By Chris Baker
December 28 2005

I can remember the day Souness was appointed as manager as if it was yesterday. For a few weeks now there had been speculation, numerous names linked to the post, the usual media drivel that, in recent years, we've been so used to hearing with all our managerial changes... Shock Horror - A Positive Souness View

I can remember the day Souness was appointed as manager as if it was yesterday. For a few weeks now there had been speculation, numerous names linked to the post, the usual media drivel that, in recent years, we've been so used to hearing with all our managerial changes. None of the candidates linked or named really stood out for me. Rather, it was a miserable time, waking up to see the latest name linked and thinking, "please, not him." Such was the lack of suitable candidates for the job.

I strongly opposed the likes of Bruce, O'Leary, Strachan, O'Neil, Allardyce and any other British manager of the type, Souness included. I had my preferences of course, and opposed some much more than others. Bruce was top of my list. I've looked on with a little bit of satisfaction as the men above that didn't get the job have blundered, struggled and shown exactly why we shouldn't have gone for them. Bruce is doing terribly at Birmingham (and how he remains in the job any longer is beyond me), O'Leary's Villa aren't exactly setting the world alight, whilst Strachan's first game in charge ruined Celtic's season as they crashed 5-0 in a Champions League qualifier.

But enough about all that, that isn't the point of the article. The point is that I want to illustrate my continued backing of Souness. There's just far too much anti-Souness rubbish floating about outside St. James' Park these days, and it's time people of the other opinion spoke up. Us here at Tyne-Talk are still backing Souness, at least the majority are, and that seems to be something rare on Newcastle sites at the moment, with most of them itching to see the back of him.

What prompted me to write this article was a question I read on one such site's forum, and those who know me will know which one I'm talking about. A thread there asked, "What has Souness done that is good? Why should he be kept?" Something along those lines anyway. I believe there's quite a lot, certainly enough to write an article about.

Before I start discussing those things however, let's start with Souness' general managerial history. Is he a good manager, people ask. He totally ruined Blackburn before joining us, they say. Hang on, Souness promoted Blackburn back into the Premiership, got them a top six finish, and won them the League Cup. And they're a selling club. It's no surprise that selling the likes of Duff and Dunn led to them sliding down to the lower half of the table.

It's ignorant to say he did a poor job with Blackburn. It's also interesting to see that some of Blackburn's best players at the moment are Souness buys. Brett Emerton and Morten Gamst Pedersen to name but two players, and that leads me to my first point, my first answer, to the question "What has Souness done that is good?"

Quite simply, he's bought some quality players. One of Souness' strengths is his ability in the transfer market. It has only been half a season so far, but it's clear that Scott Parker has been a magnificant buy. How this man isn't in the England squad is beyond me. Emre has also been a good buy. An outstanding, match winning performance against Sunderland, the winning goal against Birmingham, totally changed the game at Wigan (league) where we were unlucky not to get the win let alone the draw. In recent weeks, we've seen the re-emergence of Amdy Faye, a solid defensive midfielder and a decent signing. Unfortunately we've yet to see the best, or even any, of Albert Luque, but to label him a flop, or a rubbish player, as I'm seeing on such websites as the one I took the question that forms this article from, is absolutely ridiculous. I'll admit I don't follow La Liga avidly, but I know that Luque is a brilliant player and he is another good buy from Souness.

I don't need to mention Owen, he speaks for himself, but I will mention Boumsong, one of Souness' first signings. I predict all those anti-Souness people reading this will have just scoffed at the sheer mention that Boumsong is a good signing, some may even be laughing out loud right now. But is he a good signing? I think he's decent. Overpriced? Probably, but a good defender. Football fans have extremely short memories (if any at all), so of course they will forget that he was a solid performer last season since he joined. He has performed poorly in a few games this season, I will be the first to admit that, but he's not as bad as people make out. His partnership with Taylor was strong, and that leads me to my next point.

