What is the Correct Way to Leave a Club?

May 1981, Paris, and Ray Clemence sat in the dressing room at Parc des Princes and contemplated his third European Cup success.  Most players never even play in a European Cup Final, let alone three and here was Clem with his third winners medal.  This would go nicely with his two UEFA Cup medals, five league championships and an FA Cup win.  As he sat there watching his teammates celebrate victory over Real Madrid, Clemence had an uneasy feeling inside.  This was yet another success with Liverpool but for some reason it just didn’t feel the same.  He’d kept another clean sheet but it just wasn’t enough anymore.  He wanted a change.

When Ray Clemence told the club he wanted to move everyone was shocked.  He’d not given any inkling of being unsettled and perhaps he hadn’t quite realised it himself, but he felt he needed a new challenge.  So after almost thirteen years and six hundred and sixty-five appearances he moved to Tottenham.

The following May saw Clemence return to Anfield for the first time in his new colours.  Defending the Anfield Road end the crowd kept chanting “England’s number one”, but it was the reception he received when he came out for the second half which took his, and many watching, breath away.  As he ran towards The Kop the whole stadium was on their feet.   

Clemence still says this was the most emotional he’d ever been at a football ground.

But why should Clem receive such a warm reception from supporters he’d walked away from?  He’d given the club his finest years.  He made three hundred and thirty six consecutive appearances between September 1972 and March 1978.  The club was successful and had a worthwhile, if yet unproven, replacement waiting in the wings in Bruce Grobbelaar.  The general feeling was that he’d given us his best and he left with our blessing.  He also announced he was leaving during the summer, which didn’t affect any momentum we might have built up during a season.

The 1981-82 season was a pivotal one for the club as players such as Clemence, Jimmy Case, Ray Kennedy and Avi Cohen all left, with also David Johnson and Phil Thompson moving on during the season.  Liverpool usually only replaced one or two players at a time so to replace five was quite a risk.  They needn’t have worried as the club’s thirteenth League title was secured with that win over Tottenham.  The replacements Grobbelaar, Mark Lawrenson, Ronnie Whelan and Ian Rush soon became legends in their own right, so the succession was seamless.

Maybe there lies the key to whether a player who leaves a club on his own volition, is given the blessing of the fans.

This article, if you hadn’t guess already, has been inspired by the latest goings on surrounding Philipe Coutinho.  It now appears the club has been successful in keeping him, as he is now blaming his ‘advisers’ for the reason he’s made himself unavailable so far this season.

Coutinho’s career was floundering at Inter Milan when he signed in the January 2013 transfer window for a bargain price of £8.5m.  During his three and a half seasons he has become an important member of the team with last season arguably his best.  Barcelona has come calling and for a Brazilian who was spotted by Inter as a sixteen year-old at Vasco da Gama, he may find the lure too irresistible.

The club didn’t want him to leave, the supporters didn’t either but if he had have gone why should it hurt so much?

He signed a new five year contract in January giving us every indication he was going to be an integral part of the brave new world Jurgen Klopp is attempting to build at Anfield.  In pre-season we got a glimpse of what we might be able to look forward to when he combined well with new signing Mo Salah on numerous occasions. The prospect of Coutinho unleashing the pace of Salah and Mane was beginning to water mouths.

Yet on the eve of the new season he puts in a transfer request.  The suggestion was that FSG did not want to be seen to be keen to sell him and so engineered the player into this position to save face.  It would suit the owners if the fans had turned against Phil, as they had begun to and so Coutinho could move into the box marked ‘snake’.

But how can a player avoid this? Is there a right way to leave a club?  Can you blame players for wanting to challenge themselves? Can you blame players for wanting to play in front of over 100,000 people at the Nou Camp?

This hurts us supporters each time.  I was gutted when Luis Suarez left.  I felt proud the club refused to sanction his efforts to leave the previous season, yet you can’t knock the player who did his utmost to try and get us the league title twelve months later.  Some fans still harbour a grudge, but for me Suarez is such a magnificent player he was always likely to want to move to somewhere like Spain.

Coutinho is no Suarez though.  You always knew what you’d get with Suarez. You knew he’d influence each and every game.  But Coutinho goes missing in matches.  In amongst some magic moments there has been some average performances.

