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From: J.M.Ross@man0507.wins.icl.co.uk (J.M.Ross)
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Subject: Re: Souness/Liverpool/Rangers
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 09:55:29 +0000







In article <MNEWS.715884809.20402@gate.demon.co.uk>
I.T.Marsh@man0507.wins.icl.co.uk (I.T.Marsh) writes:

>Given the budget of Rangers yer
>average manager could dominate most Leagues, England included.

>For the past 20 years Manchester United have been spending huge
>quantities of cash with numerous managers and still haven't won the
>league. Were all the managers below average?

Yes :-; !!! Man Utd have spent huge wads without winning the league
(plenty of cups though), but relative to other English clubs their expenditure
hasn't been that much greater. Rangers' budget is well beyond the reach
of most clubs in Scotland, only Celtic can come close to challenging (if
you call within 50% close).

> As for Souness in Europe,
>he underestimated the likes of Red Star Belgrade, Bayern Munich, Steau Buchares
t
>etc. I didn't think much of his tactics in Europe, but be fair, Rangers were
>paired against hefty opposition.

>Sound like excuses to me.
>Does this mean Rangers can be considered as non-hefty opposition?
>To win european competitions you have to beat teams like this.

No excuse, just a fact. Rangers aren't good enough to win the EC and are
likely to lose to teams like that at any stage of the competition but given
a decent draw (i.e. teams other than the eventaul finalists) they should progres
s
to the QFs (yes, they failed against Sparta Prague last year, but that was
due to a Goram blunder). Anyway, when did Bolton ever qualify for Europe?

>Even Manchester United managed to beat Barcelona.

Don't remind me.

>Comparison of football leagues is a useless exercise. Comparison of Graham
>Souness's record for Ranger's and Liverpool also appears to be a useless
>exercise to me. He has almost completely different squads of players and
>it's the players on the park who kick the ball not the manager.

But the manager buys the players! When Souness took over Liverpool they
were in a far better state than Rangers were when Souness took over them.
Souness transformed Rangers into champions in a season, but led Liverpool
to their worst League position in over 25 years in his first season there.
Draw your own conclusions.

>He obviously has some influence, but this isn't always enough. I don't really
>believe the decline of Liverpool (FA cup win excepted, even Man Utd can win
>that) can be put at Souness's feet. The club has struggled to keep the
>spirit it had since Bob Paisley left, the defence looks awful without Alan
>Hansen.

He still has to shoulder responsibility for their poor showing last season.
Paisley spirit or not, until Souness arrived Liverpool hadn't finished outside
the top two for 10 years and only once in 20 years.

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