Jamie Carragher has been looking back on Liverpool's treble-winning 2000-01 treble-winning campaign
Jamie Carragher has been looking back on Liverpool's treble-winning 2000-01 treble-winning campaign
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It is 25 years since Liverpool's remarkable treble-winning campaign. The Reds followed their dramatic victories in the League Cup and FA Cup finals with a thrilling 5-4 success over Alaves in the UEFA Cup showpiece in Dortmund on May 16, 2001.
For Blood Red magazine, Gareth Roberts had the chance to sit down with a key member of Gerard Houllier's team, Anfield legend Jamie Carragher, to get his memories on the season to remember, a quarter of a century on.
And for Liverpool ECHO subscribers, we're now publishing the brilliant Q&A. You can read the first part by clicking HERE.
And here is part two. Enjoy!
Gareth Roberts: I was going to say that because they (Manchester United) hadn’t been beaten at home for two years. We hadn’t won there since 1990. I can remember Houllier saying ‘we will beat them’ because it almost felt like a bit of a hoodoo. I worked in Manchester at the time and the amount of stick I got. So to go in after a win there was brilliant.
Jamie Carragher: Where Houllier was good, say in a team meeting, he’d know when was the last time we did the double over them. So he’d go, this hasn’t happened since 1975. You can create history today. He was like that in team meetings, you know what I mean? It was all about motivation, really. Him and Benitez were totally different.
Benitez was a tactical football man. He wasn’t a great motivator. He never changed the way he spoke. He never got emotional, never got too high, never got too low. He just spoke to you the same, no matter if was telling you he’d done something good or bad. But Houllier was very emotional. Tactically, it wouldn’t be about ‘change this’ and ‘move in there’ and all that type of stuff. It was more motivation.
GR: Do you think that season in general just made it feel like Liverpool was Liverpool again almost, you know what mean? Because I think for us as fans going to games we’d heard all about nights out and European trips and all that, but obviously we hadn’t been in a European final since 1985. It kind of felt like we were back on the map. It felt like the start of something.
JC: Yeah, I think every five to six years, it feels like a new generation of Liverpool fans come along and the older ones fall off. The 90s isn’t amazing for Liverpool, is it, to be honest about it. So you’ve got fans who’ve started then and not seen too much and then you’ve got sort of that new generation. It’s not people saying, oh, Dalglish and Rush and Barnes and all that. No, we’re onto a new set of people who can’t remember that now. So that was their first moment, their time. I think that’s one of the problems now and a problem for Slot in that you’ve got a new generation who’ve been following since Klopp came in and don’t know anything else besides unbelievable and that’s where a lot of criticism comes for Slot because you’ve got a generation of supporters probably active on social media who don’t know anything else.
But that’s what it felt like; this is our time. That’s what it felt like, especially in the cup final, against Arsenal, that was just mad.
GR: Coming back to the squad again, it’s brilliant, there’s all kinds of talent in that, but if you would say like maybe one or two players who were underrated by everyone?
JC: Henchoz. Great defender. Brilliant defender. He was a great player for Liverpool and probably not remembered that much because Sami Hyypia was obviously amazing. But Henchoz every game was solid and just a great defender, getting in blocks and stuff like that. It was weird what happened to Stephane because Houllier went mad at the end and just started playing Biscan at centre-half and Henchoz was on the bench. He’s not even put me centre-half, you were like ‘what is he doing?’ But his Liverpool career just finished and that was mad, really. He a was really good player for Liverpool.
CARDIFF, UNITED KINGDOM: Liverpool's Swiss player Stephan Henchoz holds aloft the FA Cup trophy after his team beat Arsenal in the final at The Millennium Stadium in Cardiff 12 May 2001. Liverpool won the game 2-1 after Michael Owen scored two late goals to seal the victory. (Photo credit should read ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images)
Stephan Henchoz holds aloft the FA Cup trophy after his Liverpool team beat Arsenal in the final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff 12 May 2001(Image: ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP via Getty Images)
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GR: The main thing people seem to mention him for in this season is handballing it in the FA Cup final.
JC: Yeah, yeah, but you think of those years of Henchoz and Hyypia – that was a proper partnership, that, you only have to look at the defensive numbers from the time.
GR: I was going to mention Emile Heskey – this season he is brilliant; 22 goals in all competitions.
JC: The biggest compliment you can give him is that we had four strikers and if you’re asking people to list them in terms of quality, 99 per cent of people are putting Heskey fourth but it was always Heskey and one other. That’s what that season was, basically. Heskey was always playing – it was who played with him.
