Houllier: I nearly cashed in on striker

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Gerard Houllier has admitted what we exclusively revealed in the summer - he considered selling Milan Baros!

Baros soon developed a bad attitude at Melwood, looked lazy and started to look porky like the KopTalk editor BUT he managed to turn his Anfield career round when Ged threatened him with the axe and now he's an important member of the squad.

"It's true Milan nearly joined Lens as part of the deal for El-Hadji," said the boss.

"We were not keen on the idea and in the end all parties decided against it. Both myself and Rick Parry thought it would have been a mistake to let him go.

"The good thing was, the boy didn't want to go either. That, to me, was a good sign of his faith, loyalty and commitment to the club. It showed me he wanted to play for Liverpool.

"It was down to the player to decide and he could see we had Michael Owen, Emile Heskey and El-Hadji Diouf here.

"I wanted to know what Milan wanted to do but I told him 'I want to keep you' and he has responded in the right way. When Jari Litmanen left, it freed the way for him."

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