Chop Souey
It was always going to end in tears. Graeme Souness’s has finally been booted from St. James Park. The only great surprise is that he managed to last as long as he did. Academy coach Glenn Roeder has been put in temporary charge, with Alan Shearer his assistant. I can’t really find much sympathy for Souness — anyone who takes a team backwards after being given £50m to improve it deserves all he gets. Sure there’s been injuries to key players, but every team suffers.
The performances of the last few months have been completely unacceptable, and with Souness’s refusal to resign, Shepherd’s hand was forced to try and prevent Newcastle being relegated. Many have argued that for the last few weeks Souness seems to have been playing out for this scenario, in order to trigger a £3m compensation payout. Remembering Souness as a passionate, combative player at Liverpool I find this hard to believe, but having seen recent performances you begin to wonder.
Posted 2 years, 7 months ago on 3rd February 2006.
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Comments
Tomorrows game should give us a idea of how the players have responded to the recent changes. There’s no such thing as a being 'too good to go down'. Newcastle only need to look at Leeds Utd and Southampton to see what the future may hold.
I’d agree with you both there, I am quite staggered to hear Souey spent £50m on players, the only outstanding ones (in my opinion) being Owen and (to a lesser degree) Emre.
Big Sam is the favourite to become the next Newcastle manager, I for one would love to see that. As you say Steve, Big Sam will tear a strip off the prima donnas!
One more thing: Boumsong and Babayaro - what was Souey thinking?!?
Well - I must admit, after the other nights debacle I was a bit taken aback when he said (something like): "well, i can’t make the players change - they have to help themselves..." ... I thought to myself "what is he doing, where’s the motivation in that???". I actually felt like Freddie Shepherd would listen to that and give him the boot and I was right, although I’m sure it’s been in the pipeline for a while and not just on the basis of those comments.
As Spurs fan (and suffering from Vertigo at the minute), I’m enjoying every second of Newcastle’s demise at the very great expense of my dad who is as passionate about the toon as it gets - but I must admit it’s quite scary to think that a team that only 2 or 3 seasons ago was near the top can get so bad so quickly.
This is quite possibly the best decision that could’ve been made - hopefully it won’t be too late, as I would hate to see Newcastle get relegated.
The next decision that must be made is to boot out all of the overpaid deadweights at the club - there is too much money floating around, and no sense of commitment to the team. A lot of people need their arses kicked in my opinion to bring them back down to Earth. They won’t get salaries like that in Division 1, and it’d be worth them remembering that.
Steve Woods · www · 2 years, 7 months ago