Houllier Pleased With Progress

Gerard Houllier has said he has been pleased with the progress of the squad since joining and although a lot of things are being done differently the players are enjoying it.

Speaking on the Official Site Gerard said he was aiming for the squad to adopt the 3 P’s, a simple set of guidelines that he sees as intrinsic in improving us…Progress, Performance and Pleasure.

‘This is a different team, even though we have the same players. We are doing things differently. We know that the players enjoy it, that’s the main thing.’

Houllier adds that part of it is simply keeping the players engaged in new methods, and points out himself it’s pretty pointless to have players working on things reluctantly but thankfully that isn’t the case.

‘You have to feel responsible and know what they like. I am not asking them for things they can’t do. I am asking for things they can do and it was my aim to convince them they can do it. I could see in training they had hidden skills.’

Houllier is most impressed with the mental changes within the team and he believes that fans are now seeing the rewards of that on the pitch, especially with our last three games.

‘The team has made some progress in terms of football because mentally – it wasn’t their fault – but too many things happened. We had to reshuffle, get together and I think the mental side of it has been interesting.’

As for the performances themselves Gerard thinks ‘it clicked’ against Wolves and our quality of play has been improving ever since.

‘I am adamant we need to go down that route because it will bring more results in the long run and it will bring more enjoyment both to the spectators and to the players.’

So nice to hear stories of a happy club again, it seems everybody is certainly singing from the same hymn sheet now and our performances are definitely improving. Whether we can keep that going and whether or not Houllier can work some magic in the transfer window to improve us further only time will tell but it’s looking good at the moment.

Vital Villa on:

Vital Villa on: