[Archived] Souey On Sky Tonight

[DP]

Strange one this. I remember at the end of the season worried that Cole was going to go but hoping it would be Yorke instead. Once Cole had gone I thought it might not be a bad thing for Yorke to stay. Obviously his relationship with Souness being the main problem. Let’s not forget his best performances for Rovers have come when he’s played up front without Cole.

I’ve been very worried about the pressure lying on Jon Stead. If Yorke’s playing alongside him then it can only help IMO.

I now think if Jansen’s not going to be in the team, or the number 1 sub, then he should be loaned out. A decent Nationwide team who play football. Someone like Preston perhaps, or better still Forrest.

I do wonder just how much the animosity between Souness and some of his players is hyped up by the press. Let’s face it without it we (Rovers) wouldn’t get a look in. The more and more I think about it now, Cole was sold on for financial reasons. Yorke on the other hand, is on a much lower basic wage (which has been pointed out countless times on this MB) so will not be draining the resources too much.

Rev/Tris – I’m not sure what you’re getting wound up about. Every team out of the top five has the same number 1 prority – Prem survival. The gap between 6th and 18th is very small, and only the likes of Keegan will be bigging up the team about a top 6 finish. And you don’t want to say that and it come back and slap you in the face.

I’m feeling strangely optimistic this morning. Something’s not right….

[waggy]

what's this lower basic wage yorke's on,is he on £500 a week and £39,500 if he plays and scores .

[RevidgeBlue]

Rev/Tris – I’m not sure what you’re getting wound up about.

Imagine us as a publically quoted Company. The season ticket letter from JW is the flotation prospectus and the comments from Souey are the interim trading statements.

"The aim is not to go bankrupt (be relegated) this year" is not going to encourage anyone to invest (buy a season ticket) in the first instance and is more likely to have people stampeding to sell (not renew)

It's just about promoting the club and our prospects in a positive light.

[CAPT KAYOS]

Whoah! Whoah! Whoah! a minute

Think I few people need to take stock of what they are saying here.

Sorry Tris and other but I have to agree with Rev and Waggy again here and the comments that Souness keeps coming out with.

We have had the club saying we need to get people renewing their Season tickets and the need to get more fans in the ground - but the negatives emanating from the club are not doing this. Us fans are not stupid, we all know that Premiership survival is the first and foremost - so there is no need to keep ranting on about it. Keeo on saying the same and stating the obvious and fans soon get bored and this will not help S/T sales. I have said it previously and will say it again - what we need is a bit of uumphh around the place!!

What I find worrying is people thinking that after one game, all of sudden Yorke is a new man and will sort out our problems. Forget me if I am wrong, but this is guy that Souness has constantly slated and said is 6th in line striker and he wants Yorke to help the younger players - to do what exactly - stand around and not give a toss?

Seems to be a lot of contradicting or worse confused comments coming from Souness.

He has said we need another stirker and are looking to get one - doesn't look like it now

Jansen will play more a part this season - so is he ok or not?

Purchased Dickov to do what exactly - doesn't bode well for him when Souness says we need another striker.

Yorke - as above

Gallagher - has to prove himself this season- bit difficult if the others are going to be playing before him.

This looks like turmoil to me and sounds like Souness is still not sure of who to play up front and the Yorke situation smacks at me as panic, we have all seen what he plays like for Rovers and at the end of last season 99% wanted him out

Worrying IMO to say the least.

Come on Rovers lets get a bit more determined and show we mean business- IMO man for man we have a better calibre than most teams outside of the top 5 (except Emmerton) so lets start showing the rest of the Division what we can actually achieve.

[des]

yorke with cole could be a very good player for rovers, its all down to if he wants to be one.

I thuink that its a strong points when people are prepared to give players a new start its up to the player to take it

[herbergeehh]

Disagree with you Capt Kayos.

First of all, it's not a question of whether Jansen is "ok or not", it's a question of "is he going to make it happen in the Premiership again".

He IS ok, physically, but he needs first team football if he's ever going to get back to his old self.

And I'm sure we are looking to get a new striker in, but Souness has given up this since kickoff is just two weeks away. Yorke will do the trick in the meantime, and maybe will Souness try to get a new striker in January.

He's not getting rid of Yorke either, and let's face it, Yorke IS one of the most talented players in our crop of them.. I'm also confident that Dickov has got nothing to worry about, he'll play his part for sure, but when Groin Strain Season begins, we'll need a fifth striker, and we need someone who can play alongside the young ones..

And why do you say that Souness doesn't know who to play up front?

