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Dominant - Under Pressure (1990/91): Part 2 (Patreon)

Published:
2022-05-24 06:01:00
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2026-06
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"Don't come to sit on your hands and criticise" said Graeme Souness to the Rangers support via Radio Clyde in January of 1991, with his side 12 games into an unbeaten of 17 - the longest of his reign. Despite a league position of great strength and a Old Firm cup win, Souness was losing control. The departure of Butcher, the loss of Kusnetzov, the hammering in Belgrade and the war with McCoist were just some of the flashpoints as the storm at Ibrox continued to rage.

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Comments

Steve Clark

Souness tried to get Paul mcstay to Rangers!!!how do i know this happened you may ask.well I was in my mates house in NI and he introduced to me this fella who worked in ibrox,he would be in ibrox early cleaning the floors in the dressing room’s etc and he told me that one day he walked into ibrox and souness came out the front door and behind him was Paul mcstay!!!

Callum Dinnen

The signing of Kuznetsov is a fascinating one as Eastern Europe was an absolute goldmine of talent at this point - something we should have been aware of after encountering Steau Bucharest in 1988. Given the events of 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the transition away from Communism in the former Soviet bloc, do you think this is a market we maybe could have been more pro-active in? I appreciate a lot of this is Captain Hindsight, but a look at the Yugoslavian and Romanian squads in particular from 1990 sees a lot of quality names like Popescu, Suker and Boksic still playing domestic football for "smaller" teams prior to moves around Europe which weren't available to Romanians in particular prior to 1990. Is this a market we should have been more active in rather than Souness sticking to what he knows and signing the likes of Spackman and Hurlock during 1990?

Steve Clark

That Dundee utd game in December was played in a blizzard in the first half.i was behind the goal when Walters scored one of the best goals I have ever seen

Heart and Hand
>>84467140

The problem a lot of West European clubs found with former Soviet bloc players was - perhaps understandably - having grown up in regimented, quite poor areas when they arrived in West with not only freedom but the money to actively enjoy it, a lot of them were like kids in a sweet shop abd football wasn’t tgeir No 1 priority 😀

steven burnside

This is now the highlight of my week. So much I missed as a teenager 😂 Excellent

David

How do you search to get all the previous episodes? Cheers

Ross Matheson

I can't remember the exact date of when this conversation happened but I was at Hampden for a Queens Park game (might not even have been against Rangers) with my Dad and Tony Higgins was sitting beside us and chatting away. The subject of Kuznetzov came up and he told us he'd spoken to Sergei Baltacha about his fellow countryman and Baltacha's comment was "Great player" but pointed to his knee and said "always injured though" I'm not sure whether Baltacha arrived at St Johnstone in the summer before Oleg played with us in October and he'd have told Higgins that before Kuznetzov arrived or if it was after the injury and it was one where he was just saying they all knew he had a bad knee before he arrived and the McDermid Park incident wasn't a surprise. As far as unfortunate ones go, it's up there but I've always wondered given our horrific medical team of the time, how much of it was bad luck and how much of it was us making a mess of things again. Given Higgins's allegiances, he was maybe embelishing things too though. Wish I knew for sure...but I think Oleg might even have had a knee strap on when we played Kiev in 1987. SDF on twitter might be backing that though up... "There was a story that his knee was already in a state thanks to a botched op in some East German hospital years before we signed him. Sergei Baltacha was interviewed post match and said "Everyone knows Oleg always have bad knee"

Callum Dinnen

On the European front, how much do you put down to coincidence that our best seasons in Europe under Souness the manager are the two seasons where Souness the player is most involved? (1986/87 and 1987/88). Could this just be down to those seasons being closest chronologically to his time at Liverpool where the methods he learned there still work to a degree, or is it in part down to a failure to replace Souness the player in midfield?

Callum Dinnen
>>84530050

Transfermarkt has Sergei Baltacha joining St Johnstone on a free from Ipswich in July 1990.

Martyn Ramsay
>>84530050

It’s a seductive narrative but I wonder if it’s coloured by the disaster of the 90s. Not sure what players Souness signed pre-90 who came with long-standing injury worries. Hateley would have been the bigger risk that summer I think. OK had played 30-40 games in 3 seasons out of 4 before he arrived an almost ever-present for USSR at the three tournaments prior to joining (he missed the 88 Euro final through suspension) so if it was a risk, it was well covered. I think it was just horrendous luck instead of some of the poor diligence that would define the rest of the decade.

Martyn Ramsay
>>84530681

Yeah I think there’s something in that. It’s close to that British style than the Belgrade game is for sure and it’s the most important area of the field for nous and experience. You need more than just Trevor Steven to hold onto the ball for example

Ross Matheson
>>84530050

Yes, the cummulitive effect of the following years probably colours things. Before Oleg though, and while the Durrant injury wasn't "bad luck" whatsoever, the medical care (or lack thereof) by Boersma filters in to that lack of professional care our medical team should have. The Butcher leg break incident being another one of the time. It's starting to paint a picture that would have you question whether we signed him knowing he had a bad knee for sure.

john cowden
>>84530681

Undoubtedly Souness playing factor big , for me no coincidence that our three big European years (one yet to come ) Durrant plays . Without that ‘tackle’ he had the ability to grace any team in Europe bar none.

Martyn Ramsay
>>84530050

Oh for sure, the direction of travel had been started then. For all the modernisation that undoubtedly took place, it was a huge blind spot, most probably because Souness seemed to genuinely believe that injuries happened to other people. He escaped serious injury at Liverpool and Italy. It was for the weak!

