Gérard Houllier returned to Merseyside yesterday, haunted not only by Liverpool's abject capitulation to Valencia in the Champions League on Tuesday but also by the prospect of being without Michael Owen for one game in every three this season.
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Owen, the current European footballer of the year, has looked anything but fresh in recent weeks with his form stifled by a long-standing groin problem and a pre-season wrecked by a hamstring injury sustained at the World Cup. That has played on the 22-year-old's mind, leading to only one club goal in open play since April, a sequence stretching back 10 games, with the lack of spark prompting Houllier to drop his talismanic striker to the bench for the last two matches.
"I've talked to him about it and he only has to look back at his own experiences to understand my thinking. I'm managing a player, a person, but he needs me because I'm backing him 100%. He knows I will play him but at the same time we have to be careful," said Houllier. "There's a split- second of sharpness that's been lacking."
Owen played the second half of the 2-0 defeat in Spain but Houllier hopes the two-game rest will perk up peaky form. Even so, while a recall to the starting line-up is likely against West Bromwich Albion in the Premiership on Saturday, the Frenchman insisted the forward will regularly find himself taking a breather over the course of this season.
"I'm hoping the rest will have taken a bit of the pressure off him. He was coming off after every game stressed about not having scored; he was becoming more or less obsessed with scoring a goal - you could see the relief on his face when the penalty [against Newcastle] went in - and it wasn't doing him any good.
"I don't think he's a lad who particularly lacks confidence, though when you miss chances it does affect you. Michael should be the league's top scorer at the moment and was unlucky not to score more against Aston Villa, Newcastle and Birmingham. When the goals do come I'm sure there'll be goals galore but at the moment he doesn't appear to have the freshness."
Owen's replacement at the Mestalla, the £10m Senegalese Diouf, also needs to patch up battered confidence. "Maybe the game was too big for El Hadji on the night but I can't remember a Liverpool team so weak in the challenge," added Houllier. "It was not my side out there. I didn't recognise them.
"The first problem to address is trying to keep a clean sheet. Some of the goals we've conceded this season have surprised me and the sooner we get Stéphane Henchoz back the better. It's not that everything is suddenly wrong with us, but there is plenty we need to work on."
Erasing the memory of Valencia - "We played like girls," grumbled the goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek after a busy night - in time for next week's second Champions League game with Basle has now become Houllier's chief priority.