James Lawton: Flaws in the plot weaken Houllier's passion play

Basic defects in design and an inflexible philosophy rather than mere bad luck lie behind the Liverpool manager's faltering fortunes

The idea that Liverpool have suddenly fallen out of the sky without even the merest flicker of a warning light is at the very least debatable. Indeed, some would say that the crash was inevitable, and that the cause is not the mental fatigue which kept captain Sami Hyypia out of Sunday's defeat by a Sunderland team who for some time had appeared to be painting their football by misplaced numbers, but something much more fundamental. Something like a basic design fault.

It is a theory supported by a killer fact – one that Gérard Houllier, understandably, has not yet included in the barrage of statistics he has recently been directing at anyone suggesting he is caught in anything more serious than a passing dip in form and luck.

When Liverpool failed to overcome the effects of going behind at the Stadium of Light it was the 33rd time in 34 Premiership games that the concession of the first goal had denied them victory. Die-hards will draw comfort from the fact that the exception came in last season's derby at Goodison Park, but how much of that solace will survive the rise of the man-child Wayne Rooney and the sharply increased competitiveness of David Moyes' team this coming weekend?

The statistic is devastating in what it says about Liverpool's capacity to think on their feet, to explore the possibilities of a Plan B or C when the potential of their pressure game is plainly exhausted.

It is not easy criticising the Houllier approach because the process is hugely complicated by the need to give him his due.

He has done so much to re-connect the club with the glories of its past. He has won important trophies. He has given back to Liverpool their old ethics and understanding that nothing worthwhile comes easily. He annihilated the Spice Boy image, stopping short, it seemed, only at hosing down the dressing room walls.

When he came back from serious illness, the warmth of his reception spoke of something much deeper than Scouse sentimentality. But then something interesting happened in the course of the love affair, and it said a lot about the sophistication of the Anfield following. Tension came into it at precisely the time Houllier might reasonably have expected maximum acclaim. What happened was that a lot of fans just did not believe in their team when, with Manchester United in another crisis and Arsenal slipping from the mountain top, Liverpool took over the leadership.

Monitoring football call-in shows is generally perhaps not the last word in intellectual stimulation but there is no doubt it has a value on Merseyside, where the fans have been set high competitive standards since the arrival of Bill Shankly in the early Sixties. Not so long ago, for example, there was a ferocious debate when the website generation voted Jerzy Dudek and Hyypia into an all-time great Liverpool team. Supporters of Bruce Grobbelaar and Mark Lawrenson were particularly incandescent with rage.

A similar firestorm came to the airwaves when an amazing number of callers declared that Liverpool's position in the league was a mirage, a freak of circumstances. The critics declared that something was wrong with their team.

What is it? It is not, clearly, a deficiency of talent. Houllier has surrounded himself with gifted players. The question concerns quite what he does with their gifts. His worst critics would say that he flattens them out. He tinkers relentlessly. No one is quite so wedded to belief in the value of rotation, yet he has never changed the most consistently successful element in his team: defence. Now that the defence has slipped, the frailty of Liverpool's playing philosophy has been exposed.

What is the philosophy? It is one of relentless pressure. It is of the early ball, the long throw-in down the line, the willingness to concede possession in the belief that you can win it back in positions of danger. It is a policy which precludes the staple of Liverpool's success in their greatest years, the game-shaping cleverness at the back, which was superbly represented by such players as Alan Hansen and Lawrenson. Now, the need for craft is ignored in a way unthinkable at Old Trafford and Highbury, and, increasingly, Stamford Bridge.

There is also the sense of interchangeable players, who do not have the time and the underpinning to develop belief in their own powers. Jari Litmanen was a player of lovely touch and sophisticated instinct but he rarely got a game. At Sunderland, Liverpool did fight their way back into the match, but three minutes after the equaliser Vladimir Smicer was replaced by Salif Diao. It was hard not to recall the old order of Joe Mercer to his brilliant but sometimes impetuous field-general Malcolm Allison, "If in doubt, do nowt." Asking Houllier to do nowt, to let a group of players grow organically rather than by constant, Dr Frankenstein surgery, seems to be too tall a requirement of a passionate, hyperactive man.

One old pro recently offered a chilling thought: "Houllier has done brilliant work along the way at Anfield and it is pretty clear that he knows what he wants – but does he really know how to get it?"

Certainly, the present formula, with its huge demand on Michael Owen (one that is so often poorly served on the field) invites questions not just of current performance but long-term development. The mark of champions is their potential to improve. It is clear they are about the business of making themselves better, of finding new ways to dominate and hurt the opposition.

What the haul of silverware two years ago did not conceal – or change – was Liverpool's difficulty in cuffing aside inferior opposition. It was evident then that Liverpool were most effective when the opposing team had at least a fair share of the ball. Beating Manchester United, on the break, became a habit even as Liverpool failed to mount a serious challenge for the title. Too often the greatest gift of a team comfortable with their abilities, a steady supply of the ball, is an embarrassing burden for Houllier's men.

It is not, the Sunderland result stressed all over again, a matter of personnel. It is how you see the job, and what precisely you bring to it. After their falterings, Manchester United and Arsenal are back on familiar ground, playing their own game to their own music.

But what is Liverpool's natural terrain, what is their game? They had better have some answers if they ever manage to climb over the brick wall that grew considerably higher on Sunday.

After noting the soul searchings of the Everton manager David Moyes on the question of how to handle the extraordinary rise of Wayne Rooney, you could only weep again for the misadventures of Paul Gascoigne.

Gillingham, we are told, are waiting for the reaction of Gazza's "advisers" to their offer of employment.

Quite a number of years ago, when salvage work was still possible on a career which should have been one of the glories of English football, an adviser of the player took severe umbrage at my opinion that it was extremely doubtful that he would accomplish more than a fraction of those achievements George Best squeezed in between the drinking and the wooing.

But the adviser did offer me lunch, during which he could explain some of the nuances of modern football. Somehow, it was possible to decline.