Souness must go ?

[Tris]

No one want to pat Souness on the back for giving Babbel a chance, as reported in the LET.

Don't be daft USA - half of the Souness out brigade had Babbel down as one of the 237 players Souness has upset.

[1864roverite]

jim you got PMT already ?

thats pre match tension by the way !!

[waggy]

No one want to pat Souness on the back for giving Babbel a chance, as reported in the LET.

at the time of babbell signing for rovers,he took tiny taylor's place.he had a good first game at chelski,and put in some decent preformance's.but for every good one he had -there was a bad one,taking footballers on season long loan's is a very dodgy game,especially in babbell's case as he had just recovered from a life threatening desease.

and it obviuosly did tiny's confidence no good,but then again he has moved on to a club who finished higher in the premier than us.so i cannot see what souness needs a pat on the back for,from me he deserve's a kick up the behind

[USABlue]

No one want to pat Souness on the back for giving Babbel a chance, as reported in the LET.

Don't be daft USA - half of the Souness out brigade had Babbel down as one of the 237 players Souness has upset.

Yes you are probably right Tris, no credit where it's due. Perhaps we should have a thread for those who just wish to put a negative spin on everything Souness does. Is it only 237, I thought it was more than that.

[RevidgeBlue]

Why all credit to Souey for showing his humanitarian side in resurrecting Babbel's ailing career and helping to put him in the shop window.

From a footballing perspective it was however more or less clear from the off the Liverpool man had no real interest in playing for Blackburn Rovers and things like passing to team mates and putting his body on the line to prevent a goal were alien concepts.

[FourLaneBlue]

Well said Rev. Babbel did not give his all when at Rovers and admitted as much in th press. Why bother about mistakes when you are only playing for Rovers as he once suggested?

Tris and USABlue can join the Babbel fan club if they wish but I'll stick to revering those players who actually try their best for Rovers and don't look down on it with a cynical smirk a la Markus.

[AlanK]

i'm not pro souness but defeat against west brom would be a daisaster,the games against west brom-pompey-norwich-palace-fulham-city are the one's we must pick something up from both home and away,infact if we beat them teams home and away we would be nearly safe

Which is what we all said last year about Leicester, Wolves, Leeds, Portsmouth etc. It didn`t work out that way last season and it won`t this season. It never does, not even for the big guns like Arsenal, Utd and Chelsea.

We still stayed up though didn`t we?

Defeat against West Brom would not be a disaster. Don`t be so bloody stupid.

We stuffed Wolves and then had a nightmare season. Maybe we will lose to West Brom and have a great season. Don`t be so pre judgemental. What will be will be but it certainly won`t be decided on our first game as we found out last year.

[waggy]

must have been visiting another board last year,as i seem to remenber 50%off this board thought we would be in the top half or even in the champions league/europe positions

[AlanK]

And I suppose you thought we would be in a relegation battle for most of the season. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

[1864roverite]

children please.

Lets just have the best of good wishes on here for the forthcoming season, let last season go and look forward not BACKWARDS

[waggy]

actually i do spread betting every season,which is very expensive if you lose,and the year before i had won handsomely on rovers,infact for the last few months every point was gaining me a extra £50.

but last season we were given a points total in the 50's i think 58 points,so i thought we will never collect that many point's,and foolishly did not take the bet,as i could not get excited at the fact i was winning money and we were in the mire.

i never once thought we would be in the relagation mire,but like you say hindsight is a wonderfull thing.this year 4th from bottom will do.

[AlanK]

Unfortunately, easier said than done for some people. I can`t wait for the season to start. As always, I think the squad looks good. Could be better but could be worse but at the same time should be able to hold their own. I`m a bit concerned about Souness`s tactical abilities and his abilty to get on with individuals but thaTs life. What grates with me are the individuals who post on this site who are NEVER happy no matter who is in charge of the team, the board/finances, youth, reserves for reasons that only they know but never have an alternative. Some people are never happy unless they are whinging. Come on you Rovers, prove these idiots wrong. AGAIN!

