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 Tuesday
17 October 2005 By Stephen Kelly
Not a popular choice when appointed to take over from Sir Bobby Robson in September of last year, Souness has perhaps understandably never at any stage had the full backing of the Newcastle United faithful. Highly publicised bust-ups with popular star players coupled with a failure to deliver either results or attractive football has hardly improved his stock, and calls for Souness to be removed from his position have been present throughout his reign, and never more prominent than now. These calls are understandable. Barring his successes with Glasgow Rangers in the epitome of competition that is the Scottish League, Souness has never really shown anything that points to him being the man to end Newcastle United’s long wait for silverware. His spectacular failure in charge of Liverpool and mediocre reign in charge of Blackburn hardly point to him being a manager to fulfil our club’s lofty ambitions. But has Souness really been that bad a manager for Newcastle? Of the first-team players he has gotten rid of since coming to Newcastle, namely Craig Bellamy, Laurent Robert, Patrick Kluivert, Olivier Bernard, Nicky Butt, Darren Ambrose, Andy O’Brien, Aaron Hughes, Jermaine Jenas and James Milner, only the departures of Bellamy, Hughes and Robert could really be questioned. Ambrose and O’Brien aren’t good enough, Bernard dug his own grave, Butt can fuck off, we robbed Spurs blind for a player who has had maybe 5 good games in the last 2 years, Milner will benefit from going on loan, and Kluivert should never have been brought to the club. Don’t get me wrong, Kluivert is a great player, but did anyone really expect Kluivert and Shearer to ever produce anything together? They’re comically mismatched as a partnership, both need someone with pace and movement to be effective. Eventually, Kluivert lost interest; the rest is history. The Hughes sale was odd. Aaron always seemed a capable squad player but, at the end of the day, was he really good enough? It’s a point I’ll get back to. Robert had to go. Sorry, I know he has a lot of supporters, but he had spent four years and never at any point put together anything resembling a consistent run of good games. His ability to produce something special disguised his lethargic general play. Plus, he was a shit. He loved the club, yes, but only when it suited him. As soon as he was out of the team, he didn’t take long to start talking up a move. Souness dropped him and then restored him to the team to try and motivate him, which led to some of Robert’s better performances for us. Then he goes and takes a broadside at the entire team the day before perhaps the biggest game of the season, against Sporting. Whether his comments were true is irrelevant, it was the wrong thing said at the wrong time. He was dropped and has since gotten his move. I’ll bet he loves it at Portsmouth... Then there’s Bellamy. I loved Bellamy the player, and was devastated to see him go. While I won’t try and absolve Souness of blame for the Bellamy situation, it’s hard to blame him completely. Bellamy did a lot of damage to his own cause, when I really wish he had shut up and got on with it. Souness came to the club because it was in desperate need of an overhaul. Our players seemed to like neither their previous manager nor each other. Souness couldn’t be seen to be weak, our club needed discipline, and thus Bellamy was sacrificed. It’s a shame Bellamy will never realise the potential he had to be a NUFC legend but, in the words of one of the great characters in modern film, “You wanna make an omelette, you gotta break some eggs”. Bet he loves it at Blackburn and all... The man to take Bellamy’s No. 10 shirt isn’t half bad either. Michael Owen is just one of a number of very good signings Souness has made as Newcastle manager. While we paid far too much for Boumsong, we desperately needed a defender and were held to ransom. Hardly Souness’ fault, it was the paper-thin defence he took over. Boumsong did well when he came in, and I think he will overcome his recent bad form to be a good player for us. Faye’s arrival coincided with a lengthy unbeaten run; I believe we were unbeaten in his first ten games or so. A massively limited footballer, but someone we needed to do a job at that time. Ditto Babayaro, the only left back we could get at the time. Rumours of Wayne Bridge coming to St. James’ Park, and indeed Souness’ admittance that he tried to sign Bridge during the summer, seem to indicate that Babayaro isn’t Souness’ long-term solution to the LB problem, merely a stopgap solution. Emre, Luque, Owen, Parker, Solano. All quality players, all in positions where we need them. In Parker finally we have the defensive midfielder, “destroyer” as SBR put it, we have needed for years. Gary Speed did a great job in a position that didn’t naturally suit him. Ruud Gullit many years ago had Speed and Dietmar Hamann in his midfield and needed someone to protect the back four while the other got forward… he chose Speed (*sigh*). Emre will give us the class that Viana was intended to give us on the ball in midfield, but has the aggressive side of his game that Hugo lacked to cut it in the Premiership. Solano gives us back the width on the right that we’ve so sorely missed since… well, Solano left. And those who said Souness would strip the side of its flair in favour of hard working players will