As Graeme Souness takes his seat, the conversation turns to whether you need to have won the European Cup to be a good commentator. “Everyone can get lucky once,” he jokes. He was reminded that this happened more than once, but it happened three times in his own career. “Beyond that, it’s not luck.”
Five league titles, along with victories at Wembley, Parc des Princes and Stadio Olimpico, establish Souness as an authority when it comes to football broadcasting. But his 15 years at Sky Sports have been defined more by what he said than by the trophies he won and his stellar playing career.
According to him, it is becoming increasingly difficult to become an expert in modern football. Using the right words while remaining honest and critical when necessary. 70-year-old Souness did not back down on this issue. He returns to the screen to cover ITV’s Manchester United’s dramatic FA Cup win over Liverpool ahead of the international break and will feature in Scotland’s Euro debut against hosts Germany.
Souness: ‘I will never retire’ Telegram Sports. “I’ll retire when the phone stops ringing.”
And according to Souness, there is one key factor behind his longevity. “Be honest,” he says. “I know we have to be very careful about what words we choose right now, but we need to be as honest as possible on a consistent basis. And just be real. “This is becoming increasingly difficult for those currently doing this.”
But despite his own achievements as both player and pundit, Souness does not believe in the theory that you have to have achieved everything to analyze the best.
“That’s like saying Arsene Wenger or Jose Mourinho shouldn’t be great managers,” he notes. “Winning a European Cup doesn’t qualify you to be good at anything.
“There are people I will listen to. There are people I think, ‘No, I have nothing to learn from you.’ That’s just me. When you watch people on TV, I’m sure you’re exactly the same. I’m no different. There are people I will listen to, and there are people I won’t listen to.”
It’s been 10 months since he last wore a crisp suit on Super Sunday and told audiences his opinions, whether they were against his colleagues or not. Souness says it was a great feeling to return to ITV last week, not that he was waiting by the phone for a call. His radio work, podcasts and charity work have kept him even busier than when he was at Sky Sports. During his time as broadcaster there has been no time to reflect on how being at the heart of the Premier League has changed. His schedule is busy on the subject, but he is happy to confirm that he regrets nothing said on air in the last two decades.
Arsenal have been subject to a lot of criticism over the years, with the “team of grooms” assessment particularly egregious. His disappointment with Paul Pogba will also be remembered. This was due to seeing a player with qualities who was not dedicated to winning matches. But Souness is unhappy with the France midfielder’s troubles, which include being banned for doping offenses less than two years after leaving Manchester United, without helping their title challenge.
“I was disappointed in Pogba because I saw someone who had all this talent, all this physical prowess that you see in a great athlete, but he had a terrible attitude,” Souness said. “I could talk about it for 10 minutes, but ultimately he didn’t work hard enough. The worst thing that could have happened to him was to win the World Cup as a young man. This seated him securely in a large, comfortable chair. He was no longer fit to race on difficult courses; He thought it was all about him doing clever flashy things on the football field.
“Every time I played there was a thought in my mind: I will be better than the man I play against. I’ll have a better day than him. And the starting point for this is to work harder than that. I don’t think Paul Pogba has ever shown such an attitude. It was all about showing how smart and cute I could be. It would be very easy to play against him because he never worked on you. It didn’t stop you from playing.
“I don’t take any pleasure in what happened to him because he was an extremely talented young man who had everything to be remembered as one of the best midfielders in world football. But unfortunately he won’t be remembered for that. He will be remembered for the drugs ban and the almost kidnapping.”
Souness still feels like he is playing through the ups and downs of the game, kicking every ball and making every tackle.
“I’m not one to look back. “I’m 70 years old, but some mornings I wake up thinking I’m 21 again,” he said. “My wife will wake me up in the middle of the night and say ‘stop kicking me’ because I still dream that I’m playing football.”
The reason Souness has been so open about his television career is because he is heavily involved in the NHS campaign to tackle high blood pressure. At the age of 38, he was diagnosed with hypertension, which led to him having open heart surgery. Souness is as passionate about the campaign as he is about football, taking a look at the statistics: the estimate is that 4.2 million people in England are undiagnosed.
“Is there anyone who can talk about this better than me? I don’t know,” he said. “When I was manager at Liverpool I was doing everything the players did in training except playing on a Saturday afternoon. It makes you childish. You may feel great, but it’s a slow process, and the sooner you hit 40 you’ll have to get over it.
You might think the stress of live TV wouldn’t suit his condition, but Souness points out that the condition can easily be treated with a daily pill. It’s not that his blood pressure rose during the broadcast, because everything was natural. Management was a different animal.
“I don’t think my blood pressure will change much whether I’m on air or not. But I guarantee that will change when I become a manager on match days,” he said. “If you’re an expert. The last thing people want is for people to always agree. I never said anything that I couldn’t back up. It wasn’t just to grab a stupid headline. To think I could always back it up by explaining why I said it.” “I would like to. There is nothing, no. I can’t think of anything that makes me say ‘I wish I hadn’t said that’.”
Football today still excites Souness, but there’s plenty not to like. And when he doesn’t like what he sees, he’ll keep saying it.
“Some games are sensational. But it’s a 50-50 thing,” explains Souness. “I sit and watch some games and I see the midfielders going through there all the time. It’s of no use to me, I’ll go back and watch something else. Other games draw me in and I stick with it. Maybe I’ve always been like this.”
Watching football critically is part of being Graeme Souness.
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Graeme Souness is backing a new national NHS campaign to find the ‘missing millions’ with undiagnosed high blood pressure, which often has no symptoms. High blood pressure is one of the biggest known risk factors for cardiovascular disease and can lead to heart attack, stroke, kidney disease or vascular dementia. Find a pharmacy This organization offers free blood pressure checks near you for anyone aged 40 and over by searching for “pharmacy blood pressure check” or visiting the NHS website.