[broadsword]

Revidge, gotta say I agree completely there, we're much better off without Babbel.

Such a shame as in glimpses he revealed himself to be a top-class defender, but his heart wasn't in it ...

[thenodrog]

at the time of babbell signing for rovers,he took tiny taylor's place.he had a good first game at chelski,and put in some decent preformance's.but for every good one he had -there was a bad one,taking footballers on season long loan's is a very dodgy game,especially in babbell's case as he had just recovered from a life threatening desease.

        and it obviuosly did tiny's confidence no good,but then again he has moved on to a club who finished higher in the premier than us.so i cannot see what souness needs a pat on the back for,from me he deserve's a kick up the behind

Jeez waggy you are talking ever increasing 'Ballacks' in your quest to diss GS out of the club! Keep it rational. In our religious post match pub analysis Rev and myself frequently discussed Babbels ability to shirk tackles and hide during games (typical kraut....only motivated by big games). Which only goes to prove that if some dis-interested, faded superstar, on loan and still in the process of recovering from the seriously debilitating Guillain-Barres syndrome can undermine our towering, man-mountain of a centre half's confidence then there was something seriously wrong! I personally wouldn't have selected the kitten-hearted pansy Taylor for our bloody pub team!

(Again something that I discussed with RB many times was that Taylor would never reach his potential and that he more than anybody was responible for Amoruso's bad start.)

So you can hardly cite undemining Taylors 'confidence' as a negative, Souness gave Taylor every chance but eventually getting 1.25 million for him was damned good business.

If it had been me I'd have done a 'Yorky' on him first!

Edited July 25, 2004 by thenodrog

[USABlue]

Well said Rev. Babbel did not give his all when at Rovers and admitted as much in th press. Why bother about mistakes when you are only playing for Rovers as he once suggested?

Tris and USABlue can join the Babbel fan club if they wish but I'll stick to revering those players who actually try their best for Rovers and don't look down on it with a cynical smirk a la Markus.

Who said anything about being in the Babbel fan club. Where did I say a damn thing about Babbels performances. Thats half the problem with some of the folks on here they read but somehow they come up with a completely different story. What cynical smirk? please explain, or is that another fabrication.

Why not any credit for Souness Revidge?, oh yeah thats right it's Souness, any other manager and you'd be singing his praises going on about how good it was and how it takes a special breed of person to give someone a break like that. Shop window? could'nt the same be said of all players? Is it just too hard of a cross to bear for you Rev, some one else publicly giving Souness some positive PR by way of thanks. Must really chap your hide that.

Babbel did well for us early on I thought, he did not feature too much after his comments did he, would that be down to Souness?

You will read into Babbels comment what you wish FLB, that much we know.

Speaking of players that do their best were you pro Cole by any chance? Interesting conflict of statements if you were.

Edited July 25, 2004 by USABlue

[Tris]

Well said Rev. Babbel did not give his all when at Rovers and admitted as much in th press. Why bother about mistakes when you are only playing for Rovers as he once suggested?

Tris and USABlue can join the Babbel fan club if they wish but I'll stick to revering those players who actually try their best for Rovers and don't look down on it with a cynical smirk a la Markus.

whoah whoah stop right there

My ONLY point was that people had named Babbel on their lists of players that Souness had "fallen out" with - clearly not the case.

Personally I was delighted to see the back of him.

[FourLaneBlue]

Fair enough, I probably got the wrong end of the stick there regarding Babbel. So sorry about that.

USA - Yes I was pro Cole like many Rovers fans, including those on here who voted him into second place in the Player of the Year poll. There can't be many on here who can't have seen that with Stead we appeared to have a front pairing slowly turning into an excellent twosome upfront. Quality player and certainly can't fault him for lack of effort, when we needed him in two relegation battles we got the performances we needed. While he may not have chased lost clauses like a headless chicken I don't recall him shirking tackles or hiding in matches. Babbel did shirk tackles and hide. Souness seemed to become wise to it and cast him aside which was why we saw little of him in the run-in. The loss of Babbel won't cost us much but if we don't bring in a replacement for Cole up front we will will be the poorer for it.

