LIVERPOOL supporters hoped that their days of bemoaning Frenchmen at Anfield were over but many painful memories resurfaced in last night’s Champions League Group A encounter last night.

However, instead of shouting at substandard Gallic imports struggling in red shirts as happened too many times during Gerard Houllier’s reign, it was the lively displays of Olympique Marseille’s winners that left them scratching their heads.

Although Liverpool’s first continental manager Houllier led the club to a UEFA, FA and League Cup treble in 2001, it was ultimately an inability to secure a domestic title that cost him his job at Anfield.

A large chunk of that failing is attributed to a series of players acquired from the French League who, for one reason or another, failed to cut it in the Premier League.

Like a scarred war veteran, Anfield’s pitchside master of ceremonies even had a flashback to those dark days when naming the sides. The crowd was initially informed that the Cheyrou in the visitors’ line-up was the infamous Anfield misfit Bruno but the man on the microphone quickly corrected himself to point out that it was in fact his brother Benoit, presumably to great relief all-round.

Another such signing, former £14million record buy Djibril Cisse, whose move to Anfield was orchestrated by Houllier before his Liverpool exit, wasn’t even named in the starting line-up by Marseille and was left to watch the first 70 minutes of the match from the bench while Dutchman Boudewijn Zenden was welcomed back to his old club from the start.

Both players were given warm receptions by the home fans though and now that they don’t have to endure his frustrating tendencies to impersonate a headless chicken week-in, week-out, there is obviously a great deal of affection for what the former Auxerre star did achieve during his two seasons in a red jersey.

For all his faults though, Cisse can always point to an impressive scoring ratio at Liverpool and the fact that he netted in three winning cup finals despite suffering a career-threatening injury with the club and supporters will never forget that.

Having reached two Champions League finals over the past three seasons there is always a danger that Rafael Benitez’s side could become over complacent throughout the group stages of this competition and start to feel they’ve cracked club football’s elite tournament.

While Benitez would no doubt argue that this will never be the case, a certain amount of urgency seemed to be lacking in some home players.

In days gone by, you’d have expected a French side in a European tie at Anfield to sit back and play a tight defensive formation at a slow pace while the hosts came at them with pace and power, surging forward to roar of the Kop.

Yet for long periods last night, Marseille turned the tables on Liverpool as they marauded with regularity towards Pepe Reina’s goal and eventually found their breakthrough thanks to Mathieu Valbeuena.

Aided by a zippy surface caused by a pre-match downpour in L4, the visitors, inspired by Algerian pocket dynamo Karim Ziani, took the game to the home side and twice had the ball in the net in front of the Kop before half-time only to be denied on both occasions by a linesman’s flag.

You’d have thought that replacing fans’ favourite Franck Ribery on Marseille’s right wing would be a tough act to follow for the diminutive wide man but new coach Eric Gerets, himself a European Cup winner with PSV Eindhoven in 1988, will be pleased that he seems to have inherited a ready-made replacement for the French World Cup star who joined German giants Bayern Munich in the summer.

Former Belgian international Gerets had an illustrious playing career which took him to AC Milan, Liverpool’s opponents in both the 2005 and 2007 Champions League finals, and although he has only just taken over at the Stade Velodrome-based outfit who have had a slow start in the French League, he already seems to be bringing the best out of his players.

Benitez has yet to get the best out of rookie Sebastian Leto who endured a curtailed evening to forget before being hauled off seven minutes into the second half following a collection of wayward passes. While he’s been brought to Anfield as ‘one for the future’, you don’t often have the luxury of an extended honeymoon period at a club with Liverpool’s levels of expectations and the Argentinian will have to work hard on his game if he hopes to avoid becoming a long-haired Mark Gonzalez.

If Houllier’s guilty pleasure was Senegalese World Cup performers then Benitez might have to be wary of South American wingers becoming his Achilles heel.

After hitting Derby County for six, Liverpool have now failed to score in consecutive home games and while Benitez admitted he found Birmingham’s approach frustrating in the last Premier League encounter at Anfield, there was no meekness on this occasion from Marseille’s cavaliers.

You can’t have it both ways and Liverpool are going to have to learn to break down both attacking and defensive units who come to Anfield if they’re going to succeed at home and abroad in a season which potentially promises so much for them.

LIVERPOOL and England striker Peter Crouch will be signing copies of his autobiography ‘Walking Tall’ at Waterstone’s in Bold Street, Liverpool, today at 4.30pm.