Houllier pledges four new faces

LIVERPOOL boss Gerard Houllier has promised four new players and no clear-out in the wake of the club’s failure to qualify for the Champions League.

The 2-1 defeat at Chelsea has cost the Anfield side around £20m but Houllier initially sees no further than replacing four players who are out of contract, even though there were suggestions that Emile Heskey and Jamie Carragher could also be on their way out. Patrik Berger, the club's longest-serving player, Vegard Heggem, Bernard Diomede and Abel Xavier will all be stripped from the Anfield wage bill.

The Frenchman explained: "I think we need at least three players. Patrik Berger, Bernard Diomede and Vegard Heggem are all out of contract in the summer. Abel Xavier has already left the club. We will need to replace these players." Berger, who has been at Liverpool for seven years, is likely to move back to Germany, having signed from Borussia Dortmund, or even his Czech homeland.

Heggem, injured for almost two seasons, will be given a trial at his former Norwegian club Rosenborg but could be forced to retire from the game. Diomede has been on loan to French club Ajaccio since January and will also not be retained.

Xavier joined Galatasaray on a year's loan in January and will leave Liverpool permanently at the end of that period. Berger, who got on for the final 27 minutes at Chelsea having been a virtual outcast this term with only a Worthington Cup game and goal against Southampton in November, admits he accepted he no longer had a role at the club after a couple of meetings with Houllier. He said: "We had a meeting at the during pre-season, then another meeting a few months after that, and it just didn't work out. After that I realised I would be leaving at the end of the season.

"It just didn't work. In the meeting they had different ideas, I had different ideas. It just didn't work out."

He added: "What I've learned is one year you can be the hero and the next year you can be the victim. Even if you sign a contract, for example for three or four years, you can't say 'I'll be staying here' as anything can happen such as injuries, bad results and a new manager coming in.

"I never thought I would have stayed here for seven years. I would love to stay here but that's not to be the case so I have to move on. I'm looking forward to the new challenge." Houllier is back at his Melwood training ground desk already planning for the new campaign, and he reiterated his view that there is no need for wholesale changes to the squad and that the campaign had not been a disaster.

He said: "If someone had said to us four years ago we would twice qualify for the Champions League and we would win six trophies, I don't think there would have been any complaints.

"For the last four years we have been competing for the Champions League spots. What I said after the Chelsea game still stands. There are some positives from this season and negatives."

He added: "The positive is winning a cup final against Manchester United. Nobody will take that away from us."