’s playing and early management career took place in Le Touquet, a small town near Calais that many English holidaymakers will know fairly well, but his first appointment of note was at Lens in 1982 for what would be their fourth season in Ligue 1 following promotion in 1979.
Houllier guided
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I suppose it’s a little like the Milner deal now: it seems certain that Gerard Houllier will be joining Aston Villa, it’s just a question of finalising the details. To that end, the latest word from the street suggests the Frenchman will be joining as the new manager, not a technical director, but I’ll leave worrying about the details until we actually know what they are.
In the meantime, I’ve seen one or two people throwing their weight behind Houllier
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Sporting director, technical director, director of football, general manager. Take your pick, all the same thing. I elected to avoid the director of football tag in the headline as it’s frequently been used in England and without success enough that just the mention of the term leads to assumptions of unavoidable failure.
It’s a system that’s been used in Europe for many years though and in places is regarded as the norm. Quite why it hasn’t taken hold in
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