Carra: My Autobiography (15 page)

I believe I'm one of the most professional players in the Premier League. I've become addicted to looking after myself off the pitch as much as on it, determined to add as many days to my playing career as possible. That's Houllier's influence. His words of advice have been carried out, and I'd pass them on to fellow professionals. I have regular massages and take more ice baths than any other player I've worked with. Some of my teammates think I'm obsessed about staying in shape, but the speed with which I've returned from serious injuries shows how it has worked for me.

Undoubtedly I owe much of this healthier lifestyle to Houllier, but he was preaching to a young pupil who was easily converted. I learned my lessons under his spell, and on those occasions when I tried to kid him, he was never fooled. The last time I drank within a few days of a match was in November 2000, after we lost 4–3 at Leeds. Mark Viduka scored four, but I actually had a good game. I went out that night and had a terrible hangover the next day. The following Thursday Liverpool were playing in the Czech Republic against the mighty Slovan Liberec in the UEFA Cup. My performance was disgraceful and I was hooked off ten minutes into the second half.

'Are you ill, Jamie?' Houllier asked.

I reckon he was checking my breath to see if he could still smell beer, I was so poor.

He said nothing else, but he knew. He didn't need to drag me into his office to deliver another warning after this. I never again wanted to experience such a feeling on a football pitch, and it was clear to me as much as it was to Houllier what had caused it. My habits changed, and I began to feel the benefits physically. I became far better prepared for games when I didn't celebrate victories with drink, or drown my sorrows after defeats.

I'd often hear former Liverpool players slaughtering Houllier for stressing his anti-alcohol stance, but I came to recognize their views were outdated and lacked credibility. The fact that the Liverpool teams of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s still produced great football while getting drunk every Saturday night ignores a key fact: all their opponents behaved in exactly the same way. You had twenty-two players all of whom had probably been on the ale a few days earlier, so it was a level playing field. Liverpool had the best players and they got away with it. In the 1990s Liverpool were too slow to change this culture, until Houllier took control.

I'm sure he saw me as a challenge. If he could make me change my ways, he knew others would follow my example. Within a couple of seasons, the days of me threatening to be on the front rather than back pages had long gone. I grew up under Houllier; he guided me down the right path. He cleaned up my act and ensured my long-term future at Anfield.

On my birthday in 2004, I asked Houllier for a round of applause before training.

'What for?' he said.

'I'm twenty-six today. Not finished yet, am I?'

But sorting my and the other players' lifestyles out was one thing; revolutionizing the club and bringing the title back was going to be tougher. Whenever I'm asked what Liverpool need to challenge Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal, my answer is always the same: 'Better players.' Every manager is judged on his signings. When Houllier bought well, he enjoyed good results, the team radically improved, the fans trusted him and so did his squad. There were a couple of duds during his early years, but he got more right than wrong, recruiting some of the most consistent performers in the club's recent history.

Centre-halves Stéphane Henchoz and Sami Hyypia, two of the seven signings in the summer of 1999, were spectacular successes. Sami was originally bought as a gamble, Houllier expecting him to cover for me. We began the 1999–2000 season together in central defence because Stéphane arrived from Blackburn with a groin injury. Henchoz, who cost £4.5 million, was seen as the more significant arrival; Sami, a £2.5 million Finnish defender from a Dutch side no one had heard of, wasn't carrying great expectations. I believed Stéphane would eventually replace Sami and we could form a long-term partnership.

Yet again, Manchester United intervened to send my career in a new direction. I scored two owngoals in our defeat at Anfield to United early in the season. Any faith Houllier had in me as a centre-back was gone for good.

There was nowhere for me to hide the night of that game, so I headed out of the city to Formby. I found a suitable pub, far away from supporters who wanted to discuss my rare double, sat down and called my dad.

'Where are you?' I asked.

'I'm in The Grapes in Formby, lad. Where are you?'

Call it the Carragher sixth sense. We'd both escaped to the same pub.

I knocked back a few ales like a condemned man. It would be five years before I was a central defender again.

I still find the haste with which Houllier changed his mind about my best position puzzling. My contribution the previous season seemed to be written off on the basis of one nightmare half. I'd won rave reviews at centre-back throughout 1998–99, despite having to cope alongside numerous defensive partners. I also played most of that campaign in pain after fracturing my wrist. I needed an operation which would keep me out for six weeks. After he heard the diagnosis, Houllier called me at home begging me not to have surgery. It was no hardship agreeing with him. Today, I still can't bend my wrist properly because the injury wasn't dealt with, but when the manager says you're the only centrehalf at Liverpool he can rely on, you don't want to disappoint him. How quickly this was forgotten. I spent the next couple of years fighting for a place at left-and rightback.

I had few complaints at first because of Sami's immediate impact, which no one, including Houllier, had anticipated. It was a formality he and Stéphane would form a new partnership. But in later years when there were injuries or suspensions, I still wasn't considered a centre-back. Houllier would select Salif Diao, Igor Biscan or Djimi Traore ahead of me in the position, and just before he left the club he wanted to buy Jean-Alain Boumsong, and then Philippe Mexes from Auxerre, to play alongside Biscan. Phil Thompson would plead with Houllier to give me a chance back in the middle, but he was stubborn right until the last month of his reign, claiming I was a couple of inches too short for the role.

Another major player for us, arriving with Sami and Stéphane, was Dietmar Hamann, although his signing owed much to luck. While Didi was planning to sign for Arsenal from Newcastle, Houllier was targeting Marc Vivien Foe as Ince's replacement. The move broke down, and in Didi we ended up with one of the best holding midfielders in Europe, as well as a top man in the dressing room.

