Souness: Why I wanted Lampard as the Rangers manager

Graeme Souness has revealed he wanted Frank Lampard as Rangers manager because he thought it would open the door to landing players on loan from Chelsea and Manchester City.
Rangers consulted Souness, their former player and manager, on who should be approached to replace Michael Beale last year.
Souness’ advice was to go for Lampard despite the England’s star’s unimpressive managerial record with Derby County, Chelsea and Everton. Despite Souness’s iconic standing with the Rangers support, and the respect with which he was held by the board, the Ibrox club went for Philippe Clement instead.
Souness always has been completely comfortable with that outcome and has praised Clement for the impression he has made in 10 months at Rangers, but the 71-year-old has revealed that if they had looked to Lampard he thought it would be possible to land some of Chelsea and City’s players on loan. Former England star Lampard played for both clubs.
“Let me clear that up,” said Souness. “I was big on Frank. I’ll tell you why I was big on Frank. Philippe was the best interviewer. He was very impressive with his presentation and then he turned around and said ‘well I’ve not really done this before’. Well, he must have practised in front of a mirror because he was more than good, he was excellent.
“[But] Frank was attractive to me for two reasons. He’s very well off, his life is in the south. Whatever job he gets now is his last chance saloon. And equally as big as that, I asked him in an interview ‘how friendly are you with Man City and Chelsea?’ Because I’m thinking ‘we don’t have any money, go get players on loan’. So that’s why I slightly lent towards Frank. But I think we’ve got a very good manager now.”
Many Rangers supporters would like Souness to have a role at the club but he will not change his mind after turning down the offer of a permanent consultancy position last year.
“In terms of going back, that boat has sailed for me. I am now in a great place in my life. I still like to work. I’m still very active and I just count my blessings every day because I see people that I’ve played against or I’ve played with and some are no longer with us and some are suffering with that dementia. Or some form of it. And I’m just blessed. I just feel I’ve been so fortunate,” he said.
“At Rangers I’d like to think they’re listening to everything that Philippe Clement is telling them about the footballing side of things now because I believe he knows his stuff.”
The Belgian has lost his last three Old Firm games — including the Scottish Cup final in May — after a draw in his first. For Souness, though, Clement would have benefited simply from experiencing them. And he felt sure there was little between the sides despite Rangers winning only one of the last 12 derbies, a dead rubber in May of last year.
“I know if you go back over a decade you’d say there has to be an enormous gap. I don’t see it like that. I’ve witnessed two games. Rangers lost 2-1 with ten men at Parkhead [in May] and a cup final where I thought Rangers were a better team. The fact that they [Celtic] have dominated the league in the last decade or so means nothing. It’s who turns up on the day and performs. In the recent history Rangers haven’t had the money to spend that Celtic have.
“Celtic, especially at Parkhead, will come after you like they’ve lit a fire. That’s never been any different at Parkhead. So you’ve got to weather that storm. It doesn’t decide anything. What is this, the fourth game of the season? It doesn’t decide anything but it puts pressure on the team that loses.” Souness said he would have loved to play in front of 60,000 Celtic fans with no away support present. “I’d relish it, bring it on. See if we can squeeze 80,000 in…”
The three times European Cup winner was back in Glasgow with former Celtic boss Martin O’Neill as the pair promoted Premiership sponsors William Hill’s The Warm-Up show on YouTube.
As Souness famously once did, O’Neill said he made the mistake of telling his club’s supporters that winning Old Firm games was not the be all and end all. He had spoken at a supporters’ club event in a Perth social club. “It was very early on in my tenure and I genuinely thought at the time that even if we lost the four games against Rangers, but won the league, that would satisfy the Celtic fans. No, no, that’s not on the agenda! I was well and truly censured on that!”
O’Neill took over at Celtic when they had finished 21 points behind Dick Advocaat’s Rangers in 2000, only to win the title by 15 points in his debut season. Still, O’Neill joked that he found Advocaat and his enormous squad a formidable challenge.
“I remember Dick when he signed, I think, about five lads from the leagues here and he said, ‘oh, this is my league team, my European Cup team is elsewhere’. And I thought ‘oh, good Lord’. So that was kind of scary at the time. So he did scare me.”
Graeme Souness and Martin O’Neill are guests on The Warm-Up, the William Hill SPFL preview show. Available on YouTube