April 16 – Souey in at Liverpool
SIR Alex Ferguson has said that his greatest challenge was to “knock Liverpool off their f***ing perch,” and you have to say he succeeded.
But he didn’t do it alone. SAF was aided in his mission, so who was the man who did the most to help Fergie topple Liverpool? Roy Keane perhaps? Eric Cantona? Nope.
Surely Graeme Souness was unwittingly Fergie’s ally in United’s rise to dominance. As Liverpool manager Souness systematically destroyed the greatest winning dynasty in British club football. He put the club on a downward spiral from which it has yet to recover.
Today in 1991 was the day it all started to go wrong for Liverpool when Souness was appointed manager. The fans had every reason to believe the new man would continue the winning tradition at the club. He had the pedigree as a player – not only had he been one of the world’s top midfielders, but he had served Liverpool with distinction, winning the league title five times and the European Cup three times while at Anfield.
He had also made a good start to his managerial career at Rangers. After arriving as a player-manager in 1986, Souness revitalised the Glasgow giants after years in the doldrums. He oversaw an ambitious recruitment programme that saw top talents including Terry Butcher and Chris Woods and took the club back to the top, winning the League title and League Cup in his first season as boss. He followed this up with two more League wins and three more League Cup triumphs.
He looked to have all the tools to be the next great Liverpool boss: player pedigree, affinity to the club, experience of managing a big club (they don’t come much bigger than Rangers), spending a big budget on high profile signings and winning trophies.
Sadly, he couldn’t translate this success to Anfield. An excellent piece by Scott Murray in the Guardian last year sums up Souness’s record with Liverpool thus: “In the 18 seasons before Graeme Souness became manager of Liverpool Football Club, the red men had only finished outside the top two places in the First Division once. In a year which saw them lift the European Cup. Compare and contrast with the help of my lovely italics: exactly 18 months after Souness took charge, Liverpool, having finished a lowly sixth in their new manager’s first full season, found themselves languishing in 16th place in the league.”
In between times he sold Peter Beardsley to Everton and decided against signing Roy Keane from Nottingham Forest, apparently believing him to be too much trouble off the pitch.
He did win the FA Cup with the Reds, but he even managed to sully this experience for the fans. He had to have heart surgery in 1992 and returned to work in time to lead his team out at Wembley. He gave an interview to The Sun about his successful operation which the paper published on April 15 – the anniversary of the Hillborough disaster. The Liverpool fans were incensed that he had sold his story to The Sun – a paper boycotted on Merseyside for its coverage of the Hillsborough tragedy.
Although he has admitted since that he probably should have resigned over the issue, he didn’t and stayed in the job, struggling on until he finally quit in 1994 after an FA Cup defeat to Bristol City.
Four years: one trophy. It was not what Liverpool expected, but the rot had set in and the club has still yet to fully recover its place at England’s top footballing table.
Last year we told you about this. Tomorrow we’ll be back to bring you something else. Until then dear reader…
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