Aston Villa boss Gerard Houllier admits he was blamed by some for France's World Cup flop.
Houllier is no stranger to stress and his first Premier League game could be a welcome escape from the blame game he is embroiled in as France's technical director.
He has taken some of the flak for his home country's World Cup fiasco -even though he insists their group stage exit had nothing to do with him whatsoever.
"This is funny," he added. "Suppose there's a plane crash and the black box reveals that it wasn't the pilot, the co-pilot, a member of staff, a hostess, a steward or even a passenger. But I got blamed!
"I was preparing for the next 10 years - the team manager was in charge and was preparing the team. I never had any talks with him."