GR: The goals in all competitions that season are Michael Owen got 24, Heskey 22, Robbie Fowler got 17, Steven Gerrard got 10 and Danny Murphy got 10. I think Murphy is another who is maybe underrated?
JC: Yeah, I say that all the time, very underrated Danny Murphy. You know, in terms of the goals he’d get, play different positions. The stick he used to get off the crowd, you know, sometimes….he wasn’t a great athlete and that’s maybe where it came from. But he’s always one for me.
I get people telling me other midfielders Liverpool have had are great, but I’m thinking Danny Murphy got 10 goals in a season and was scoring winners at Goodison and at Old Trafford. He took penalties, he scored free kicks, he was part of a teams that won things. I’ve got people telling me Naby Keita is a good player and I’m like f**k off!
GR: What about Steven Gerrard that season? When you look back at his time at Liverpool there were phases of it – this one was Young Player of The Year, skinhead, epitome of Scouse almost, and he always talks about Gary Mac being really influential on him that year.
JC: He played a bit everywhere, Stevie. Sometimes Houllier played him right midfield, sometimes centre midfield in a two but we used to play a diamond a lot. You’d have Stevie to the right, Danny to the left or Patrik Berger, Didi Hamann holding and you might have Smicer. If we played Man U, he always played that. So I’m picturing Stevie scoring that goal against Man U – he’s very narrow on the right.
But he was a machine wasn’t he? The one game he probably looks back on in his career from this season is the cup final against Vieira because it was almost like we as a team were trying to challenge Arsenal and Man United.
And him as a player, he was probably trying to challenge Vieira and Keane. It was a thing for him where he thought, I’ve still got another place to go here, I’ve got another level to go. We all have that as players.
Sometimes something’s going along and then ‘ooh’ – it just puts you on your back foot a little bit. But he was unbelievable. As you say there were different versions of him and what version do you like. There’s probably a lot of people who liked this version – it’s the skinhead, isn’t it? Scouser, Huyton. The quiff hasn’t come yet, has it? The big side part.
10 Apr 2001: Emile Heskey of Liverpool celebrates his goal with Steven Gerrard during the FA Carling Premiership game between Ipswich Town v Liverpool at Portman Road, Ipswich. Mandatory Credit: Jamie McDonald/ALLSPORT
Emile Heskey celebrates his goal with Steven Gerrard during the game between Ipswich Town v Liverpool(Image: Jamie McDonald/ALLSPORT)
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GR: The Old Trafford game, Danny Murphy’s free kick – it’s a Gary Neville handball as well, your mate!
JC: Yeah, he was playing centre-half. He always made mistakes at centre-half against us. I think he was really bad in the reverse fixture as well. He was the centre-half that day. I think he does something, slips and then Robbie Fowler comes in and scores.
He was rubbish against us actually. He gave a penalty away against us as well at Old Trafford on Stevie and Danny Murphy got the winner.
GR: Another thing that gets brought up a lot about this season is the League Cup semi. Liverpool lose the first leg to Palace and then Clinton Morrison goes mouthing off about how he would have scored at least two of Owen’s chances and then we blow them away in the second leg. It’s feels like a cliche to talk about things being pinned to the dressing room wall – does it actually happen and did this get mentioned?
JC: Yeah, Houllier 100 per cent would mention things like that at a team meeting. Other managers wouldn’t, like Benitez wouldn’t. Houllier was all about motivation. What I do remember is the first leg – my legs were just gone. Sometimes you go into a game and you can’t explain it. Sometimes you think, oh my legs aren’t here today. Probably just an accumulation of games. And we never rested.
GR: I was wondering about that, because obviously we talk about rotation all the time now, and we accept players are going to come off on 60 or 70 all the time. In this season you’re playing in 58 games! How are you getting through that many games?
JC: I used to start every season and my target was playing 50 games. I just couldn’t accept not playing 50 games. So if you go through my Liverpool career the season before that, we don’t play in Europe. We only played 43 games the year before, because we had no Europe, and I played 40 of them. The next season I played 57/58. And from that season, I think for the next nine seasons I play in 50 games. There’s only one season I don’t, and I break my leg. So I think for 10 seasons, nine of them I play over 50 games. And the one I didn’t, I still played 25 when I broke my leg at Blackburn.
GR: So has the game changed from 25 years ago?
JC: I think Houllier started it, almost educating us, that attackers need to be sharpest as defenders could get away with it.
