Bamaga man wrote:Over to you Bobby
Thanks, Bamaga!

Rafa has won the major trophy of Europeasn football. Houllier won the minors, but in numbers and so far has brought us closer tio challenging the league, which is the most important thing here.
We're still talking the first three years of each manager right? And, we do acknowledge that Houllier took over in the summer of 1998 right--even if it was alongside Evans until November? If so, and in terms of cups:
Rafa: 1 Champions League, 1 Supercup, 1 FA Cup, (1 Charity Shield as well but I won't bother with that one)
Houllier: 1 UEFA Cup, 1 FA Cup, 1 League Cup
Pretty even in terms of raw numbers but to me the numbers don't even begin to tell the story. IMHO, winning the champions trumps everything else and the fact that Rafa added the FA Cup the next year cements it--he's been more successful in cup competitions in the first three years than Houllier.
Now, over to the league. In Houllier's first three years we finished 7th (25 points back), 4th (24 points back) and 3rd (11 points back). In Rafa's time, we've finished 5th (37 points back), 3rd (9 points back) and 3rd (21 points back). In my book those numbers are pretty comparable and, since Shanks taught us that only winning matters anyway, quibbling over a few points here or there probably doesn't make sense.
Saint does have a point about the results against the top clubs but Rafa has made us much harder to beat at Anfield than Houllier and has a better winning percentage. But, we could go round and round all day (night for you) and still not agree.
My point is, there is no clear cut evidence that says to me that Houllier had a better first three years in charge of the club than Rafa. We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. Just as well, too, because, as Saint's said, it's really not the point of the thread anyway. As I've already said in this thread, irrespective of how favourably, IMHO, his record compares to Houllier's at the same stage, there is no question in my mind that the rate of progress under Rafa has slowed and that's a source of concern given the fact that our top competitors have not seemed to slacken their pace.