Houllier told the club's official website:"I'm really looking forward to the match and I have feelings of pride and pleasure about it.
"I feel pride because I'm going to my home country for the first time as Liverpool manager for a game. It's always special when you play in your own country."
"This will be even more so because we'll be playing against a team whose manager I have a great deal of respect for and I will feel pleasure because of what happened to both myself and Guy Roux and the health problems we had to overcome."
"It was ironic that we found ourselves in the same hotel 14 months ago when we were convalescing after our problems. When you go through something like that you learn to enjoy every minute of every game you play."