Don’t forget, we as full-backs, we weren’t bombing forward all the time and that was Babbel as well. I know Babbel got a few goals but I think most of them are from a set piece except the one at Goodison. Basically, me and Babbel were centre-backs playing full-back really, you know. So it wasn’t like we were bombing on all the time, but we were a bit like, we’re gonna keep clean sheets and you just need to score a goal, basically. That’s what it was.
I don’t think all that ProZone stuff had come out by then and running stats and all that. Has it changed a bit now, listen, could Kerkez play 50 games playing the way he does? Probably not. You know, you’re probably looking at more like 40 and you want the backup to play 20. You wouldn’t want to just have the same player playing every single game I don’t think.
GR: Is there a point in the season at any time where you come back in after the game and you look at each other saying ‘we’ve got a chance this season’?
JC: The title? No, I don’t think there was any of that going into the league. I think Houllier was thinking about qualifying for the Champions League. That was a big thing. And that went to the final day. And it was only the top three.
So I think once we beat Birmingham and we got that trophy in the bag, I think there was then this feeling the longer we were going into the competitions that it all started. It wasn’t so much you’re going to win the Treble, it was almost like, what would you prefer? That’s what it felt like. Do you want to win the FA Cup or the UEFA Cup? And all the foreign lads were like, we want to win the UEFA Cup and we were like, we want to win the FA Cup. And then the closer you get, you think ‘f**k it, let’s do the two of them’.
GR: How does Houllier manage you all through the season; how does he keep you fresh, keep you motivated? Because the run of the games particular at the end of the season must have taken it out of you.
JC: I’d say the last 10 games of that season are my favourite. Like, if I could go back in time, it would be to then. I think it starts with Everton. Because we lose to Leeds on Friday and we play Everton on Monday and from that Everton game, we basically go on a run where we don’t lose a game again and in there we play a semi-final, two cup finals and a run-in for the league place to get to the Champions League. That was the best – that was like, ‘f*****g hell, here we go’.
Houllier did have a job keeping the strikers happy. That was his big thing, keeping them happy. He loved Patrik Berger. He was injured against Leeds early in the season. Even though he had all these options wide, he’d have Smicer, he’d have Danny Murphy, he’d put Stevie on the right, he had Barmby. So he had four options, but as soon as Berger came back, Berger went straight back in the team.
DORTMUND, GERMANY - May 16: Gerard Houllier Manager of Liverpool and Phil Thompson of Liverpool celebrate with Trophy after winning the UEFA Cup Final match between Liverpool and Deportivo Alaves at Westfalen Stadion on May 16, 2001 in Dortmund, Germany . (Photo by Paul Mcfegan/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)
Gerard Houllier and Phil Thompson celebrate after winning the UEFA Cup final match between Liverpool and Alaves at Westfalen Stadion on May 16, 2001 in Dortmund, Germany(Image: Paul Mcfegan/Sportsphoto/Allstar via Getty Images)
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GR: That Barcelona game, everyone talks about great nights at Anfield – that is one for me. The trip to the Nou Camp was great too – a great memory; a big club, a big reputation. It was so good to get one over them.
JC: I think a lot of that UEFA Cup run was why Houllier got a lot of criticism from outside. Because I think a lot of those games away from home, we just went there and just went, this is going to be 0-0. And I think people on the BBC, so it’s probably getting 10 million viewers in those days, going, this is f****g boring. You know what I mean? We go to Barcelona and stuff like that. I played really well away in Barcelona, I remember having a really good game, but the thing about that I remember the draw. We used to watch the draw, especially that year, because we were excited, you know, first time in Europe. So there was Alaves, us, Barcelona and Kaiserslautern. So basically, it’s us, Barcelona and two teams probably most people in the dressing room don’t know who they are. And we got Barcelona. I was the only one who was made up. Because I was like, yes, I want to play in the Nou Camp. I was buzzing to play in the Nou Camp. I played quite well that night. Made a couple of blocks late on. I remember I didn’t play well in the home game – you know, just little things you remember in your head. And I’ll tell you why.
So we play Leeds on the Friday, we play Everton on the Monday – Barcelona at home is on the Thursday. And I went out after the Everton game. I was that buzzing, it was like there was no way I’m going home after that. And I went out, and I think I’ve come in the next day on the Tuesday. I think Sammy Lee knew I’d been out.
And I didn’t play well, and I remember, Houllier phoning me up after the Barcelona games. We won and everyone was buzzing but I didn’t play well. I was al rlright, we kept a clean sheet but I remember giving a couple of balls away early on that put us in a bit of danger and then he phoned me and went: “I don’t think you’re refuelling very well.” He put it on me late on in the season. He phoned me and I was in a bit of a panic after that.
READ PART 3 TOMORROW (MAY 15)