But what right do we Liverpool fans have to expect players to stay at the club?  After all, they invariably have come from somewhere else.  Did we consider how PSV fans felt when Suarez left in January 2011?  What about Roma fans having just witnessed twenty nine goals in two seasons from Salah only to see him return to England?

Of course we can’t ignore Southampton who have endured a raft of players moving from the South Coast to Liverpool.  In fact as I write this the ongoing saga of whether Virgil van Dijk will leave St. Mary’s for Anfield continues to rumble on.  I’m sure Southampton fans would’ve loved to have seen more of Lallana, Lambert, Lovren, Clyne and Mane, but they’re Liverpool players now and we want them to do well for us.

It’s not easy being a football supporter but your club is bigger than any player and will exist long after those players have retired.  We’ve lost players before, some of whom I struggled to get over such as Keegan, Souness, McDermott, Beardsley, Alonso and Suarez.  There have been numerous I’ve said good riddance to, Owen and Sterling for example. 

There are also plenty the club has decided to move on and it’s this point where you can see the players’ side of things.  They could give their all for a club but if the club decides in a change of direction then they could be sold anyway.  Coutinho may well have signed a contract but the club could still decide to sell him whilst he’s under that contract. 

Van Dijk is under contract at Southampton and appears to have decided he’s leaving. This saga has been dragging on since virtually the end of last season with the player effectively downing tools. What us fans never really consider is that we’re happy to have a player who has cheated his previous club, preferring to ignore the fact he may very well cheat us.

Do we really think Salah will stay longer than a couple of years?  What about Firmino? He’s twenty six.  Will he still be here in three years time?  These are not Liverpool-born players, it’s not particularly clear whether they’ve been lifelong Liverpool fans so should we expect them to stay here no matter what?

It’s pretty clear these days that players hold most of the cards, although maybe that should be corrected to agents hold most of the cards.  What shouldn’t be forgotten is that Coutinho’s agent is none other than Kia Joorabchian, a name which still strikes fear into many football supporters hearts and who has been effecting transfers worldwide for years since the Tevez affair in 2008.

After all this there are only a few examples of clubs successfully holding onto players when they’re being courted by other clubs, with Suarez and Gareth Bale being recent examples.  Although in both cases it seems they were persuaded to give one more season before their moves were sanctioned twelve months later.

So perhaps we’re to endure this charade again next summer so let’s hope the story follows a similar path to Suarez and Coutinho gives us his very best for this season and we’re challenging for the league title again.  What does seem to be clear, though is that the club were not planning to re-invest any transfer fee (which may have been as much as £130m) back into the playing squad.  The squad needs improving and £130m would’ve gone a long way to helping with that.  But the club was quite happy to pass up the offer as if they don’t really need the money.  Although it could be argued the team would’ve been poorer for the absence of Coutinho and would £130m have replaced him without disruption?  Another question is that Barcelona were offering as much as they were because their coffers had been filled by the Neymar transfer.  Will they still have that much money next summer?  Will any team?  If Coutinho is unsettled again next summer will the club have to accept a lower offer than they would’ve been able to obtain this summer?  It’s a risky strategy in a game where players and agents are holding many of the best cards.

As supporters we’ll go on falling hopelessly in love with our heroes even if they do eventually leave for other admirers.

Is it Time?

Is there a time for keeping a distance
A time to turn your eyes away
Is there a time for keeping your head down
For getting on with your day

If you’ve read any of my material before hopefully you will know I’m not one for knee-jerking.  I despair at clubs/supporters who want a change of manager after just a few matches into a new season.  Owners and Chairman have tried to justify this treatment by arguing if they leave things as they are then the club could a long way from their target, whereas making a change early enough means they can still have a decent season.

Being more of your ‘old-school’ Liverpool fan I have always been proud of the patience the club generally has had with managers.  Roy Hodgson was the exception.  He shouldn’t have been chosen in the first place, he was a victim of a power struggle between two owners who were hanging onto something they’d lied through their teeth to gain.  It was clear from the style of play and the players he signed that it just wasn’t going to work and as soon as the two cowboys were sent packing by FSG, they wasted no time in bringing in a replacement.