I believe he's got his first XI picked out already, but it's obviously also the players responsibility to do well in training and impress him.

I'm sure Yorke will be picked off if he doesn't work, and he HAS been at his worst when playing with Andy Cole. Souey is well known for not being afraid of controversial substitutions, and if Yorke doesn't perform he'll be the first one to go off IMHO..

THEN we'll hopefully see Jansen do some magic, like against Liverpool last season...

I do agree on the "uumphh about the place !!!" though, and that we can be up there with the best (excluding the top three) man for man (INCLUDING Emerton, which we will see this season. Stop slating the man!)

[roversWASmylife]

One thing Yorke is good at, if he puts his mind to it, is creating chances. POTENTIALLY him and Stead could be a very good partnership, just a case of whether or not he's got the desire.

Well said.

Last night Yorke showed for some reason that he wants to play in a Blue and White Shirt.

His work rate was good last night but I have two reasons why he might have worked hard.

I’d be more than happy if Yorke gave every game his best but, from what we have seen from him at Rovers suggests that he may re-capture his lazy form.

To becoming the sixth choice striker to suddenly being in the plans of the manager for the coming season suggests that Yorke has worked well in pre-season. Perhaps that because he wants to prove Souness wrong or, he’s looking to get noticed by other clubs that he’d consider moving to.

[den]

Good post Capt.

DP -

Rev/Tris – I’m not sure what you’re getting wound up about.  Every team out of the top five has the same number 1 prority – Prem survival.

The top five all are wanting to do more than stay up - Arsenal, Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool, Newcastle.

On top of those clubs Birmingham, Charlton, Spurs, Man City, Aston Villa, Middlesboro and fulham have all stated their desire to do more than just survive. Even Everton who are in real financial trouble, still aspire to keep their best player and strive to improve.

No Souness is one of the FEW managers who's sole intention is to do what we did last season. Not go down. Not qualify for europe and not do well in the cups. Now if he has said different, show me where.

[Tris]

Whoah! Whoah! Whoah! a minute

Think I few people need to take stock of what they are saying here.

Sorry Tris and other but I have to agree with Rev and Waggy again here and the comments that Souness keeps coming out with.

For fucjs sake read the interview - or better still watch it.

It's not about staying in the league or league position or cups or ambitions.

It's an interview about Dwight Yorke end of story.

People have seized on 6 words and made it out like "Souness is talking about survival again" as if that's all he talked about.

If he'd have done the same interview and replaced the words "Blackburn Rovers to be in the Premier League" with "Riversiders are a bunch of queers" it would have caused less of a hoo ha on this board.

FFS people, change the bloody record.

As for the rest of your post re Yorke - what bad can come out of playing him in one pre-season game ? Either it sparks interest which gets rid of him or it's the start of a revival.

I don't care either way because the status quo - ie Yorke playing with the kids last week against Stalybridge with no prospect of any publicity, or a move, or a first team recall - is a totally no win situation for everyone.

[Tom Pringle]

People on here are saying our squads not good enough, then they're complaining that we're saying that survival is the main thing.

Would you rather GS lies to you?

[Krillin]

As with Souey's comments in the press regarding funds (or lack of) for transfers ("we're skint....oh hang on, here's a record signing") I wouldn't read too much into the situation with Yorke.

If Dwight does remove his digit and becomes the player he was at Villa and ManUre, then I'm sure he will be an asset to our team and save us a fortune in the transfer market.

However, Souey also offered similar olive branches to Lee Carsley ("He's my type of player"), Christian Dailly ("The manager has told me that players will be sold, but I'm not going to be one of them") and Ashley Ward (who was allocated the #9 shirt as main striker, only to be moved on a couple of games into the season) , are 3 instances that spring to mind, there may be others (Dunn decided to jump before he was pushed...but he was probably going to be pushed....).

Reading his autobiography, Souey is self critical about things that went wrong at Liverpool. He couldn't understand why certain players didn't covet being in the first team as he had.

He says that it started to go wrong with his attitude to the 'spice boys' preferring to play video games rather than football games :

"......my reaction to any dissidents was to get them out of the door as soon as possible. That was the wrong approach. What I should have done was to keep them for another year and buy myself some time to bring in replacements....."

I think Dwight still has a lot to do to become a first team regular.......

[den]

Tris, yes it was only one line in a longer interview, fair enough. But a few people on here think it's that attitude that's been the underlying problem with season ticket sales and performances.

