Sod off Souness

Inevitably 'proper` manager Graeme Souness has surfaced for the first time since his sacking to speak about NUFC. Arguably our worst ever manager, the arrogant Scot is as reviled as anyone associated with the club, having let Bellamy go for a song, hired a staff of overpaid goons who the club had to compensate and wasted money on Owen, Babayaro, Boumsong and Luque, all of who have leeched the club to varying degrees. Yet he still popped up to say:

'(Mike Ashley) is obviously a very wealthy individual but success will depend on how much money he is prepared to spend. During my time at Newcastle and Glenn Roeder's time we had money to spend but it was to tart the team up, not to build a team. It will need big money to bridge that gap into the top four because it is an enormous gap. The top four are so far away from everyone else at the moment. It's a very, very difficult job. This is a big football club with big problems.

Sam has never managed a big club before and this is his opportunity to be successful. You wake up in morning when you manage a big club and you look to get through day with the fewest problems. I didn't enjoy my time up there. It's not the pressure of expectation. I have worked at bigger clubs than Newcastle and expectation you can live with. It is everything else you have to put up with. It is a very difficult job.

That is a fundamental problem in football today. You get people who come into the game and they are in it for five or six years, sometimes less, and all of a sudden they are experts. I am talking about owners and chairmen. They decide who comes and goes from your club, they are laying the policy down on so many issues. I could name half a dozen clubs off the top of my head where that happens.

I lost out on a bid to buy Wolves and believes his experience as a manager and player would make him much more sensitive to the problem. I feel I can do it better than some of the people I worked for. I know I would not be there to interfere."

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