The club had become a joke and was on the back pages for all the wrong reasons.  Kenny Dalglish was the perfect answer.  He brought the fans back onside and re-introduced a good feeling around the place.  Of course his presence presented many other problems as the club still wasn’t achieving in the League as we all wouldn’t wanted, but two cup finals softened the blow a tad.  But with fans so desperate for success playing at home became a hindrance rather than an advantage.  If the team didn’t score early enough the fans would get nervous and this would translate back to the players.  This lead to another problem when an icon is chosen to lead the club back to the promised land, in that it becomes almost sacrilege or blasphemy to criticise him.  Dalglish went for a short-cut in the transfer market with a policy of buying British in a belief it often takes a foreign player longer to settle in.  He made one big exception, Luis Suarez, who was an exceptional player.

FSG decided at the end of the first full season they wanted a change.  I didn’t personally like the way they went about it, but they were decisive and so they were at least worthy of being trusted in some way.  They were such a difference from the previous clowns that in some way you just ignore one or two things you don’t like in the hope the ‘greater good’ is, well, better.

Brendan Rodgers wouldn’t have been my choice to take over from Kenny Dalglish but he was a promising coach, young and British and in some way there was something about a coach like him getting a job at the top six club when the fashion was to look abroad.  He came in with a reputation for attractive passing football and it wasn’t that long before you could see the changes he was making on the training ground were having an effect on matchday.  Many of us were prepared to give him time, where others wanted him gone after an opening day defeat at West Brom.  Steven Gerrard’s assertion he was a good manager went much of the way towards the time he was given by the fans.

The second half of his first season was much better as things appeared to be falling into place.  Two 5-0 wins and two 4-0 wins contributed to a feel-good factor culminating in a 6-0 demolition at Newcastle.  This last match was significant as it was the first match without Suarez after his incident with Ivanovic.  The play that day was a pleasure to watch as Sturridge looked as if he relished his role and responsibility.

The second season is one which will live long in the memory as suddenly we were on the verge of a League title.  The team was playing some of the most exciting football seen here and people like me were having to think back to the magnificent teams of 1987-1989 or the 1978-1980 to remember whether we’d ever seen better.  The 5-1 destruction of Arsenal when we were 4-0 up in the opening twenty minutes, 4-0 wins over Everton and Tottenham and a 3-0 win at Old Trafford combined to the growing belief it was our time.  When we beat Manchester City 3-2 on the 25^th anniversary of Hillsborough it just seemed as if nothing could stop us.  In the end something did and we had to settle for second place.  But we believed we’d found a method, a way of playing and a manager who could take us places.

Then Suarez left.

I always hoped he would give us one year of Champions League football, but as it was he’d already promised Steven Gerrard that a year earlier, and so when Barcelona came in he just couldn’t resist.  Sturridge was injured too and so we were robbed of the opportunity of seeing that team, which had held so many people spellbound months earlier, perform on the European stage.

Two wins and three defeats from the first six League games produced an agitated feeling around the place.  Six defeats from the first twelve matches, along with the limp attempt at qualifying from a Champions League group it seemed impossible not to, just provided further ammunition for those who always doubted Rodgers.

The sixth defeat in the league provided a turning point as it demonstrated how far the team had gone from the free-flowing pacey attacking side we had witnessed six months before.  Against Crystal Palace our attacking build-up was so laborious Crystal Palace found it far too easy to sit back, soak up the pressure and then hit us on the break.  What followed was one defeat in the next seventeen League matches and a run of thirteen unbeaten.  This took us to within two points of Manchester United in fourth and things were looking much more promising.

The story is that Rodgers had spent a whole day and night in his office desperately trying to work out what had gone wrong and how he was going to turn it round.  This is where he hit upon the tactic of using wing-backs and playing three at the back.  It worked.  Teams couldn’t adjust to our style of play and gradually the confidence returned.  Until, that is, we met Manchester United. 

United weren’t playing with much confidence themselves but that day van Gaal had a tactic to combat ours and exposed our wing-backs.  In the end we might have scrambled a draw but it would’ve been more than we deserved.  We then got thumped at Arsenal and our confidence looked shot.  Personally, I could stomach those defeats as even United themselves have had seasons where they’ve finished in the top four with a poor record against other top four sides.  What I couldn’t accept was what followed.

