Souness on the brink of exit from Newcastle
Graeme Souness's grip on the manager's job at Newcastle United, which seemed to have been maintained by Lee Clark's injury-time equaliser against Middlesbrough at St James' Park on Monday, may be forcibly relinquished before Newcastle host Mansfield Town in the FA Cup on Saturday.
The question on Tyneside continues to be when Souness goes rather than if, with Sam Allardyce the leading candidate to replace him. It is believed the compensation Newcastle would have to pay Bolton Wanderers is not prohibitive and that Allardyce would be prepared to accept a position he declined prior to Souness's appointment in September 2004.
There was much activity at St James' yesterday and Souness may have been reassured that some of it centred on an attempt to prise Danny Murphy from Charlton Athletic. Newcastle are willing to offer Amdy Faye, bought by Souness for £2m a year ago, and Lee Bowyer as bait.
But Souness's future was also understood to be on the hierarchy's agenda. Doubts at board level pre-date the Carling Cup defeat at Wigan in November, when the chairman Freddy Shepherd's car was surrounded by fans demanding Souness's removal. Wigan had seven of their reserve team playing that night.
On Monday, with Newcastle trailing 2-1, there were chants of "Souness Out" from the Gallowgate End. Souness said he did not want to hear Wigan mentioned after beating Arsenal and West Ham but it will be brought up after every poor result because the League Cup offered a chance of a trophy in Alan Shearer's last season.
The Middlesbrough match followed weak efforts at Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur. Before travelling to Tottenham Souness had a run-in with Stephen Carr, who was being asked to play at White Hart Lane after being out injured for two and a half months.Having observed how Emre Belozoglu and Kieron Dyer broke down after being brought back early, Carr said no.
One man who did travel to Spurs was Glenn Roeder, who sat with Shepherd. Roeder, formerly manager of West Ham, is now academy director at Newcastle and is likely to be interim manager should Souness go before the Mansfield match.
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