The signing I didn't rate was Sander Westerveld, who replaced David James. He wasn't my type of fella and we didn't see eye-to-eye. I thought he was an average goalkeeper who seemed to think he was Gordon Banks. A lot of Dutch players had a reputation for fancying themselves, and he lived up to it. Whenever he made a howler – and they became more frequent the longer he was at the club – he'd provide a strange excuse. One mistake at Middlesbrough was put down to ice on the ball, but his worst indiscretion was being out-jumped and outmuscled at a corner by little Dennis Wise at Chelsea. He claimed he was fouled. None of us was appealing for a freekick.

Westerveld's missus wasn't shy to express her opinions when they weren't wanted, either. Shortly after my two owngoals against United, the players and our wives and girlfriends organized a meal at the Blue Bar on Liverpool's Albert Dock. Westerveld's wife suddenly decided she was some kind of spokesman for The Kop.

'You're a disgrace,' she said to me. 'The way you're playing I'm surprised you're happy to be seen out in public. You shouldn't be in the team.'

I gave her my sternest Bootle boy scowl and snarled, 'Fuck off back to Holland.'

If she thought I was bad, she and her husband must have been arguing constantly when he started throwing them in. Westerveld played his part in the treble season, but our defence was so good it wasn't difficult for him to look decent. There were games when he had nothing to do. It was no surprise to me when he was unceremoniously dumped by Houllier a couple of months after we won the cup treble. Many fans sympathized with him. I couldn't see why. A weak link had gone, but not quietly. When his replacement Jerzy Dudek endured problems of his own a year later, who was the first to run to the press to rub it in? Sander was at it again, which wouldn't have been so bad if his mate Markus Babbel wasn't still sorting him out tickets for the players' lounge after our home games.

'Markus, a word,' Phil Thompson said to Babbel. 'Tell your mate Sander he's not welcome at Anfield again.'

Certain signings concerned me because I thought they were useless, others because I was worried they'd keep me out of the team. Much as I respected Houllier, and despite his positive influence on me, I began suffering a recurring nightmare. I was convinced he'd force my future children to grow up without a Scouse accent. I'd wake up in a cold sweat at the prospect of young Carraghers returning to Bootle sounding like woollybacks or cockneys. Every summer for five years it seemed my future was in doubt. Fullbacks came and went but I was never 100 per cent sure I'd survive the arrival of the next cross between Cafu and Paolo Maldini the fans were screaming for. Leaving Liverpool would have been bad enough, but the wider implications bothered me too. I'd think about which clubs I'd join, not in terms of their stature, more in terms of whether I'd have to abandon my Merseyside roots. Michael Owen has my sympathy, not only because he ended up at Newcastle but because he had to make his children go to school there. They might have Geordie accents, for God's sake. I couldn't handle that. I love home too much.

Managers like nothing more than talking about togetherness in a team, but there's no solidarity when a threat to your position arrives. Any manager expecting me to help someone he's bought to take my place is kidding himself. Every time Liverpool bought a fullback or central defender, my initial response was to make them look as physically and psychologically inferior to me as possible. They were my sworn enemies. There wasn't a hope they were going to walk off the training pitch having played better than me, or having beaten me in five-a-side. It's still the case. I've got to overshadow them by any means. If there's a fifty-fifty challenge to be had, I don't give a shit about that either, no matter how much they've cost. This is my Liverpool shirt we're talking about. No one is waltzing into Melwood and taking it off me without a fight.

The same applies the other way, of course. Several players have arrived believing they could undermine my position.

After I established myself at rightback, our African defender Rigobert Song found himself out of the team and our previously healthy relationship instantly deteriorated. One morning in training he was told I'd been called into the England squad after performing well at fullback. There was a look of astonishment on Song's face, a bit like the one I used to give him when he claimed he was only twenty-one. He might as well have blurted out he thought I wasn't good enough for international football. He strolled off to his French-speaking friends and began talking to them. I could see him pointing towards me while everyone was grinning. It was clear what he was saying, and the rage inside me simmered.

Later, Song walked on to the training pitch with a smile on his face. He was limping off it with a grimace an hour later. The first chance I got, I did him. Never have I hunted down a fifty-fifty tackle with greater appetite.

'You're not fucking laughing now are you, you soft twat?' I said as he hobbled away.

Did I care if he had a knock? No way. I don't remember him, or anyone else in the squad for that matter, trying to take the piss out of my ability again.

As I said, new rivals for my position arrived every summer. The closest I came to leaving was in 2003 when Steve Finnan joined the club. I joked in the papers I might have to send the boys round to Steve's house if he took my place. The fans presumed I was joking. I was, but only partly. I was genuinely worried I'd be left out, and I wasn't prepared to stay at Liverpool as a sub. Supporters think because you love a club you'll hang around as a squad player. I wouldn't. I love playing football first and foremost. I'm not the type to have sat on the bench regularly during my peak years. I'd have left. Absolutely.

The list of fullbacks Houllier brought in as direct competition was endless. I'd seen off Song, Babbel and Christian Ziege, but still the manager was looking for an alternative. John Arne Riise signed from Monaco with a reputation for goals. In one of his most surprising deals, Houllier even bought Abel Xavier from Everton. For a very brief spell I wondered if I could be bothered to prove myself any more. It became tiresome heading into every new season with the same cloud hanging over me, fighting a constant battle for security. Finnan, who later proved a great signing for us even if I didn't welcome him at the time, nearly broke my resolve by doing nothing more than walking into Melwood.

I was aware of interest from other clubs, though it went no further than that, fortunately. I doubt the club would have accepted any offer for me had one been made, but I was getting so demoralized I might have taken the decision for them, simply to get a bit of appreciation elsewhere. Some of our own supporters were contributing to my despair. They were watching Arsenal with their rampaging fullbacks and expecting me to transform myself into Ashley Cole. They pigeonholed me as a limited player, and it's a reputation that stuck.