Graeme Souness is an idiot
Graeme Souness being an idiot is hardly a newsflash but even for a bloke whose opinions were outdated in the 1980s, the pundit’s comments on Brighton appointing Robert De Zerbi as their new manager were quite incredible.
Souness was talking to Jim White on TalkSport when the topic of conversation turned to De Zerbi. An unknown foreign coach coming to the Premier League was always likely to get Souness riled, especially at a time when he has become even more of a fossil than normal.
Recent Souness takes from the Victorian era include describing football as a “man’s game” less than six weeks after the Lionesses won Euro 2022.
He also concluded that Liverpool’s slow start to the 2022-23 season was because players weren’t running around enough. Forget the technicalities and tactics Herr Klopp and just tell Mo Salah, Virgin van Dijk and the rest to run a bit more.
Souness did not disappoint when it came to his hot take on the Graham Potter’s successor in the Albion dugout. He believes that appointing De Zerbi is a risk because he is an Italian who has never played or managed in England before.
“I think it’s a risk. You’re bringing someone in who doesn’t know our game. They’re making the appointment of a manager who has no history in the English game.”
Where to start with that? Every managerial appointment any team makes is a risk. Graham Potter was a risk, a bloke with only one year of prior experience in English football which ended with a mid table Championship finish with Swansea City.
Potter did not turn out too badly for Brighton. Neither did Gus Poyet He Who Must Not Be Named, who had never been a number one before Tony Bloom appointed him Albion manager in 2009.
Oscar Garcia had no experience of English football and yet took an average Brighton squad into the playoffs at the end of the 2013-14 season.
The only manager of the six Bloom has now appointed with a proven track record was Chris Hughton at a time when the Albion needed experience and a steady hand to keep them out of the clutches of League One.
Even Manchester City bringing in Pep Guardiola was a risk. It seems mad now, but when he arrived on these shores six years ago pundits and fans genuinely wondered whether he could succeed in a Premier League more competitive than both the Bundesliga and La Liga.
By Souness logic, Guardiola should have failed because he “didn’t know our game”. Just like Klopp “didn’t know our game” when rocking up at Anfield from Borussia Dortmund.
And Antonio Conte. And Carlo Ancelotti. And Roberto Mancini. And Jose Mourinho. And Arsene Wenger. Having no history in the English game did not stop any of those seven foreigners winning Premier League titles.
Souness went on, saying De Zerbi: “Doesn’t know anything about the league, doesn’t know the players and the question I asked about what football people are going to be at the club to help him, he will need help. It’s a big risk.”
The Gospel of Graeme seemed to be preaching that Bloom should have appointed an English manager. A Sean Dyche, although Souness would probably consider the former Burnley boss too modern seeing as he enjoyed success within the past five years.
How about Big Sam Alardyce and his pint of wine? Or Tony Pulis and his baseball cap? Or Alan Pardew and his cringeworthy dancing on the touchline during an FA Cup final? The thought of Pardew is enough to bring even Prince Andrew out in a cold sweat.
Whilst Souness was busy championing British jobs for British managers, he should have taken a minute to remember how many Englishmen have won a Premier League title since Sky Sports invented football in 1992.
A big fat zero. And how many Italians have led sides to the title in the same timeframe? Four. Claudio Ranieri. Ancelotti. Mancini. Conte. The latter three all have an FA Cup to their name too.
Having made one set of comments showing barely-hidden contempt for Johnny Foreigner, Graeme Souness went and surpassed himself by coming out with something even more ridiculous regarding the CV of Roberto De Zerbi.
“I think it’s a risk bringing someone with his CV, seven jobs in nine years. If you’re an outstanding coach then people want to hold onto you.”
Who wants to hazard a guess at how many clubs Souness managed over a nine-year period between 1991 and 2000? Rangers, Liverpool, Galatasaray, Southampton, Torino, Benfica and Blackburn Rovers.
A perfect seven, meaning that Souness was in effect calling himself a poor manager. Oh yeah, and Souness had never played or managed in Turkey or Portugal before he was given jobs in those respective countries.
Benfica and Galatasaray took a risk with the appointment of a manager who had no history in the Turkish or Portugese game, to paraphrase Souness himself.
Of course, the reason De Zerbi has rattled through seven clubs in nine years is because he has climbed the coaching ladder from the bottom upwards.
His first managerial position came with Serie D amateurs Darfo Boario in 2013. He took over Foggia in Serie C a year later, winning the Serie C Cup and reaching the promotion playoff final in his first season in charge.
De Zerbi’s next destination was Serie A side Palermo, the only blot on his copybook. He earned praise for nearly keeping next club Benevento in the top flight, doing enough to convince Sassuolo to give him an opportunity to remain in Serie A.
Leading an unfashionable club with a small budget to successive eighth place finishes as well as developing three players for Italy’s Euro 2020 winning squad convinced Ukrainian giants Shakhtar Donetsk to appoint De Zerbi as their boss in the summer of 2021.
Of his six previous managerial positions, De Zerbi left four of them to move onto better things. He has been sacked only once.
And his time at Shakhtar came to an end because of war. It is a measure of the man that De Zerbi remained in Ukraine whilst the Russian invasion knocked on the doors of Kyiv, refusing to leave until all the foreign players in his Shakhtar squad were safely out of the country.
Graeme Souness was implying that Roberto De Zerbi is some sort of fraud now into his seventh managerial job in nine years because he is not good enough. That could not be further from the truth.
The actual truth is that Souness is an idiot. But we already knew that.
