Angry Anelka lays blame for mishaps on past coaches

Nicolas Anelka has launched a verbal attack on Gérard Houllier and Luis Fernandez as the Manchester City record buy puts his wandering career down to coaches.

Kevin Keegan's £12m purchase has broken his silence on his fall-out with Liverpool and Paris St-Germain that saw him re-routed to Maine Road after being loaned to Anfield from the Parc des Princes outfit. The French striker claimed Houllier was the only person he did not see eye-to-eye with at Anfield and also criticised the PSG coach Fernandez.

"Fernandez is not an intelligent man. If you tried to discuss things with him, you just got a blank look. It was impossible to talk with him," he said.

"I was not the only one who was like that in the squad. When he arrived we had a great young side full of potential, but he dismantled it and brought in his own players. Laurent Robert, Peter Luccin and Stéphane Dalmat all left because of him along with others."

Anelka still feels hard done by after his Liverpool loan spell and thinks Houllier was the one and only obstacle between him and a full-time move. He said: "He did not appreciate my personality. I had no trouble with the other players or members of the coaching staff. It was all about the manager."

Anelka still believes his stays at Highbury and Real Madrid were only brief for reasons other than his own: "At Arsenal I never had any problem with anyone. I only left Real Madrid because I was not part of the way they played the game."

Meanwhile, Houllier has described the comeback of the German defender Markus Babbel as a "miracle". The international full-back played his first game at Anfield for a year in the 1-0 friendly defeat to Lazio on Tuesday night. Babbel has been out with a career-threatening crippling illness and was greeted with a standing ovation from over 44,000 fans as he played the first half.

Afterwards Houllier said: "It's wonderful to see him back. It's a miracle, a fairytale for him considering how far he has come to get back to this level.

"It's like having a new player in the squad and I am delighted for him. He did pretty well in that 45 minutes."

Babbel will continue his comeback at the weekend as Liverpool visit Spain to play both Real Madrid and Bayern Munich in Madrid.

Steven Gerrard has been cleared to take part in the weekend tournament after the receiving good results from a scan on his thigh injury. The England midfielder sat out the defeat to Lazio, but Houllier confirmed that Gerrard will travel to Spain, along with Emile Heskey, who has also been given the all clear after recovering from a hamstring pull.

Houllier said: "I believe that Steven will probably be OK to play in our second game in Madrid, but if not he will certainly be fit for the Charity Shield game with Arsenal the following weekend."

Houllier admitted to being disappointed with the Lazio defeat, but was delighted with the performance of two new signings – Bruno Cheyrou and El-Hadji Diouf. He said: "We lost, which is the dark side of the evening. But the bright side is the display of the new players who showed they have the qualities to play for Liverpool."