English FA Cup Interview with Jamie Carragher: Jamie Carragher waited only three minutes at Molineux in midweek before crunching his right leg, splintered so horrifically at Blackburn four months ago, into a combustible comeback tackle.
As unwilling to shirk a challenge off the pitch as he is on it, the defender proved just as brutal back at Melwood in offering a sense of realism to Liverpool's season of frustration.
"When Gerard Houllier does eventually leave, people will look back at what he achieved and the trophies he won and consider this to be a golden period for the club," said the Bootle-born full-back. "There's always someone who's done more here. If Liverpool hadn't won all those league titles years ago and then we'd won that treble, we'd be legends forever."
Such is the harsh reality on Merseyside. The memories of the three trophies plundered back in 2001 have been quick to fade, lost amid the doom and gloom that has engulfed Anfield this term. It hardly matters that Houllier, the Premiership's maligned manager of the moment, will send his players out against Newcastle this evening still harbouring hopes of claiming the FA and UEFA Cups as well as achieving Champions League qualification.
Regardless of whether the assault on the knockout competitions and somewhat apologetic pursuit of fourth place prove successful come May, the clamour for the Frenchman's head is unlikely to cease in the summer. Trailing the league leaders Arsenal by 19 points with 16 games to play, the wait for a first league title since 1990 goes on, with any satisfaction from a potential top-four finish smacking of a lack of ambition.
The deflation is not lost on Liverpool's players, least of all on Carragher, an Evertonian by instinct but Anfield's longest-serving player.
"We've been to Cardiff more than any other club, and we shouldn't take our trips there for granted," said the 25-year-old. "Compared to other clubs, what we've achieved under Gerard Houllier is exceptional. It's not that we've beaten Mickey Mouse teams to do it: Arsenal, Manchester United, Roma, Bayern Munich, all big teams.
"But we're Liverpool and, because the fans have been brought up on winning the league, the title is everything. It hangs around our necks, even though that was a different era. Our last championship was 14 years ago and it's not as if Gerard was manager immediately after we last won it.
"Winning the league every year is United's thing now. The fans should remember that the game has moved on and it might be a while before Liverpool win the league regularly again. We're not going to win it this year, no chance, but we've won trophies and at any other club, Arsenal and United aside, that would constitute success.
"Managers are never appreciated when they're in the job. Roy Evans used to get no end of stick, but now people talk about how the football the team played back then was great. You'd have to say the gaffer (Houllier) has achieved more, so what are they going to be saying about Gerard Houllier when the next fella comes in? He is the man to take this club forward. He's laid the foundations here and he's brought quality in. There was competition out there for Harry Kewell, but we got him.
"One of the reasons has to be the manager. It looks like we're getting Djibril Cisse in the summer; would he come to Liverpool if Gerard wasn't the manager? People have to remember the past's the past. It's gone."
Exorcising a glorious history will always prove impossible on Merseyside; the "nerves, probably born out of our situation", of which Houllier spoke after victory was surrendered in the dying seconds at Wolverhampton, can be attributed to expectation weighing heavy on Liverpudlian shoulders. Confidence was sapped as a crucial game in hand slipped inexorably away.
If there was any comfort to be gleaned from that stalemate it was in the sight of Houllier's strongest line-up, shorn only of Chris Kirkland, reunited for the final 15 minutes. Dietmar Hamann, Steven Gerrard, Michael Owen and Kewell had never started a Premiership fixture together. The quartet should begin their first FA Cup game tonight, though it is the reformation at the back - Sami Hyypia and Stephane Henchoz in the centre, with Steve Finnan and Carragher offering much-needed authority as full-backs - which suggests stability.
"It's harsh to judge us when we haven't had our full team out," he says. "If we're all fit we're still not as good as United or Arsenal . . . but I don't think we're as far off as people think. We're three or four players short, but we're the only team to have finished above United in the Premiership and not won the league (2002). The problem is, we haven't moved on and they have.
"We've lost big players this season. Michael Owen and Stevie Gerrard are the two best players in the England team, while there aren't many better in Europe than Didi at what he does. Without them we haven't had the results a team like Liverpool should be getting, but the back four's also been disrupted badly."
Carragher's return, after only 130 days out, will improve prospects. As a distraction from his rehabilitation, the full-back travelled to Middlesbrough to watch November's chilling goalless draw - one of three clean sheets gleaned in 16 league games in his absence - and, as another face among the away contingent, he experienced the disillusionment among the fans.
"It made me want to get back playing sooner," he added. "Newcastle can be a turning point. We've got to build up some momentum, then we can put things right."
