|
Fowler, 26, who has scored six goals in eight league games since David O’Leary paid a fee estimated at £10 million for him at the end of November, revealed to The Times that he had several disagreements with Houllier over his regular omission from the Liverpool side last season and said that he had felt victimised and upset when a row with Thompson cost him a place in the line-up for the Charity Shield in August.
Fowler, whose hat-trick against Bolton Wanderers and sublime chipped goal against West Ham United have seemed already to confirm that he represents O’Leary’s shrewdest signing so far, insisted that he felt no bitterness towards Houllier, but said he came to realise that he risked missing out on the World Cup for the second time in succession if he did not escape the shadow of Michael Owen and Emile Heskey. Both were regularly preferred in the Liverpool attack and there were even signs that Jari Litmanen was edging ahead of him in the pecking order.
To the delight of their critics and the dismay of their supporters, Liverpool’s title challenge has faltered since they sold their No 9 and they now appear to be alarmingly dependent on the fitness and goalscoring prowess of Owen.
“It did surprise me that Liverpool sold me to a championship rival,” Fowler said.
“If I was a chairman, manager or whatever, I would not sell one of my better players to a team that is likely to be challenging them for the title. It might backfire or it might not. I think Liverpool were scared by the fact that I had 18 months left on my contract and they were wondering whether I was going to sign a new one. I never asked for a new contract because I was waiting for them to offer me one. They spoke about offering me one in the summer, but that was as far as it went. Nothing materialised.
“Did Gérard ever really have faith in me? That’s a very hard question to answer. There were times when I was in his office and he was telling me I was this and that and the big star, and I could be the best or I could be whatever I wanted to be. I still get on very well with Gérard and I don’t want to say he forced me out, but I think people can read between the lines.
“He made me captain, which was a great honour, but I used to go in and see him and ask him, ‘how many captains at other Premier League clubs do you see sitting on the bench?’ There’s not an answer to that, to be honest. When you are sitting on a bench, you’re not a captain, are you?
“When I was playing and there were occasions when we’d be down to ten men because of a red card, I was always the one getting brought off if they needed to make a tactical switch. Well, I was always led to believe your captain should be on the pitch to gee everyone up. I think I was made captain because I had been at the club a long time. That was it.
“The fact is that I was third choice. It was obvious that I wasn’t in the first-choice team Gérard wanted to play. This is a very big season because there is a big incentive at the end of it. I missed the last World Cup in 1998 and I don’t want to miss this one.
“It’s up to me now. If you are third choice at a club behind two England internationals, it is going to be very difficult to get ahead of them in international terms. It was a brave choice that I made and at the moment it seems to have been the right one.”