Houllier: 4-0 City cuffing was my career low

Gerard Houllier claims the 4-0 thrashing his Aston Villa side suffered at Manchester City in December was the lowest point of his career.

Houllier, 63, failed to take France to the 1994 World Cup and had a heart-attack while Liverpool manager, but says his recent humiliation at Eastlands hurt the most.

Villa found themselves 3-0 down inside 28 minutes in the dark, early days of Houllier's regime.

The club were on a shocking run at the time as Houllier battled dressing room unrest. In contrast, Villa have now lost just once in nine games ahead of tonight's FA Cup tie at the scene of Houllier's worst nightmare.

The Frenchman has not picked out-of-favour England left-back Stephen Warnock since the thrashing at City.

"It was the low point of my career," admitted Houllier. "I was too soft in trusting players too long.

"Never in my life have I had a team who have given up so quickly. We hit rock-bottom there and have started to spring up since.

"I knew I would turn things around because I had the faith of the chairman and chief executive.

"We have improved physically and mentally since then. We have improved as a team and the squad lives together better."

While things are looking up on-field, Houllier's woes off the pitch are increasing, with Villa announcing financial losses of £37.6million as their wage bill grew to £80m.

That's an unsustainable 88 per cent of turnover, but Houllier insists reducing the club's wage bill has always been part of his plans.

PROBABLE TEAMS: Man City - Hart; Richards, Kolo Toure, Lescott, Kolarov; Milner, Yaya Toure,Barry, Silva; Dzeko, Tevez. Aston Villa - Friedel; Walker, Dunne, Clark, Delph; Petrov, Downing, Reo-Coker, Albrighton, Young; Agbonlahor.