Souness, what's the score?

See also Kevin Keegan's Managerial Career.

Agreed he will take no shit, but that just means that some of the prima donnas will be forced out at more of a financial loss to the club. But hang on, maybe that's what the sale of Woodgate was all about a £13M buffer to allow them to let Bellamy, Dyer, Bowyer, Bramble, Robert et al move on fast and for knock-down prices.

Also can I take this opportunity to go "ha ha Stephen Carr" again?

This will see Newcastle not get into Europe, and Blackburn down. I reckon he just about held that team together.

Maybe he took one look at how Robson had been treated re signings to the club and couldn't stomach that level of interference from the chairman. I suspect this is a stopgap measure until Shearer finally decides to hang his boots up.

At least two fans' polls showed O'Neill as the Newcastle fans' first choice.

I think it was generally felt Spurs wouldn't be big enough to tempt O'Neill and Chelsea appointed an even more highly regarded young manager. The reason Liverpool didn't go for him is pretty well documented even if petty (some kind of minor spat with a couple of their directors). None of this is mysterious but Newcastle's lack of interest is, especially given what they've ended up with.

Yorke's preference for Birmingham and Juninho's reluctance to go to Parkhead until he realised he had absolutely no future at Middlesborough must have given O'Neill a bleak insight into Celtic's status in British/European terms, their recent Euro successes notwithstanding. I think he must have been tempted by Newcastle, especially given the unlikelihood of other big club vacancies arising - Liverpool and Chelsea have replaced their managers recently and Wenger isn't under threat. Unless he has some private reason to be confident Manyoo will come calling sometime soon?

Obviously, the move upstairs has beautiful echo's of Busby for any non-Utd fans.

Surely the "notwithstanding" recent Euro successes would have given O'Neill a better insight than Dwight Yorke choosing a longer deal at a club playing in the city all his mates live in?

Blackburn fan on Souness on the radio earlier: "He's just chasing the big money at Newcastle. He should stay here and get on with his job." Obviously too young to remember less than a decade ago when "Blackburn" was synonymous with "chasing the big money".

Well, I'd like Arsene Wenger to take over at Celtic when MON leaves, and take Thierry Henry with him. Doesn't mean it's going to happen though.

It was almost honest. I could be wrong, and maybe lure of West Midlands and Steve Bruce overrode Champeens League football, working with MON and playing at Parkhead in front of 60000, but I think he's saying Brum outbid the hoops.

i'd have liked to see o leary get it to see if he could restrain the smugness all over again

(as for celtic's woes: rangers managed boumsong, prso no? o'neill is looking after his sick wife these days by the looks of it, and his horseracing director chums at man u won't hurt either)

O'Neill refused time off to look after his wife, fwiw.

Also, don't Newcastle have to play Blackburn next?

don't Newcastle have to play Blackburn next?. That'll be fun.

According to S0uness Celtic and Birmingham offered similar wages but Bruce was prepared to offer Yorke an extra year. I can understand why, at the age of 32, that would look a better offer than a year in the SPL plus a slack handful of decent European nights.

There's a lengthy article in todays Times in which ex-Celt Tony Cascarino congratulates Yorke for making the more ambitious choice of going to Birmingham instead of taking the easy way out by going to Parkhead. He takes it as a positive sign that Yorke still feels he has something to offer at the top level, and points out that a few European games wouldn't have been adequate compensation for the inferior level of the game in Scotland - especially since he doesn't expect Celtic to do well in their Champions League group.

So that's that sorted.

You can probably find other criteria to argue Celtic are the "bigger club" but they are beside the point. Smaller club or not, Newcastle have a much higher guaranteed income than Celtic, can pay higher salaries, play in a more glamorous league and have less difficulty recruiting quality players. Choosing between the two would be a no-brainer for an ambitious manager.

porkie, st james park probably pushes 60k and is also, to my knowledge, a guaranteed sell-out...

Celtic have have actually had a high annual income in over the last couple of seasons because of their European successes. I think they've just about scraped into the top 20 clubs in Europe in terms of turnover. But the directors know they can't spend on the assumption that level of income is guaranteed. Even with large amounts of windfall income debt levels are not significantly improving, and the the club is openly in the process of downsizing, albeit not as drastically as Rangers.

As for Celtic's income - the vast majority of their income as it stands is fan generated - no club generates more from pure matchday operations and merchandise. Ironically, it is sustainable, Scottish disposable income levels notwithstanding. The difficulty for Celtic (and Rangers) is that their income streams are probably more reliable than many of their counterparts in England and Europe, but they are too small comparative to them. They need more income (which emans TV) or they need the other clubs to have lower income (which means generalised depression across the European TV and sports market); both are not happening anytime soon.

I once saw Souness in real life. He was the scariest man I have ever seen. Mind you, he still had his moustache. He is a SOCCER HARD MAN. Funnily enough, I was talking about him yesterday, about how scary he is. Thank goodness this didn't happen before they made that multiple Bobby Robson advert, the thought of thousands of Sounesses gives me the willies.

Why isn't there a transfer window for managers?

In HMV Oxford Street there are loads of Celtic DVDs and not many Newcastle ones.

I don't like Newcastle. I prefer Sunderland.

Celtic have more fans in the UK and worldwide than Newcastle and Aston Villa put together - considerably more

I'm not sure that the Old Firm's domestic fan-based income is as solid as you think, though. The time when the OF seemed to have genuine ambitions to compete at the top European level (which started with the David Murray/Souness regime at Rangers) now seems to be at an end. The OF were coated in glamour byt this and there were huge rises in the demand for season tickets, the only way to guarantee admission. Great news for the clubs financially because fans are having to pay for the games they don't want to see as well as the ones they do.

Now the OF are marketing a declining product, finding it harder to compete in Europe at the same time as the domestic game is becoming ever more lop-sided. It's reasonable to assume season ticket demand may start to fall as a chunk of the fanbase decides routine gubbings of Kilmarnock and Inverness Caley by sides that are second or third rate in European terms isn't such a glam product. The dangerous tipping point for Rangers and Celtic would be where a season ticket is no longer needed to ensure admission to non-OF domestic games: at that point a lot of people will start to think they can get better value for money by ditching the season ticket, and picking and choosing what games they want to see. That'd have a pretty devastating effect on gate revenues.

Is it true that Everton vs Man City is the most-watched Premiership fixture due to the involvement of Li Tie and Sun Jihai and consequent massive Chinese audience?

What matters much more now is the number of people willing to switch on the box and watch your games, which in turn hugely depends on what league you are in. If Celtic were in the Premiership, they would still be a bigger, richer club than Newcastle. But they're not, so they're not. And wishing won't make it so.

1. Higher league position every single season
2. Stadium
3. Amount of money
4. Support
5. Likelihood of signing top players
6. Tradition

As for TV reevenues etc - Celtic and Rangers' dilemma shows the truth of much of what the whole big club statements want to obscure - the product is the league, not the club.

Replace "contest" with "competition" and you've given yourself your answer.

Once a cunt always a cunt.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-10870919/Graeme-Souness-wants-Ukraine-BEAT-Scotland-World-Cup-play-send-message-Russia.html

this is quite a long thread, astounded that this is the first time he's been called a cunt on here. what else to call the man?

Big Match Revisited's coverage of a West Ham v. Liverpool game from 1978 somewhat marred by Brian Moore pronouncing Souness as Sow-ness for the entire match.