A goalless draw at West Brom and the defeat at Hull City was unacceptable.  Six points from those games would have us two points behind United with four games to go and fourth place would still have been on the cards.  From there the season just fell away in such a pathetic way with us finishing sixth and suffering the most embarrassing League defeat since the days of Souness.

Saturday’s defeat to Manchester United means we have lost seven of our last fourteen matches.  So this is where I believe changing things now is not necessarily a result of the first five games of this season.  Changes were made over the summer but all they seem to have done is make it harder for Rodgers to be flexible.  Intent on a 4-3-3 system he has backed himself into a corner to have to play Milner in central midfield and use players like Firmino in a sort of wide position.  Rodgers has always failed to resist the idea of playing players in unfamiliar positions.  Even in his early days he was accused by loanee, Sahin, as using him in a different role to one he promised.  Johnson and Flanagan swapped flanks to differing levels of success and of course last season there were times when Sterling was utilised in a wing-back role.

There is little doubt we are missing Daniel Sturridge and the club’s insistence of not buying a decent striker last season has continued to plague us.  Christian Benteke looked a good signing but with a flaw Tim Sherwood identified at Villa.  Benteke had struggled to seem interested under Paul Lambert yet when Sherwood took over suddenly he was scoring goals.  The difference?  Sherwood identified Benteke needed support from the wings and now with Sterling disappearing to Manchester City we seem devoid of width.  So many Premier League sides play a compact system that any team with attacking wide players are bound to find some success.  Why Milner has not been used in this role is a mystery, but perhaps Jordan Henderson’s absence through injury has forced Rodgers to use Milner’s experience in the centre.

After a tentative start we were torn apart by West Ham at Anfield.  Fortunately the international break gave time to prepare for the trip to Old Trafford, which is why the manner of the performance is what is most galling.  There was no passion, no spirit and no obvious idea of what was expected from a team playing against the fiercest of rivals.  It was said long ago that buying in too many ‘foreign’ players would dilute the passion of a big clash as those players would little understand the history and rivalry as the fans do.  But many of these players have played for clubs who have ‘big clashes’ each year and must surely have realised, unless they’d been playing in the moon, that Liverpool v Manchester United is one of the biggest games in English football, no matter where the teams are in the table.  Watching the performance at Old Trafford you could be forgiven for thinking these players believed they were up against FC United of Manchester.

Rodgers has been methodical about dealing with past hurdles before and generally his instinct has worked but we’re back in a ‘rebuilding’ situation as we were a few months ago and how long must we put up with this?

It was barely seventeen months ago we were one of the most exciting teams around and even neutrals were saying to me how much they were enjoying our football.  Yet here we are now, almost dreading the next game, concentrating more on where we’re weak rather than where we can hurt the opposition.  Perhaps that’s because the performances this season give little evidence of where we can hurt anyone, Coutinho aside.  The return of Sturridge and Henderson to the side could well see a turn in fortunes and again it could be argued with so many teams beating each other this season, that a club can afford a few poor games yet still finish in a position to compete for a top four place.  Rodgers’ teams have generally performed better after Christmas than before and so another good run in the New Year could wipe out these current emotions, but, and it is a big but, what if he cannot reproduce that?

Of course another of my criticisms of supporters calling for a change of manager is their lack of the ability to suggest a suitable replacement.  You could argue I’m in the same position as it would appear the only credible alternative is Jurgen Klopp.  It has recently been rumoured he is holding out to replace Guardiola at Bayern and so Liverpool’s search may continue.

Any replacement will have to deal with the same group of players but at least they won’t feel they need to be loyal to some they’ve purchased, or determined to prove another player can make it.  Where a replacement could make a difference is in defence.  Lovren and Skrtel seem to be given more leeway than previous players who transgressed, so much so one begins to believe they are immovable.

One aspect which seems to have emerged this season is teams’ desire and ability to play a counter-attacking game.  Evidence of this can be seen in how many away wins there have been so far.  The irony is we used to be one of the most exciting, fastest attacking sides around and yet we’re back to a ponderous build up with only Gomez and Clyne keen to push on.