As for "You will read into Babbels comment what you wish FLB, that much we know." You mean just like you and everyone else does? Besides if Babbel really wanted to thank Souness why wasn't he more commited on the pitch last season? While I'm not anti-Souness like some on here (in fact I want him to show he has learnt from our abysmal last season and can turn things around) I'm not going to be blind to his mistakes if they cost Rovers. As he himself has admitted, he has made mistakes.

Edited July 25, 2004 by FourLaneBlue

[thenodrog]

USA - Yes I was pro Cole. Quality player and certainly can't fault him for lack of effort,

Aha so you only got on of those 1/2 season season tickets for Christmas did you FLB? If so you must still not have used it until April!

Cole's work rate in 75% of the games that he played for us was at best poor. He seemed to have an unequalled determination (cept by Yorky.....hence my frequent 'holding hands' comment about em) never to run wide to pull the defenders away from his playing partners.

Edited July 25, 2004 by thenodrog

[den]

Graeme Souness has a reputation of being a nightmare to work with and most football fans recognise the fact that he is a complete and utter tit.

Thought this would give the anti Souey brigade a bit of a lift.

[American]

"I'll give 100% every time I play..." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Funniest thing I've read in ages.

[waggy]

give us a lift we've known it for 18 month's den,it just some fulham fan writing what he think's,is he right or is he wrong.

it's very intresting listening to other fans thought's on our leader,met quite a few liverpool-saints-rangers fans in my time,and all have very intresting thing's to say about souey

[S15]

it's very intresting listening to other fans thought's on our leader,met quite a few liverpool-saints-rangers fans in my time,and all have very intresting thing's to say about souey

Are they as interesting as your views?

[philipl]

No doubt the Gers/Scouse/Saints fans I speak to are as unrepresentative as Waggy's friends:

Gers- Souey is God. He started the revival of the club on the football pitch whilst Murray sorted out the money. Souey had the guts to confront the Rangers bigotry and transformed it into a modern football club. Whilst Souey was there, the bhoys had to eat dirt, dirt and dirt again. To a ger, not much else matters.

Liverpool- Souness was reviled at the time he left but seen in retrospect as better than everything that followed him. He suffered by being appointed too close to the Shankly/Paisley era. Most Liverpool fans would have willingly swapped five years of Houllier for five years of Souey. In fact they feel quite guilty about the treatment Souness was given as the Liverpool Manager and have a soft spot for the Rovers because we revived his career. The stories of Souey the midfield enforcer tend to get confused with Souey the Manager.

Saints- Souey and Southampton don't go together (they are saying the same about Paul Sturrock). Souness was not altogether bad for the club but not very good either.

[FourLaneBlue]

Some Liverpool fans still can't seem to forgive him for having sold the rights to his story of his recuperation from heart surgery to The Sun, which is a bit unfair as he did apologise for it afterwards and wasn't exactly in tip-top shape at the time. It certainly soured relations between Souey and a section of the crowd during his last few months in charge. As Rooney found out this summer, the feelings regarding Hillsbrough still run high for some on Merseyside.

Edited July 25, 2004 by FourLaneBlue

[Neil Weaver]

actually i do spread betting every season,which is very expensive if you lose,and the year before i had won handsomely on rovers,infact for the last few months every point was gaining me a extra £50.

       but last season we were given a points total in the 50's i think 58 points,so i thought we will never collect that many point's,and foolishly did not take the bet,as i could not get excited at the fact i was winning money and we were in the mire.

     i never once thought we would be in the relagation mire,but like you say hindsight is a wonderfull thing.this year 4th from bottom will do.

Waggy, SELL SELL SELL! OK, it's a bit late! This year, the site I've looked at has us at 45.5 - 47 pts for the season (same as Bolton and just above Man City and Fulham interestingly). May be a bit early, but I might be tempted into a buy - ever the optimist eh? Thoughts?

Edited July 26, 2004 by Neil Weaver