Readers Letter: A Pro-Souness View (1)
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Newcastle-Online.com reader Jon Lee, an exiled Magpie now living
out in the States, has took up our challenge to write a positive article
concerning Graeme Souness and his future as Newcastle United manager.
Jon takes a pragmaticm businesslike look at the situation.
As a long time Newcastle supporter now living in the US I feel as
though I can take a more subjective view of the situation regarding
Souness than if I was back home surrounded by the recent failures
of the team.
My view is taken purely from a business perspective and is a simple
one. Souness has been brought in as a project manager. His brief is
to achieve "success" in a defined timescale. I understand that "success"
is a somewhat subjective term but I think most would agree to the
following as being reasonable:
1. Earning a place in Europe
2. A top six place in the league
3. Selling all of next year's season tickets.
One of the most essential lessons for any project manager is to manage
your Stakeholders. If you don't do this, even if you are technically
successful, it is very difficult to have a successful project because
too many people actually want you to fail or at the least, will stand
on the sidelines and throw verbal rocks at you. In Souness' case,
his stakeholders are primarily: The board; his players, the fans and
the press. These are listed in the sequence in which they can "kill"
his project the fastest. So how has he fared on this:
1. The board: He has actually done moderately well in keeping his
main stakeholder (Freddy Shepherd) on board to date. Although as his
project is looking more and more likely to fail he will rapidly lose
support in this area.
2. His squad. I understand that he has inherited a difficult squad,
but special footballers tend to be a little temperamental and have
a touch of the prima donna in them. It is his job to get the best
out of them. Frankly some of the comments he makes about them in the
press make me cringe. If I made those comments about my staff I would
not expect them to want to work for me. My opinion is that he has
failed in this area.
3. The fans. I know that not many fans were that happy about his appointment
in the first place which is not his fault. However he must have been
aware of this at the time and did not do anything to try and turn
them around. The situation is that he has now lost the confidence
of the majority of the fans to the point where they are frustrated
and starting to barrack the players, making the whole situation worse.
4. The press. This has been appallingly handled by him. His stance
of "you don't help me then I won't help you" is immature. Even if
the press are idiots, you need to treat them with respect.
So whereas it is still theoretically possible for him to succeed,
he has made it very difficult for himself by antagonizing so many
of the people that he needs. As such this project is doomed to failure
unless a miracle occurs.
The question now is not if Souness should go but rather when. That
has to be a business decision. Obviously he needs to go before the
start of the new season, otherwise the club will never sell all it's
season tickets. Furthermore, it is imperative that a quality manager
is brought in to replace him regardless of the timing.
The only reason for letting him go immediately, is if the club were
to be in danger of relegation or that quality manager was available
now. Only if relegation were considered a real danger should he be
thrown overboard without a good replacement. The priority then would
be to bring in a cheerleader who can motivate what is a terrific squad
to play to their potential.
The interests of the club must come first even if that means that
we must endure this torment for the rest of the season then. Bringing
in another wrong manager just because we don't like Souness would
be a disaster, only in the next case we may not have the resources
to recover from it.
By Jon Lee
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