There is a school of thought that maintains FSG will manage Liverpool in a similar way they have with Boston Red Socks and so Rodgers may well be comfortable in his job for a while yet.  But we simply cannot afford to sit out another Champions League season and fall further and further behind our rivals on a financial footing.

It gives me no pleasure to say this but I think it is now time for a change at Anfield.

Graeme Souness - What Might Have Been

I was drawn to this point based on a couple of comments I’d read recently about Souness.  These comments surrounded the question of what might have happened to Tottenham had they not sold Souness to Middlesbrough in1973.  My view is that Tottenham wouldn’t have been able to turn Souness into the player he later became.  Middlesbrough almost did, but it was the whole package with Liverpool which enabled him to fully utilise the talent Spurs had seen, and experienced, from an early age.  This article attempts to show why.

Souness was part of Tottenham’s successful FA Youth Cup winning side when they beat Coventry City over an epic four match Final in 1970.  He already stood out above other players and was soon making an impact in the reserves at White Hart Lane, alongside Steve Perryman, who broke through into the first team before the Scot.

In those Finals he scored in the first and fourth games but was sent off in the third.  He formed a formidable midfield partnership with Steve Perryman, who later went onto captain the club with such distinction.  Perryman had already made his debut in the first team at the age of 17, but Souness was still waiting and made no secret of the fact he felt he should be part of it.

Manager, Bill Nicholson, recalled;

“He wanted to be in the first team right away.  It was a dilemma.  We had a club packed with top players.  He had to be patient and wait his turn.  He simply couldn’t wait”.

He did make it as a substitute in a UEFA Cup match against Keflavik of Iceland in September 1971, coming on for Alan Mullery.  When you look at the team Spurs had then you can see the competition he was up against.  Jennings, Kinnear, Knowles, Beal, England, Perryman, Coates, Mullery, Peters, Gilzean and Chivers.

Frustrated, Souness went back home to Scotland and then over to the States where he played ten games for Montreal Olympique in NASL, during summer 1972.  He impressed so much he was voted into the league’s All-Star team for the season.  In January 1973, Nicholson finally gave up on him and sold him to Middlesbrough, who were a Second Division club at the time, for £30,000.

Souness soon made his debut in the first team when they travelled to Craven Cottage to meet Fulham.  They lost 1-2 but Souness kept his place for the subsequent FA Cup Third Round trip to Plymouth, a Division below Middlesbrough.  He took his place alongside one Nobby Stiles in Middlesbrough’s midfield but it wasn’t a great start as Plymouth pulled off a shock 1-0 win at Home Park.  He had to wait until his fourth game for the club before he tasted his first success.  At the beginning of February they beat Blackpool, 2-0 at home with David Mills scoring both goals. 

Both Mills and Souness would go onto break transfer records.  Mills became England’s first half-million pound footballer when he signed for West Brom in 1979.  A year earlier when Souness signed for Liverpool for £352,000, it was a transfer record between English clubs.

In the April after Souness arrived at Middlesbrough, Jack Charlton took over for his first managerial position.  Souness didn’t figure in the first team beyond March that season as the club finished fourth.  But ‘Big Jack’, who had negotiated almost complete control of the running of the club, went about changing Souness’ style by moving him from left midfield to the centre and encouraging him to play the ball forward more often.  He also made a point of explaining to Souness how his love of the nightlife would end his career early.  The new season brought immediate improvement as Middlesbrough won the Second Division, 15pts clear of Luton Town in second place.  By now Souness was playing alongside former Celtic European Cup winner, Bobby Murdoch.  Souness scored his first goal in a 3-0 win against Preston in December 1973.  He contributed a total of seven goals for each of the next two seasons and was soon recognised by the locals as one of their best post-War players.  That Championship season was capped with an 8-0 thumping of Sheffield Wednesday in the final game when Souness scored a hat-trick.  He was then voted player of the year by the fans to crown a glorious season.

At the end of October 1974, Souness won his first Scotland cap when he played in a 3-0 win over East Germany in a friendly match at Hampden Park.  He played well enough to keep his place for the visit of Spain a month later where they lost 1-2 after being in front.  He would earn just one more cap before 1978. 

