Graeme Souness would be as good as Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho if he managed in Premier League now, says ex-Liverpool teammate Ian Rush
Liverpool legend Ian Rush believes Graeme Souness would be considered one of the world’s best managers if he bossed a Premier League club today.
The former Liverpool, Rangers and Scotland midfielder - now a high-profile football pundit on TV - has not managed since being sacked by Newcastle in February 2006.
Rush won three top-flight titles while playing together with Souness in the 1980s and was coached by him in his second spell at Anfield in the early 90s.
Souness, a legend from his playing days at Liverpool, did not fare well as manager of the club, alienating fans and players in his three-year spell at the helm.
But Liverpool goalscoring legend Rush believes the Scot had all the tools to be a great and could have been as good as Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho if he was still managing in the current Premier League era.
Recalling his time under Souness at Liverpool, Rush told talkSPORT’s exclusive series ‘Up Front With’: “He won the league easily at Rangers and came down thinking maybe he can do the same (at Liverpool). But he changed things too quickly, simple as that.
”He lost the young players and the old ones by changing things too quickly.
”What he did have was the right ideas.
”If Graeme Souness was manager of a team now, he’d be up there with the likes of Klopp, Guardiola and Mourinho because I think he knows he’d made mistakes.
“He’d be an absolutely incredible manager if he was managing now.”
Guardiola (2) and Mourinho (3) have won a combined five Premier League titles with Man City and Chelsea, respectively.
Meanwhile, Klopp is on course to win his first top-flight crown as Liverpool hold a 25-point gap at the top of the table.
Rush is Liverpool’s all-time top scorer with 346 goals.
His scoring exploits in his first of three spells with the Reds earned him a move to Juventus for a then British record transfer fee of £3.2million in 1986.
But Rush lasted just one season in Turin, scoring seven goals in 29 league games, before returning to Liverpool.
Speaking about his failed spell overseas, the Welshman, 58, said: “I didn't even have a player liaison officer in Italy.
“So I had to learn about silly little things like going to the bank in Italy, opening your own bank account at a time when I couldn't speak Italian and they couldn't speak English.
“It was weighing me down. I ended up having chicken pox and shingles at the end of the season because I was so run down.”