50 Men Who Made LFC: Gerard Houllier
The manager who brought Liverpool into the 21st century, Gerard Houllier's incident-packed six-year reign at Anfield put smiles back on faces and helped re-establish the club as a force in Europe.
Liverpool broke with tradition when appointing him in the summer of 1998. He was the club’s first foreign boss and initially worked alongside Roy Evans in a bold but ill-fated managerial partnership.
Within just a few months Evans had stepped down, leaving Houllier’s French revolution to begin in earnest.
Widely credited with restoring discipline among the squad and modernising the training facilities at Melwood, within three years he had led the club to an unprecedented cup treble.
Success in the league was seen as the natural next step but when that failed to materialise the pressure intensified and he almost paid with his life, suffering a near fatal heart-attack in the course of duty before eventually relinquishing his duties in May 2004.
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