Gary Brown
>>84506109

Hi David, for me the search function in the app searches the full patreon network for other providers not specific content. Go to the header of this episode, hit 'see more' and then hit the little dominant tag label, bottom left. Gives you the back catalogue.

Gary Brown

Thanks again Martyn, Andy & John for this episode and all the recollections, opinions & background facts, some of which were not openly known at the time. It makes this episode, like all those preceeding it, another truly wonderful listen. Time travel into an amazing period in club history. Great job guys. Butcher's omission I recall being a pre-match announcement and shock. Also it being popular belief due to a disagreement between them re the own goal - and it was accepted, like the others before, there was only ever going to be one winner! In my opinion European failure was a huge part in Souness' escalating ego & decline in attitude / behaviour. Successful in his own right, his players could not emulate him and were therefore inferior. The holy grail was the European Cup as domestic dominance was effectively a 'given' at this point. With the proper cup format, one bad game ended a year's worth of work, with another to go through to get back to exactly the same stage the following season. PSG and Man City are modern day equivalents of what this Rangers side went through. Fantastic amounts invested but always, infuriatingly & unexpectedly, coming up just short. As mentioned in the last episode re media / coverage 1990 was also an evolution in the actual playing of football. Italia 90 was not the glorious free flowing spectacular remembered now, group stages & many knockout games tedious, dull, back passing borefests. But it was part of the genesis of the modern game, moving away from the more 'industrial' & physical it had always been. Kuznetzov replacing Butcher is a perfect example. Ally the cheeky chappie is rightly adored but the smart quips likely seemed as insubordination to Souness. I think it was both ego & tough love on his part. But underlying it all, as manager he can go out and get another striker (& did), Ally was not the only source of goals. Winning with Roberts, Butcher, and McCoist but also by winning without them Souness WAS right, but with the benefit of hindsight we can see just how severely & rapidly his egomania was escalating, very likely stress / mental health issues were the same. At the time these conditions were unrecognised or unmentionable about and between men. Souness was right re "Don't come to sit on your hands & criticise", sadly still happens today. But it's really not what a manager should be saying. Another superb show, thank you. Eagerly anticipating next week's instalment.

Martyn Ramsay
>>84548598

Thank you Gary. I concur with so much of that. The only thing I’d slightly disagree with is that domestic success was not quite yet a ‘given’. Strong favourites, yes, but as we’ll see we are about to be run as close as any other time in the run. I’d argue that it’s not until 1992 that we have established a position whereby you cannot seriously suggest any other club will win the title. That kind of comfort is still a little while away but the lines are being drawn for sure whereby we are on the way to achieving the first aim of the revolution but arguably further in getting the second. That tension was huge for him, a player so closely associated with that trophy.

Gary Brown

Thanks Martyn. Yes very true, obviously nothing was a given (as this season later showed) but it was 'effectively' so - with '88 a bit of an aberration, 2 titles on the bounce, strengthening of that team, city rivals in decline. Arguably could / should have been going for 5 in a row. At season's start, it was ours to lose. And the eye (& ego) of the Gaffer was no doubt more drawn to 'his' Cup. In hindsight - Post Red Star his frustration, perhaps petulisim, thereafter altered him personally, his relationships with players & the team dynamic (as you aptly summarised with King Lear) right to the very brink of disaster, as I'm sure your next episodes will explore. I must confess to thinking it was history repeating itself with the performances, results & slight hints of SGs attitude after Malmo this season!! Far too many similarities, played out further with his departure. With knives out for Gio as recently as mid April I posted on some comment pages drawing comparisons with Souness > Smith and Gerrard > Gio. Fire to Ice! I do think the CL group format would have been more to Souness' liking (& possibly success?)

Martyn Ramsay
>>84564457

Yeah you can add Advocaat to McLeish to that fire and ice analogy and it was a point I made around Xmas time. Souness’s Rangers in a group stage would have been interesting certainly. We’d have likely been drawn in the hardest group! But the issue was a changing game on the pitch that he wasn’t tactically adaptable to and one off the pitch that was going to make it all but impossible soon enough.

Gary Brown
>>84564457

Yes, 100%. I saw your analogy at the time. Agreed, part of my point about Italia90 and the evolution of 'the game'. Needed players of that certain style, only available from Europe, to evolve team & tactics as that's the way the beautiful bit of the beautiful game was going. Couldn't with the 'foreigner' restrictions 🙄 Oh what might have been!😄

john cowden
>>84564457

Like Martyn I agree with so much, especially the Souness to smith and Gerrard to Gio . In terms of history, Does raise the question, akin to should the royal family get involved with American divorcees, should we prepare ourselves for betrayal from talented Liverpool midfielders? I think re domestic dominance, we were there mentally as a support going into this season, we wobbled for a week, but one day in may made 6 or7 in a row more probable than not. Less convinced Souness would have done it in Europe in the 90’s even with group stages Of course that part is hindsight, back then we viewed him as a god, but now you do see there were some fairly large flaws in his managerial makeup ….

Gary Brown
>>84564457

Agreed John, Souness was flawed as a manager, most notably at this point, he's admitted many times since then he made mistakes. He had certainly earned the unwavering support; being the revolutionary leader, results, titles, players brought in, the sheer feelings of joy and more importantly pride regained after years of drudgery. The period Martyn covers with this, and the next, episode, is the Souness 'car crash' in frame-by-frame slow motion. Now we can reflect, analyse & discuss what caused it and perhaps what could have prevented it. At the time we were too busy enjoying being in the flashy car and speeding along!😄