Continuity, Stability & Importance of Foundations

By The Northern Philosopher
December 30 2005

This is an article I've written about the importance of the things I mentioned in the title. I guess this article is a follow up to the one I wrote after the Wigan debacle saying why I thought sacking Souness would be a big mistake.

I guess this article is a follow up to the one I wrote after the Wigan debacle saying why I thought sacking Souness would be a big mistake (see the piece here). I’ve just read the latest edition of The Mag and judging from the articles it contains it seems that more people are coming to the same conclusion that I reached. That sacking Souness anytime before the end of this season would be a bad move for Newcastle. It would mean us again scrabbling around for a manger mid-season when the chances of us getting a top Coach would be remote. And it would lead to more disruption in the squad when what this club desperately needs is continuity and stability. And it’s on these two topics that I’d like to talk today.

 

In that article I wrote after the Wigan game I said that for the good of the club, Souey should be given a chance. I also said that giving him a chance meant more than just waiting ten minutes before we threw him out, as well! Unfortunately this seems to be the fall back position that people are adopting. They’re still not prepared to give him a chance but they ARE prepared to wait until the end of the season to get rid of him! That why, they argue, we can spend the summer getting ourselves the ‘right man’ to manage the club.

 

Now, this might seem like a reasonable approach to many of you but to me it sounds like nothing more than people paying lip service to the ideas of continuity and stability. Continuity and stability are about more than just keeping a manager for a couple of seasons before you sack him

 

If you want to see what I mean just look at Liverpool.

 

Newcastle got well beaten by Liverpool on Boxing Day. They played us off the park and had it not been for Given’s heroics in goal then who knows what the score could have been. Certainly we could have ended up getting beat four or five nil, I would think.

 

Oh, well, say the people still not giving Souness a chance, what can you expect? Souness was never the man for the job, they say, and what else could you expect when he faces a team managed by a top coach like Benitez?

 

But is this fair? Not to me it isn’t.

 

To me it’s a further example of how they STILL don’t understand what continuity and stability at a football club are all about.

 

When we played Liverpool their entire back four consisted of quality, established International players. Hyypia, Carragher, Finnan and Riise are all seasoned International players and all of them were at the club BEFORE Benitez was appointed as manager.  In comparison Newcastle’s back four consisted of one full International, one former International player and two nineteen year old kids. And when one of the kids came off on came a former England U21 player.

 

The difference in the stature of the players in our two defenses was shocking! They had quality, settled, experienced players in their back line and we just didn’t, it’s as simple as that!

 

And the reason for the gross disparity between Liverpool’s and Newcastle’s defense is simple to explain. They understand how important continuity and stability is to a football and we don’t.

 

But, these people still not giving Souness a chance say, wasn’t it Souness who was in part to blame for the disparity? Hasn’t he been at the club for awhile and spent quite a bit of money, they ask, shouldn’t we expect him to have sorted out the defense for us?

 

For me this is where their ignorance of what continuity and stability means really shows.

 

For them they think that Souness having the opportunity to buy the only currently fit full International defender on our books equals continuity and stability.

 

For me, continuity and stability is the kind enjoyed by Liverpool under the stewardship of their last two managers – Evans and Houllier. Under these two managers Liverpool actually won stuff! They actually had a defense worthy of the name and they had a midfield and strikers to be proud of.  Houllier and Evans both laid down foundations for Benitez to build on. Of the eleven that started for Liverpool on Boxing Day six of them were already at the club before Benitez arrived. And tellingly as I’ve already said, four of those players included ‘Pool’s defenders in that game.

 

And the importance of previous managers building foundations for future managers to build on isn’t unique to Liverpool either. When Wenger took over at Arsenal he had the experienced and highly successful back four bequeathed him by George Graham. Not to mention the other good players already at Arsenal – Wrighty for one! Even the great Jose Mourinho was indebted to the foundations laid down for him at Chelsea by Ranieri.  For all the hundreds of millions spent on players by Mourinho some of his most important players were already at the club when he took over. Terry, Lampard, Gallas and Cole were already at Chelsea waiting for Mourinho when he sat down on day one of his reign.

 

My point is that no matter how good a manager you are or how much you spend on transfers the foundations built for you by previous managers are still very important. And the lack of these foundations at Newcastle for Souness to build on is one of the reasons why I think it would be a big mistake just waiting until the summer in order to give us a chance to sack him.

 

Dalglish, Gullit and Robson between them spent the astronomical fee of about 250 to 300 hundred million pounds on transfers. Most of that money was spent on dross like Andreas Andersson, Marcelino and people like Carl Cort, Diego Gavilan and Christian Bassedas. Very little of the money spent by Souness’s predecessors at St James’ Park succeed in laying down any foundations for him to build on. Exceptions were quality players like Solano, Given, Speed and Woodgate only even he was only a mitigated success because of his injury problems.

 

In fact, not only did the previous managers fail to lay down good foundations, the most recent one even further hampered Souness because of the problems he left behind!

 

Sir Bobby Robson left Newcastle a squad full of unruly, inconsistent and unsuccessful players for Souness to sort out. Not only did it not amount to good foundation building, it was tantamount to sabotage!

 

No manager in the world could have got a result against Liverpool last week with the tools at Souness’s disposal. And it would be the same story if Souness was sacked and a new manager brought in during the summer. Newcastle needs to bring in new quality players if we are ever to be a success and because we haven’t got Abrahmovich bank rolling our spending this will take time. We can’t just go out and spend a 100 million here and a 100 million there because we simply can’t afford it. Any manager would have to bide his time and be prepared to wait for the opportunity to buy new players.

 

This would be true of any manager whether it’s Hitzfeld, O’Neill, Curbishly or Allerdyce.

 

If you’ve kept on reading up to this point I’d like to say,

 

THANK YOU!

 

The point I’m trying to make in this article is that it’s the lack of good foundations which are the problem at Newcastle NOT Souness’s management style. If Souness or any of his successors at Newcastle are to be a success then we need to give Souey the time and money to lay those foundations.

 

I’m sure people will now ask why we don’t just sack Souness in the summer and allow someone else the job of continuing to lay the foundations he’s started?

 

My simple response is to ask – why?

 

The last three managers before Souness have all, by turns, bought inconsistent, injury prone players. They’ve all alienated senior players and the fans at some point. Bobby Robson also saw to the growth of ill discipline and yobbish behavior. Why risk going through that again? Dalglish, Gullit and Robson all had impressive track records, yet all of them failed. Why risk another high profile appointment that might just fail as well and take us back to the bad old days of poor quality players and underachievement?

 

We’ve got a manager in Graeme Souness who appreciates what this club means to the fans. He’s already built good foundations by bringing in players like Michael Owen, JA Boumsong, Emre and future club captain Scott Parker. Souness has set about his task with dignity and passion in my opinion.

 

Why sack Souness and risk throwing away all his good work and destroying all the foundations he’s built at Newcastle?

 

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