no doubt be confused by the arrival of Luque. Very similar to Robert in his ability to create something from nowhere, can thump a ball as hard as the Frenchman, and his natural striking instincts could make him the man we’ve needed to get goals from midfield, should he end up in that position. We’ve bought some very good players to play in positions where we need them. Not £8.5m players with potential that we have no place in the team for, not a sideways passing headless chicken with a keen interest in aquatic phraseology who we persist in playing and make captain despite his disgraceful form. Good players, finished articles. So why the continued poor form? Why can’t we beat Portsmouth? Tired an excuse as it is, it’s hard to discount our injuries. Dyer, Luque, Emre and Solano, our four most capable “door openers” have hardly featured this season, leaving us to produce some very unimaginative displays going forward this season. Source of the injuries aside, this still reflects badly on Souness, right? He has spent £50m building what appears to be a very weak squad, surely a very poor reflection on his skills in team building? Perhaps, but what good is a deep squad if the quality is mediocre? Souness has focused his efforts on building a strong first team, and the squad has suffered. Players like Hughes, who would be able to do a job now, were gotten rid of in order to finance moves for the likes of Owen and Luque. Would you rather we kept Ambrose, Jenas and Hughes and signed Boa Morte and Anelka instead? We’d have a deeper squad, yeah, but we’d be settling for less. Souness inherited a decent squad, nothing more or less. Of the squad he took over, Kluivert and Bellamy were our 2 class players that have since left, the rest were all pretty average, one no better than the other. None would really challenge for a place in the Arsenal side for instance. In bringing in Luque, Emre, Parker, Solano and Owen we have had to weaken our squad, but we have improved our first team significantly. We have players capable of playing for a top team, not players capable of doing something on their day. Look at the names of the clubs our players have come in from. Deportivo La Coruna, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Inter Milan and… never mind where Solano came from, he’s good! We have a base of players upon which to build a very strong side, one that could take us places. We also appear to have developed a bit of steel, an ability to grind out results when things aren’t going our way, such as against Blackburn, Portsmouth and late against Man City. Things are far from perfect, no doubt. Only so much injury problems can arise from bad luck, training methods have to be looked at as a possible reason, something that has been done recently. A criticism that is often made of Graeme Souness is that he expects everything to be perfect all the time, which is ironic coming from most Newcastle fans. He has completely overhauled the team in the last year and is trying to put his new team together, something that takes time. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and they didn’t have to knock it down and start over when they got there either. I personally have my doubts about his ability to take us up the table, but I appreciate the job he has done in his time here. Put aside his admittedly poor managerial record at other clubs and look at what he has done at Newcastle. It’s far from bad, quite good in my opinion actually. He’s done what he was brought here to do, sort out the club. Out have gone the divisive influences in the team; in have come what appear to be good, honest professionals. The name Newcastle United isn’t all over the front page of the papers anymore. Some will say that it’s all about what gets done on the pitch, where he has failed, but that’s remarkably short-term thinking. Compare the club that Souness took over to the one he would leave now, which would you prefer? I feel that he may have taken us as far as he is capable of. He seems to lack the tactical skills needed to succeed nowadays. What is crucial now is that, if Souness does go, we make sure we get the right manager. No David O’ Leary, no Steve Bruce, not even Alan Shearer. Shearer may be a great manager one day, but this is not a job I believe any first time manager can do. We need someone with pedigree, someone capable. The name Otmar Hitzfeld is becoming increasingly popular with Newcastle fans. He fits the bill. Champions League winner, multiple Bundesliga winner, wants to manage in England. We need someone like him, or Paul Le Guen perhaps, not a Souness upgrade as O’Leary, Bruce, Allardyce or any other available British manager would be. If that were whom we’d hire, I’d rather keep Souness. At least he’s settled in and our good players seem to like him. Tactically inept or not, Souness has assembled a core group of quality players, ones that could take us somewhere. But we need a good manager. Fred Shepherd claims we are one of the biggest clubs in the world. Well then it’s time to start acting like it. Get someone in based on their managerial record, not their place of birth. Would Inter Milan hire Steve Bruce? No, and neither should we. Get a good manager Fred, or you may be next to go. This managerial appointment is massive; we have to get it right. Unless we do that, the good work Souness has done here will be worthless. © Stephen Kelly
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