Middlesbrough finished 7^th in their first season back in the First Division and in 1975-76 they won the Anglo-Scottish Cup, beating Fulham 1-0, and reached the League Cup Semi-Finals, losing to eventual winners Manchester City. 

In April 1977, Jack Charlton left Middlesbrough.  The board had become increasingly fed-up with his dictatorial style and belief he could make all the decisions and so he was replaced by former Wrexham manager, John Neal.  Souness didn’t take to Neal in the way he had Charlton although the club remained mid-table performers.  Charlton had managed to convince Souness to use his unwavering self-confidence to his own advantage and for a while it worked.  But in 1978 Souness was disciplined by the club for going missing, claiming “I am fed up, disenchanted with the game.  I feel like a good holiday away from it all”.

When he returned to the club in January 1978 he was told to go to a hotel in Leeds where he would meet representatives from Liverpool.  Manager, Bob Paisley, had identified Souness as the ideal person to bring some steel to his midfield.  Liverpool were reigning League and European Champions and paid £352,000 for the Scot.

This is where things changed for good for Souness and right from the first day he turned up at training.

He turned up at Mellwood and said “so what do you want me to do here?”  He was then left in no doubt as to what was expected of him when he got the response “bloody hell, we’ve paid all this money for you and you’re asking us what you’re supposed to do?”

And so began the journey of Souness becoming a man.  He wasn’t ‘the best player in the club’ as he’d believed he was at Spurs. He wasn’t a very good player in an average team who couldn’t really do without him, as he was at Middlesbrough.  He was an expensive player trying to break into a team which were League and European Champions, and he knew immediately he’d have to work at his game.

This is where Bob Paisley was so good as a manager.  Not the most tactically adept, certainly not the most motivational a speaker, but Bob understood the mentality of the footballer and he knew to get the best out of Souness he would have to keep him keen, keep stretching him.  Paisley would sign potential and then keep them champing at the bit in the reserves, by which time when they did get their chance they’d be so desperate to keep their first team place, they wouldn’t dare let their performance drop.

Two of Souness’ first three appearances for Liverpool ended in defeat but he endeared himself to the Kop by scoring a screamer in a 3-1 win at Anfield over Manchester United in February.  The goal was voted Goal of the Season and Souness was off and running.   

This is where the key contrast with Liverpool Football Club was able to help the player.  Players would be loved by the fans, lauded on the pitch, but the backroom staff would never let them get ahead of themselves.  Similarly, teammates would be quick to jump on anyone getting ideas above their station.  They were just another player within Liverpool and, each of them vital in the way the whole team functioned, but no one player was more important than anyone else.  This kept the players’ feet on the ground and is why many of them remain humble today.

He made fifteen appearances that season, scored two goals (both at Anfield), but was still having to prove himself.  The season ended with him being instrumental in helping Liverpool become the first British club to retain the European Cup when he had the vision to see a pass for Dalglish to score the only goal of the game against Bruges at Wembley.  The important thing about that goal is they’d worked on the move a lot during the previous months so both Souness and Dalglish knew what each other was going to do.

Souness hadn’t been fully trusted by Scotland manager, Willie Ormond as by the time the 1978 World Cup came along he’d only gained six caps.  But Ormond’s successor, Ally McLeod, selected him for the trip to Argentina and after two embarrassing performances against Peru and Iran, he finally gave Souness his chance in their last group game against Netherlands.  Souness was instrumental in helping Scotland grab a famous 3-2 win as he ran the midfield in that game.

Back at Anfield, Liverpool were keen to wrestle back the League title from Nottingham Forest, who had ended the reds two-year winning streak.  They embarked on one of the best seasons seen by a club in English football, breaking a whole host of records.  Souness was now synonymous with the club and the style of play.  He was part of one of the greatest midfields seen in this country, along with Terry McDermott, Sammy Lee and Ray Kennedy.  He only missed one league game and scored 8 times in a 53 game season.

