Brian Viner: Passing the buck, another long bore Houllier tactic

Was it a character in Shakespeare who said "the old order changeth?" Or was it a character in The Shakespeare, a pub I know on Merseyside? Whatever, I can't remember many weeks like last week, when of the big city clubs in the North-west, it was manifestly more enjoyable to be a fan of Manchester City and Everton than Manchester United and Liverpool.

Despite the home defeat by Charlton on Saturday, City fans haven't yet stepped down from cloud nine after the humbling of United in the last-ever Maine Road derby. And Everton fans are still cheerfully acclimatising to life near the Premiership summit, their happiness to be alive compounded by Liverpool's dramatic exit last Tuesday from the Champions' League.

In my own passion for Everton, however, there has never been a concomitant hatred for Liverpool. I tried to explain this to a Liverpool-hating Evertonian recently and he physically recoiled. Yet, in my formative years, too many of my relatives and friends were Reds for me to wish them ill. In fact on Saturdays when Everton were away and I couldn't get to the game, I used to stand in the Anfield Road End with my friend Pete Venables, grudgingly admiring the undeniably great side of Clemence, Neal, Kennedy A, Thompson, Kennedy R, Hansen, Dalglish, Case, Johnson, McDermott, Souness...

I can reel off those names almost as effortlessly as I can Wood, Darracott, Pejic, Lyons, Higgins, Ross, King, Dobson, Latchford, McKenzie, Thomas.

For the most part, those were the 22 players competing on 28 October 1978 when Andy ("is our") King scored the winner to put an end to seven long years of derby-day inferiority. My admiration for Liverpool didn't stop it being the best afternoon of my young life. But equally, and despite being one of those who for a laugh had bought a Borussia Mönchengladbach scarf outside Goodison Park, I had cheered the year before when Liverpool won the European Cup.

But now, I confess, any lingering fondness for Liverpool is ebbing away fast. Aside from the goal-poaching instincts of Michael Owen and the steadfastness of Sami Hyypia, there is little to admire in their style of play. The elegance and swagger of great Liverpool sides of the past is just that: past. That they lie second in the Premiership seems to me far less to do with their own classiness than the failings of others. Indeed, so confident am I that they will not win the title, that I will dye my hair red if they do. And you can hold me to that.

All of which brings me to last Tuesday, when I almost surprised myself by rooting firmly for FC Basle, and ridiculing the notion, advanced by Clive Tyldesley in his ITV commentary and most newspaper reports the following day, that Liverpool had rallied magnificently. That's akin to lavishing praise on a boxer for beating the count after he has ineptly walked into a right upper-cut.

The plain fact of the matter is that no Liverpool side has ever, in a European campaign, looked as supine as they did in the first half. To be outclassed by Valencia is one thing, but Basle? Bob Paisley must be turning in his grave, Tommy Smith in his back garden.

So who is to take the blame for this costly defeat, and for Liverpool's continuing inadequacy at the top level? Step forward, Gérard Houllier.

Except that he never does; he skips backwards, and pushes someone else forwards, in this instance Steven Gerrard. Houllier reportedly attributed the second-half comeback to his astute pep-talk at half-time, but it was on the hapless Gerrard that he blamed the moribund first-half display.

Remarkably, this was presented by most football writers as another example of Houllier's astute motivational psychology. Rubbish. Not even when Gerrard is on song can he pass the ball like his manager passes the buck. For all his Frenchness, Houllier at times reminds me of a great British institution, the station announcer: signal failure, broken locomotive, cows on the line, the wrong kind of snow... there's always something going on beyond his control.

At least the station announcer can justifiably blame chronic under-investment, which is more than Houllier can. The money he has spent would make Croesus feel like a Big Issue seller, and when the transfer window opens he'll doubtless be at it again (which is another reason for Evertonians to make hay while the sun shines; when the transfer window opens, our club will still be skint).

But don't get me wrong. There is plenty of silverware in the Anfield trophy room to demonstrate that Houllier is a good manager (albeit not the silverware that matters to most Liverpool fans), and there is no doubt that he cares passionately, probably too much in the opinion of his cardiologist.

Moreover, I have spent an hour or so in his company, and he is a hugely personable chap. But people do his buddy Arsène Wenger no favours when they mention the pair in the same breath. Wenger has nothing more to prove; Houllier still has it all, or at least most of it, to do. If he can do it without hunting for scapegoats when things go poire-shaped, so much the better.

b.viner@independent.co.uk