Souness has improved us defensively. Yet another scoff from the anti-Souness brigade I suspect. Understandable considering memorable blunders this season - Bramble's at Stamford Bridge, Boumsong's against Man Utd, Robbie Elliott's against Deportivo, and so on. But look at this statistic - we've kept seven clean sheets so far this season, and we're only half way through. Unfortanately though, it is errors more than clean sheets that are remembered and that a player is judged on. Never mind if Boumsong and Taylor keep three successive clean sheets in a row, if Boumsong makes an awful blunder the next game, that's the label he is stuck with. Ludicrous to say the least.

But it's not just this season we've seen defensive improvements. Prior to Souness' arrival, and during the early weeks of his reign, we had the second worst defensive record in the league, second only to West Brom, who leaked an absolute bucketload. Souness gradually improved that record, grinding out clean sheets, grinding out 1-0 wins, restoring a bit of confidence into the back four. Bramble was immense towards the end of last season (of course this is forgotten because of later blunders), and Souness had really brought out the best in him.

It wasn't just Bramble though. Kieron Dyer played some of the best football of his St. James' career under Souness towards the end of the season. How vital he was, until he got injured. This is my next point about Souness. He brings out the best in a lot of players. Everyone has the impression his man management skills are non existant, that he has bust ups with everyone.
Whilst I'm not saying they are brilliant, I think he certainly has skills. If anyone still thinks Souness is to blame for the Robert and Bellamy fiasco, they're idiots, to put it nicely. How did Robert get along with Perrin? Robert is trouble, and this has been proven in just a half season at Pompey, so I won't waste more time on him. Getting back to the point, there's a reason why Bramble and Dyer have performed like different players, and why Taylor and Ramage at the back have emerged as extremely valuable squad members. Souness has done well in that respect. Ramage could quite easily have left us in the summer after not wanting to sign a contract. It was down to Souness to get him to commit, and he had to sacrifice Aaron Hughes in the process, and he succeeded in getting Ramage to sign after giving him first team assurances. Out went an average, older defensive utility player, in comes a younger prospect, a Geordie at that, with heaps of potential, and at a cheaper cost. Total no brainer for me, but people are quick to say it was wrong to sell Hughes. I just shake my head at the claim. After all, Hughes is performing brilliantly at Villa. No he isn't.

Closely related to Souness' man management, is that he's cleared the dressing room of all the crap. Without a shadow of a doubt, Newcastle is United. They are a unit, one team, working together towards the common goal. We haven't had that sense of unity for a number of years now. This is down to Souness. Out have gone the primadonnas like Bellamy and Robert, in have come the model professionals like Scott Parker. Such a vital part of a football club, people have often overlooked this part of our club, and that Souness is the one who has done it.

So far I've mentioned Souness' transfer skills, our defensive improvement, our team spirit, and his man management. Pretty big things in my view. Yet a manager is judged on his results. Fourteenth in the league is simply not good enough. Whether you're pro or anti Souness you can agree on that. What people can't agree on though, is whether the two cup competitions we were in last season count for something or nothing. You either win them or you don't, people say.

I've not made the calculations, but I'm sure if you add up the number of games we played in both the FA Cup and UEFA Cup, and compare it to the likes of Everton, I'm pretty comfortable we will have played as many as 19 games more, which is half a season. How you can say it counts for nothing is beyond me. In my book, we had two fantastic cup runs, which, coupled with a dismal league position, equals an average season. Disappointing, without a doubt, especially considering the nature of the two cup defeats in the space of a week, but they can't be excluded from the season.

If you've bothered to read this far, you'd think that I have some kind of blind trust issue with Souness; that I'm backing him over everything, and that he can do no wrong. That's far from the truth. I acknowledge his errors where he has made them, just like I acknowledge the good things he has done, something the majority seem not to care about.

I believe the sticking point with a lot of fans is Souness' tactical abilities (or in the eyes of the anti-Souness fan, his lack thereof). Indeed, a lot of the errors he has made in my eyes are tactical, but I wouldn't say he has poor tactical ability or that he is tactically inept.

