Hou's the over-achiever?

I’ve been reading Paul Tomkins’ latest book Play as You Pay which, as well as proving the link between transfer outlay and League success, assesses all Premiership managers based on the resources at their disposals. On the whole, it enables fairer assessments of managers away from media or fan bias by allocating League placings to each team in each Premiership season ranked according to overall cost of squad with prices updated to reflect inflation by applying a Current Transfer Purchase Price (CTPP) to each player.

The evidence suggests that Gerard Houllier in fact overachieved in his time at Anfield – a theory directly opposed to my own objective belief.

One factor I am not convinced the book deals with adequately is the free transfer. In theory, based on the cost of Houllier’s average XI over 1998-99, the team should have ranked 10th making 7th look like an over-achievement. However, the squad Houllier inherited from Evans included Robbie Fowler, Michael Owen, Steve McManaman, Dominic Matteo, Jamie Carragher, David Thompson and Steven Gerrard – all youth players signed for a combined cost of £0.

According to the model, less should be expected of a Man Utd midfield of Beckham, Scholes, Keane and Giggs (combined cost of £20.9m – all of which was spent on Roy Keane) than of a midfield containing McManaman (£0m), Redknapp (£2.1m), Ince (£13m) and Berger (£10m) at a combined cost of £25.1m. Begrudgingly, I would say that Man Ure midfield is the greatest midfield four I have ever witnessed and while it contributed to winning the treble of Premiership, FA Cup and European Cup in Houllier’s first campaign at Liverpool that Liverpool midfield huffed and puffed and flattered to deceive.

If you actually looked at what that United midfield was worth rather than what was paid for it, I would probably have cost at least three times more Liverpool’s and as such expectations of that United midfield were greater than those on the more expensively assembled midfield at Liverpool.

A Liverpool team featuring Steve McManaman (£0m) is stronger on paper than if he was replaced with Vladimir Smicer (£9m) while Michael Owen (£0m) made the team stronger than Milan Baros (£4.7m) or El Hadji Diouf (£17.9m). The Owen Houllier inherited was worth around £50m CTPP while Fowler was sold for £15.1m CTPP a couple of years later so surely to base expectations on the fact that Liverpool fielded two free strikers is misleading.

Houllier inherited a very decent squad of players that needed tweaking rather than the wholesale changes he brought about. He allowed decent home grown players to be sold or given away and replaced them with inferior foreigners with little or no resale values leaving a team with assets of limited value on the pitch and no money to reinvest.

His overachievements were getting the job in the first place and then hanging onto it for as long as he did. Reminds me of the current manager.