Seems he hasn't gone yet, so I still have time to publish this
It's been sometime since a post. I doubt anyone at all is reading this but you never know. I haven't really found the time, or more significantly the motivation, to post but the current situation drives comment. Way back when I had quite a strong reaction to the very idea of Souness in charge. In the year and a quarter since nothing much has happened not which doesn't bare out my fears. The only thing I could see Souness being useful for was discipline. He certainly got rid of some whiners but seems intent on being an indiscriminate incendiary ready to go off. One wonders if he didn't get rid of the worst complainers by a process of random attacks more than anything else.
An examination of the record doesn't show the steady progress which would justify the benefit of the doubt. He's certainly bought some good players (though it doesn't really take a brain surgeon to work out that Owen and Parker would be good acquisitions). Then again, Boumsoung is a disaster (and to some extent leads Bramble astray). And while these at least some of these signings are decent players it is hard to recall any point at which we've actually seemed gelling as a team. The distinct lack of any senior management staff at a reserve game when we have a major injury crises may well point to this lack of team thinking. It might also point to Souness's complete lack of willingness to take any responsibility (his slow retreat from life in front of the press may have been comical were it not so tragic).
Of course Souness will point to that injury crises with an increasingly desperate hope his finger as wavering as his voice might be if we ever got to hear it. Probably there is some justification there, enough to save a better manager from a damning judgement. It's been said this club is cursed. One must wonder if that is true but part of the curse in recent years has been awful Scottish managers [On a more serious note one has to wonder what the hell is going on. Questions have been asked of the back room medical staff and advise for a long time now, yet nothing seems to change. As much as the managerial regime needs to be overhauled surely attention must be turned here with some urgency]. In a better managed side though such injuries would have produced more of a spirit, and better tactical solutions with more plans might have caused some alleviation of the problems.
In short Souness has lost the confidence of the fans, and probably the players. Maybe he has even lost confidence in himself, his gruth denials and determination to "carry on" a mask for the fact he just doesn't know what to do. As injuries destroy "his" squad Souness has managed to vanish; form in front of the press and fans, from being around the players he's supposed to be in charge of and increasingly reliant upon.
So the time has come for him to vanish entirely. This club desperately needs somebody with fresh ideas and excitement rather than plain stolid determination to prove themselves right. Surely the only thin currently keeping the current man in his job is the prohibitive cost of laying him of. Yet in the long term it must be a cheaper option to remove him now and attempt to move forward rather than allow him to waste more cash this month (as surely to some extent we must, no matter who is in charge) and then be forced to see reality later. Good bye, and given what little has been achieved, good riddance.
This was also cross posted to my main blog.
(@12:01)