What Souness went onto achieve at Liverpool has obviously left one or two wondering what he might have done for their club, but I believe he wouldn’t have achieved the level of success he did at Anfield, anywhere else.  As I have said, there were no prima donas at Liverpool as everyone was expected to fit into the ‘Liverpool way’.  Foreign coaches would often come to Mellwood to find out the secret.  They were convinced there was something in the food or the water, or in the training techniques which set the team apart in Europe.  But all they found were players playing five-a-side games.

What they missed was the bigger picture, the thing which stood them out from everyone else.  It started with Shankly in his undying belief the players were ‘privileged to play for the fans’.  His view was you were fortunate to be at Liverpool, which was something to be proud of and work for, not wanting to give up easily.  Paisley then took this on to the next stage.  Paisley built a team of winners and leaders.  Look at any of his European Cup winning sides and many of the players there could’ve been captain.  Souness fitted this role, this mentality.  A born winner, he was given the responsibility of playing an important part in the club’s continued success.  This meant he would berate any player not doing their job.  In fact, as a team they would be at each other.  Paisley didn’t need to be an expert at team talks as the players did that for him.  After every successful season, the players would return to the club only to hear the backroom staff continually chide them not to think they’d ‘arrived’ and that winning a title was easy, retaining it was the tough part.  ‘Anyone can do that’, was constantly drummed into them, and this ensured the legacy continued.  The five-a-side training matches honed both the pass-and-move game as well as pitching highly motivated, competitive players into a confined space, with none of them wanting to concede an inch to each other.

Any successful organisation, beit army, company or team, has to work from the top down and everyone must understand the hierarchy and believe in it.  If this works then you have a situation that if anyone new comes in and isn’t quite pulling their weight, it won’t always be the manager, assistant manager or even the captain who tells him.

At Liverpool, Souness was now part of something rather than ‘the’ part.  This is where I believe he would never have become that player at probably any other club around that time.  Tottenham would’ve made him the main man, the fans and the club would’ve continued to massage his ego and that wasn’t what he needed.  Look at how Tottenham treated the likes of Glenn Hoddle.  They became so reliant on him they were prepared to accept 30 good games a season from him if he could inspire them to win the odd trophy.

If Hoddle had been at Liverpool he certainly would’ve had to work harder than he did as a player and wouldn’t have been worshipped as he was at Spurs.  Of course the fans would’ve loved him, but only in the way they did Steve McManaman (not unanimously) rather than the way they did Barnes or Dalglish.

Of course it was very easy for a club like Liverpool back then to counter Souness’ arrogance with the jibe “so what have you won then, big boy?” and this is where Souness was able to grow as a person as well as a player, in the way both Nicholson and Charlton were trying to get him to understand.

Speaking in 1978, Bill Nicholson was philosophical about Souness’time at Spurs.  “Arrogance, that’s what Souness had.  And I suppose all the truly great players possess that in their make-up.  I certainly don’t blame the lad for wanting what he has got.”

Souness too admits his own failings.  “At Spurs I got very frustrated.  And when I arrived at Middlesbrough I didn’t change.  I was lazy and I knew it.”  He then went onto credit Jack Charlton for putting him right.  “Jack took me to one side and had a chat.  He told me to pull my socks up and, more importantly, gave me a chance as well.  I had to make a big adjustment but I was grateful for the chance I responded and things just got better and better”.

As this isn’t just an article about Souness the player and a focus on his whole career, for those who never saw him what you needed to understand was he could do the job of about two or three midfielders.  In an era where everyone played a rigid 4-4-2, other teams would need a passer and a tackler and maybe a goalscorer in their midfield whereas Liverpool had Souness who could do the lot.

Possibly the best midfield in English football over the past twenty years was Beckham, Keane, Butt and Scholes.  Well, Souness was all four.  He may not have possessed Beckham’s athleticism and was unlikely to spray the ball around quite as much, arguing he didn’t need to, but if you were to describe the attributes of each of those four you could easily be describing Souness with any of them.

Souness was of his time, in an age where clubs and managers still had some hold and influence over players.  This might point to his frustration with some players not wanting it as much as he did when he became a manager, preferring to measure their own success by way of their bank balance rather than their medal cabinet.

Interviews taken from Shoot! magazine, 1978
LFChistory.net also used as a reference