Football: The Gerard Houllier Years - He Was Sunk by a Sub ; As the Search for Gerard Houllier's Successor As Liverpool Manager Begins, Liverpool Correspondent Chris Bascombe -Whose Reports On the Reds Have Earned Him the Title of North West Sports Reporter of the Year -Looks Back at the Frenchman's Hit-and-Miss Reign

Liverpool Echo › May 24, 2004

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Summary

GERARD HOULLIER'S Liverpool career has ended where it began. Sitting uncomfortably alongside Roy Evans.

History will acknowledge him as a decent man who took the club so far, but ultimately failed to overcome the final hurdle of Premiership glory.

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Extract

Football: The Gerard Houllier Years - He Was Sunk by a Sub ; As the Search for Gerard Houllier's Successor As Liverpool Manager Begins, Liverpool Correspondent Chris Bascombe -Whose Reports On the Reds Have Earned Him the Title of North West Sports Reporter of the Year -Looks Back at the Frenchman's Hit-and-Miss Reign

You can narrow down when it all started to go wrong. Around 9.20pmon April 9, 2002. The venue was Germany.

Dietmar Hamann was subbed against Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions'League quarter-final.

The dip began. It became a blip, turned into a plateau and eventually led the club into a black hole. Liverpool would return to the land of mediocrity.

They led 2- 1 on aggregate during the second half on that promising spring night. They lost 4-3.

The removal of Hamann was an indi...

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