As for yorke, i personally think he is a very talented player, but like everyone else on here, think he doesn't do enough work. My main concern is that he is being brought back into the fold, not because souey thinks he's suddenly going to change his game, but because we have let our top goalscorer go for free and now he has found out that he can't find a replacement and maybe the others aren't up to holding a regular starting place in a premiership side. How many times have we done that before.

Why couldn't rovers have told Cole that he had no future [if that had to happen], and he could leave the minute we found a replacement? Or is that too easy?

[den]

People on here are saying our squads not good enough, then they're complaining that we're saying that survival is the main thing.

Would you rather GS lies to you?

No Tom. I'd rather the club wanted to be successful in as many competitions as possible and say so.

[Tom Pringle]

I'd love us too as well den. But we're not exactly going to win all the trophies we take part in.

I'd like us to get far, but with the size of our squad, i'm worried that we'd see injuries and fatigue to players if we went a fair distance in both cups and then see our league position suffer.

Staying in the Premiership is more vital than winning a cup. Once we have a fairly large and strong squad, then we can move onto bigger and better things. Until then, we need to name at least 3 clubs we look stronger than this season and hope they're down their and we're not.

[Manchester Blue]

Tris, yes it was only one line in a longer interview, fair enough. But a few people on here think it's that attitude that's been the underlying problem with season ticket sales

Well I think a few people are looking for excuses and finding them anywhere they can.

[Manchester Blue]

People on here are saying our squads not good enough, then they're complaining that we're saying that survival is the main thing.

Would you rather GS lies to you?

No Tom. I'd rather the club wanted to be successful in as many competitions as possible and say so.

How do you propose we do this Den as i'm getting a bit tired of all the negativity this close to the season. Have you got a secret fortune stashed away, Has Revidge, or anyone else for that matter. If the club don't have money to spend we have to do what we can to stay in this league, yes that's right stay in this league. I hope we finish at least top half as Souness surely does.

You find me one quote where he says survival is our only aim this year? What's that you can't but you'll pick up on one minor part part of a quite about Yorke. How can we compete with Birmingham & Middlesbrough without money? Would you really prefer us to gamble a few million that we don't have and go the way of Bradford?

I know what it will cost us if we go out of the league but we've got to make do with what we have a la BFS and band of mercenaries. Surely Bolton are our rivals, similar size club and fanbase. Have they spent more than us?

[waggy]

we must have money,we sold xxx amount of players,stayed in the premier and we have no money pull the other one

[Dan Furness]

we must have money,we sold xxx amount of players,stayed in the premier and we have no money pull the other one

think of money we will be using to cover lost revenue we probably budgeted on a higher finish in the league, crap cup runs and also writing money off for Cole, covering loans, debts and THEN ask why we have no money

[JamieUK]

we must have money,we sold xxx amount of players,stayed in the premier and we have no money pull the other one

and the players play for free?

[waggy]

for christ sake we took 22 million in fees and we are always told staying in the premier is worth 20-30 million

[Dan Furness]

for christ sake we took 22 million in fees and we are always told staying in the premier is worth 20-30 million

how much of the £22m you think we actually kept?

[Presty On Tour]

no the play for chocolate buttons

[bob fleming]

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the wage bill £35 million in last years accounts?

[Tom Pringle]

Birmingham City have pretty much a full house every week. The Gold brothers and Sullivan the porn king have a fortune. Thats where their money comes from.

We on the other hand struggle to get 3/4 full stadium for some matches. We HAD a pretty high wage bill. Therefore, our money has to be invested in keeping the club alive.

We've got some good young(ish) players on our books which will hopefully hold a bright future. Nills Eric, Jay, Barry, Stead, Gallagher, this young lad Derbyshire is banging a few goals in the reserves and plenty more i've not seen play. The future can be good, lets hope the experienced players bring these young(ish) players through and help Rovers.

I'm worried this season, but i'd be more worried if we'd spent 6 million on someone who we all pin our hopes onto. We've obviously still got money if we were planning to pay £1.25m for MGP and we've only spent 150k (Or something like that) so far. Which means we've still got £1.1m lying around, i personally would rather see us hold onto it until January. Especially the situations like Brad and De Pedro getting injured. Mind you, with those 2 injured Coles replacement could have filled the gaps.

We've got 3 decent players for 150k and i fully expect us to bring others in in January.

[dave birch]

Gs's main aim for the club should be to get the team enough points to avoid relegation. That is the first step on the ladder.

Once he (and the team) have acheived this, then they can look to higher things.

I'm stunned that some of you are anticipating the worst, when the season hasn't even kicked off.

Bunch of effing doom merchants