For example, I think he got it awfully wrong at the Reebok Stadium earlier in the season, and I also feel he was tactically wrong at Goodison Park more recently, along with the most recent game at Anfield. On these occasions, and perhaps one or two more, I've felt he had got things wrong tactically, put out the wrong lineup or formation. But there are also times where he has illustrated his tactical brilliance and awareness. The last home game we had, against Arsenal, is the best and most recent example of that; a game where Souness got everything spot on and gave us a memorable win. He also got things right in games that have ended in defeat. People seem to think that if a manager loses a game, his tactics were wrong.

We may have been beaten by Man Utd at home, but his tactics weren't wrong. We bossed them before our injuries, just like we bossed Arsenal at Highbury before an incorrect red card made it a one sided attacking affair to the home side. There are games where Souness shows he knows what he's doing, and there are also some where he (in my view) got it wrong. The verdict? I'd say the verdict comes at the end of the season. Let's not forget, with all these injuries, Souness hasn't been able to field anything near his first choice eleven at times, so to say he's tactically inept when he hasn't had a chance with his full team is a little premature to say the least.

And on the theme of injuries, I could write so much. I won't, but I'll be making just a few points. At St. James' Park tomorrow night, we could see our first choice midfield play together for the first time this season. That, in my opinion, is Luque on the left, Emre and Parker in the middle, and Solano on the right. Doesn't that tell you something about the injuries we've had? December 28th, and we are set to play our first choice midfield for the first time ever.

How can you possibly say injuries aren't an excuse? Without a shadow of a doubt they've hampered our campaign and cost us a lot of points. I am more than comfortable in saying that if we had no more than three injuries at a time all season since August, we'd be in the top six right now. Unfortunately though, we've had eight or nine at times.

Two games where injuries stick out in my mind are the Sporting and Man Utd games. Not THAT semifinal, but the league game at St. James'. Against Sporting, it was so clear that the tie was lost by injuries. We were already low on numbers that we were forced to build our team around Dyer. When the likes of Dyer and Bramble came off injured, the game was lost, having done so well, or at least, well enough beforehand, to win the game and the tie. Likewise against Man Utd (and this was without Owen), we did so well to get at least a draw before the injury jinx struck again and we lost Emre, Dyer and Bowyer. Injuries have cost us, there's no doubt about it.

On that note, I should make a little mention about Souness being blamed for injuries. That's so ridiculous that I won't bother, but I will bother with the claims from the anti-Souness camp that Souness is to blame for bringing back players too soon and reinjuring them again for even longer. That is absolute nonsense. Steven Taylor had rested and then trained for the entire week prior to the Liverpool game. His shoulder hadn't reacted. There was no point giving it more time, it was either alright or it wasn't. It could have popped out yesterday, next week or in March, nobody knew. I made this point after the game yesterday, and hours later Taylor said the exact same thing that it was almost spooky. Blaming Souness for this is just pathetic and shows how low the anti-Souness brigade stoops at time just to get another reason for his sacking (and it's worth pointing out that some of these individuals were actually cheering Villa on a few weeks ago, hoping they would win in the hope that Souness would be sacked - even though there was no guarantee of this).

Will I back Souness no matter what? Of course not. If I feel he's not the right man, I'll say so. If I feel he is, I'll say so. At this moment in time, I think he deserves more time. I'm as sick as anyone about the constant "judge me when I have a full team" comments, but the fact is, that is fair. When we've had close to a full team, we've looked very promising, West Brom away for example.

There are some concerning moments, without doubt, such as our ability to churn out a really poor display from time to time, or the tactical errors (again, my opinion) that come about every now and then. But to sack him based on those things? No.

I'd like to end this piece with the introduction of my very own Souness Meter. It's a scale from 1 to 10, showing what my current rating of Souness is, 10 being outstanding and out of this world, 1 being he needs sacking immediately. After every Toon game I'll update the meter. The first Souness Meter will be out after the Charlton game.

And there you have it, a positive article about Souness.