If it wasn't for that pesky chairman I would have gotten away with it...

Some interesting quotes from Graeme Souness in today's Daily Mail. I know what you're thinking - Souness + Daily Mail = marriage made in the deepest, darkest pits of hell - and certainly his claim that we are "a big club with big problems", while probably true, is profoundly irritating coming as it does from a man who very definitely made those problems significantly bigger. "I didn't enjoy my time up there" - well, we didn't enjoy your time up here either, you knob.

But his comments about goings-on behind the scenes are worth repeating. Apparently it's not the levels of expectation on Tyneside that make the manager's role "a very, very difficult job", but "everything else you have to put up with". He didn't really have to spell it out, but did anyway: "You get people who come into the game and they are in it for five or six years, sometimes less, and all of a sudden they are experts. I am talking about owners and chairmen. [Really, Graeme? I'd never have guessed...] They decide who comes and goes from your club, they are laying the policy down on so many issues". Then, talking about his ambitions to become an owner / chairman himself, he added: "I feel I can do it better than some of the people I worked for. I know I would not be there to interfere".

It may be intensely annoying that Souness continues to blame everyone but himself for what happened during his tenure, but clearly Fat Fred's meddling and pig-headed I-know-best attitude were counter-productive. Time will tell whether Fat Sam will stand for it - though, of course, with the Ashley takeover looking increasingly likely, he may well not have to.