Tom English: 'Souness is not the answer: so much he touched turned to dust'

CALL THIS a pre-emptive strike. Or a hatchet job. It's a bit of both, frankly. It's about Graeme Souness and the mythology around him.

It's to do with the management of the Scottish football team and who inherits the chalice after George Burley. Maybe we're being premature here, but the chances are that we're all going to start talking feverishly about the succession race come the conclusion of this woe-begotten World Cup campaign on Wednesday night.

If that sounds disrespectful to Burley, then sorry. But all the signs from George Peat, Gordon Smith and from Burley himself are that the end is nigh, regardless of how things pan out against Holland. Save for some fighting talk and the odd expletive at a press conference on Friday, the manager's demeanour of late has been that of a man resigned to his fate. Even if by some miracle, Scotland make it to the World Cup, the smart money still has to be on Burley departing afterwards. Any time I look at him these days I hear the words "Burley leaves by mutual consent" in my head.

That's where Souness comes in. If you listen hard you'll be able to hear the rumbles of support for him already. Sure, Gordon Strachan is the favourite. Given what he did at Celtic, he's the stand-out character – a pragmatic and winning manager with charisma, a guy who is smart enough to tweak aspects of his spiky personality to suit the more subtle nature of the national job.

But what if Strachan doesn't want it? Just because he applied for it before doesn't mean anything, really. He's had four seasons at Celtic since then. He knows the intensity of Scottish football, knows what life can be like when things go wrong. Maybe Strachan is content with his gig at the BBC. Maybe he's happy to bide his time until a decent Premiership job comes up. He doesn't strike me as a man who is absolutely desperate to get back into management. Far from it.

There will be other big names on the list, for sure. One more unlikely than the next. Short of hanging a sign around his neck, Sir Alex Ferguson has made it clear that the Manchester United job will be his last in football. Short of signing a statement in blood, David Moyes could not be more clear on where he sees his own future – it's in the Premiership, currently with Everton, but with eyes on a bigger prize.

Alex McLeish has done it before and may well do it again – but not any time soon. Owen Coyle will be mooted, but if he didn't want to leave Burnley for Celtic then why would he depart the buzz of Turf Moor for the sleepy hollow of Hampden? Walter Smith will no doubt be beseeched by sections of the media to juggle the interests of the national team with those of his club – an invitation, we're guessing, Smith will find pretty easy to turn down.

The Scotland position is actually a fine opportunity for somebody. The team is coming to the end of what has been a largely wretched campaign in as soft a group as anybody could have hoped for. Expectations are low. For the new guy – sorry, George – the only way is up.

Souness has his supporters. Quite a few of them. If, and when, Burley disappears, the Souness lobby will be mobilised and we'll be hearing plenty about how the national team needs his force of personality to drive things forward.

Fair enough, he was a great player and a great Rangers manager, but if you were interviewing him, you'd be wanting to know why so much of what he touched since leaving Ibrox 18 years ago turned to dust.

At Liverpool, the job he went to after Rangers, he was a catastrophe. Liverpool had not finished outside the top two in the old First Division for ten seasons in a row before he became manager, but Souness changed that. He dropped them to sixth, then sixth again – and signed some amount of dross along the way.

He said he was shocked by the lack of professionalism in the dressing-room at Anfield and that his mistake had been in trying to change things too quickly. Mention that explanation to a Liverpool fan and you'd better stand well back. They have an altogether different take on his reign. His year at Southampton was memorable for just one thing; the Ali Dia hoax. At Benfica, where he did 18 months, he signed such luminaries as Steve Harkness, Gary Charles and Brian Deane, but sold a young Portuguese player by the name of Deco. Souness reckoned Deco would never be good enough for the top level. They should write it on his tombstone.

Souness did win a cup with Galatasaray and took Blackburn into the Premiership and won a League Cup there also. But he is not fondly remembered at Ewood Park. In his penultimate season, Blackburn finished 15th and were second from bottom when he left for Newcastle, his last management job.

Souness spent more than 50 million at Newcastle and was fired when the club sank too close for comfort to the relegation zone. He hasn't been a manager in three years, but still there are plenty of people bewitched by him and his tough-guy persona, by the supposed respect he would command.

Let's hope that Gordon Smith is not one of them. Souness is not the answer, though a bookmaker friend of mine is ready to put him second in the betting behind Strachan should Burley depart. The thinking, said the bookie, is that the SFA will be mindful of the criticism of Burley's weak leadership and will want to confront it by appointing a heavily robust character in his place.

Hence, this pre-emptive strike. Smudger, if it's a new manager you want, call Strachan, or Craig Levein, or Kenny Dalglish, or John Hughes. Anybody but the dreaded Souey.