Soccer Football - Scottish Premiership - Celtic v St Johnstone - Celtic Park, Glasgow, Scotland, Britain - April 9, 2022 Celtic manager Ange Postecoglou celebrates after the match REUTERS/Russell Cheyne
There is an ancient clip of one of the original Only An Excuse shows, back when it was a radio broadcast, where “Graeme Souness” discusses his career where he says “When I was with Middlesbrough I was a Spurs fan who had always supported Liverpool and so the only club I would have left England for would have been Sampdoria because when I was a kid I used to skip school in Edinburgh and sneak into Italy to watch them.”
What makes it great, even today, is that it’s a send up of a guy with no stake in anything but himself.
A guy who never put anything in his life in front of what it is that he wanted in any given moment.
You saw a shining example of it this week when he trashed his own reputation as the guy who brought Rangers into the right century by signing Catholics by boasting about how the “Protestant ethos” of the place led him to adopt the Queen’s picture on the wall.
He did that as an act of self-promotion, and he didn’t care that it contradicted years of telling people that he had no time for any of that stuff. Souness is a chameleon, an ever evolving specimen, a guy who changes to suit the prevailing wind.
He’s also famously disloyal, as David Murray was at great pains to point out when he left Rangers in the lurch to take the job at Liverpool.
Even worse was the way he behaved there, when as manager of the club he became a pariah in that city for a grotesque front page story in the hated Sun newspaper, for which he was paid (he said he donated the cash to a local hospital) and which appeared on the third anniversary of Hillsborough. He has expressed remorse for this several times, but that he ever did such a thing in the first place is a supreme example of his egotism, arrogance and self-absorption.
All this is to say that if someone is going to discuss the character of Ange Postecoglou and his commitment to Celtic it should probably be somebody else, because Souness doesn’t understand commitment or loyalty except when it comes to himself.
“He’ll be looking at it this way,” he said on TalkSport. “Things are going well at Celtic, I’ll get a better offer than Brighton down the line’. That’s the top and bottom of it for me. If Man United, Liverpool or one of the other big guys came calling I don’t think there would be much loyalty …I don’t see this as loyalty – I see it as a straight choice between a truly good football club and managing a provincial team in the best league in the world.”
And what’s his basis for saying that? That he met Ange briefly in a Glasgow restaurant. Which obviously allowed him to gain this deep an d meaningful insight, right?
I rather think not.
He’s bang on with his assessment tho regardless of the fact he’s a narcissist.
Ange would leave for Liverpool or similar, Ange was never gonna go to a Brighton or similar.
Don’t see the problem other than its this choob who’s sayin it ?????
He’s not wrong, and I’m sure he is basing his opinion of Ange on not just on that one chance meeting. He knows Ange is the real deal and that in time he will be in great demand. Celtic will just have to cross that bridge when we come to it and hopefully it will be a quite a while from now.
Here’s a guy like Souness ! Born and raised in Edinburgh ! Presumably was schooled in Edinburgh ! Edinburgh having two huge football clubs and histories in Hibernian and Hearts ! All of that tradition at hand and what does he do ? He supports the Rangers ! Out of Glasgow .I know lots of people do that and some vice versa . This guy was immersed in football from an early age ,so you can imagine the upbringing he received for him to pick the mad mob ,very quickly over any other club .
Lol Souness=Liar.
Nothing wrong with what he saying at all.. but he clubs in question or Liverpool, have 1 of the best managers in world football, so we ok with regards to that option, and Man utd are starting to pick up under Ten Hagg, utd are a sleeping giant, they not been the same since Fergie retired. Brighton a re a good club with a cracking owner, who lets managers really get on with there job. That will appeal to some managers, but Ange just in the door, and he knows he has a very good job here, and he has been well backed. Ange to me seems like a loyal guy, so I can’t see him leaving for the foreseeable future. And Celtic is a great club to manage, and he knows it’s
That’s true S Thomas. We should be thankful Lawwell is not there anymore, certainly not doing what he did with Brendan Rodgers. Big Ange will be with us for a while yet.
I’m frankly not interested in his opinions, which he flogs to anyone that will endure them.
Had Ange not lost the league title the year before Celtic appointed him?
Maybe the 100mph football wouldn’t be as possible or even accepted by the prima Donnas in England. Celtic is an ideal team for him to get his style of playing into operation and he knows that.
A coward and a thug on the field, a liar and a cheat off it.
He is not worth listening to.
Sourness was nothing but a thug when not long after he moved up here the tackle on George Mcluskey where he tore the players calf muscle
There’s no interest from him in talking about GVB being an in-demand manager, remember him, the European hero that makes magic on a pittance. It’s simply hun media driven billy bollocks and ex deceased club players being dragged out to try to talk a man that’s a serious problem to them out of the country. He does have insight after all. Fear and loathing are your usual headlines for this sort of scared hun meddling