“In any given squad of 20 or so players in the Premier League I would think that over 50 per cent would want to be managers when they finish playing. There are just not enough jobs going round.”The rewards are so much greater than when Souness began as player-manager at Rangers in 1986, yet so are the demands of handling players empowered by vast salaries, and a media who can toll the bells of doom after two consecutive defeats. There are relatively few dismissals at present and there is an ever- increasing number of retired players who see management as their future.”It’s always a competitive workplace,” says Souness. It’s just the nature of the business at a certain level.”Souness’s name does not feature among those unemployed members on the League Managers’ Association’s official website ( www.leaguemanagers ) making themselves available for work. But many familiar names are there, from Roy Evans, whose perfunctory cv reads: “Thirty-five years with Liverpool during which time the club were the most successful in England and Europe, winning 30 major trophies”, to those such as Chris Kamara, who details in full his coaching qualifications and managerial experiences, together with notable transfer dealings.These are not the most propitious times for out-of-work managers. What he doesn’t do is to scour the newspapers searching for every indication that another chairman’s relationship with his manager is in terminal decline and then dash off his cv and a letter of application.

“Let’s put it this way: I don’t think the kind of job I’m interested in I’m going to get by applying for it,” says the man who, at only 46, has already managed Rangers, Liverpool, Galatasaray, Torino and Benfica “That may sound arrogant, but it’s not meant to. But the only job that’s come up recently was Blackburn, and my name was mentioned in dispatches, although nothing came of that.”Souness is content to bide his time, spending it with his wife, Karen, gardening and making the occasional appearance as an analyst on BSkyB’s live matches – “I’m a media tart,” he says self-deprecatingly – in which, as an articulate and opinionated character, he actually excels. Yet, when you’re out of football you can’t wait to get back into it.
“I’m back in the market place I want to get back into it. “The last time I’d been out for a year was because I was so cheesed off with the outcome of my time at Liverpool and my experiences there that well and truly sickened me,” he says. “The best way to sum up football management is when you’re in it and you lose a few games. You’re thinking, `What am I doing in this crazy business?’ because it can affect those people most precious to you when you end up taking it home with you You’re passionate about it That’s why you’re doing the bloody job. Certainly, it would not be the first occasion that the Scot has plugged a spent battery, power exhausted after confrontation with board, players or supporters, into “charging” mode.

GRAEME SOUNESS cradles his four-month-old baby, James, at his home in Winchester, relishing fatherhood again, as he reflects on his absence from a brotherhood whose membership is as vulnerable as those who have crossed the Cosa Nostra. It is six months since he departed acrimoniously from Benfica, and one suspects that it is only a hiatus after 12 years of football management. “Then I would be so pleased for the community and the people who have backed the club. But also for myself, I have to say.”So, in Cup and League, let’s join Joanna Lumley in sending “warmest good wishes” to Max, Brian and the lads.. That was when we beat Halifax 1-0 in April 1997 and stayed up. If we had gone down it would have put the club back two years.”So now we have in place all the things we need.

People say we have to get promotion this year and I suppose with our facilities and resources we should We’ve got a game in hand and if we win that we’ll go top If we win all the rest we definitely go up,” he grinned. If he can’t do it, bad luck, I’ll have to buy someone.” The trouble with buying, says Talbot, is that the sellers double the price when they know it’s the glittering Diamonds.Last season Leeds, with his old pal O’Leary in charge, were held to a draw in the FA Cup in front of a record 6,500 crowd Your magic Rushden moment, eh, Brian? “No. I am helping to build a football club and I’m very much a part of it in terms of ideas because they are not football people, they are shoe people.”Griggs has poured pounds 20m into the club, their stadium and the adjacent Diamond Centre, a restaurant, hospitality and training area opened in 1995 by the Prince of Wales. There is money available for new players but Talbot has a flourishing home-bred policy. He pointed out an 18-year- old, Gary Mills, who has come through the youth team and said, loudly enough to make certain Mills heard: “He’s got a great chance, if he listens He used to be big-headed but he’s getting better He will save me 50 grand if he comes through, maybe 100. But then I got back on our bus and realised how tremendous the people at Rushden are. People have sounded me out about going elsewhere but I wasn’t interested because I couldn’t be working for better people.”Talbot insists he has “no desire and no need” to be like the Leeds manager, David O’Leary, his former team-mate and room-mate with Arsenal.

What if O’Leary offered him the job of assistant? “I would think about it For one second. Then I’d say, `Thanks very much, but no.’ But having said that, when we went to Sheffield United last Sunday it was lovely: big stadium, big crowd, great atmosphere and you think, `That would be nice’. Managing can be a horrible job, there is far too much pressure and aggravation and there are a lot of chairmen I couldn’t work for. What’s most important is that you enjoy coming in to work every day.”I never knew this sort of set-up existed outside the League, how much work people put into it So it is very much a challenge I want to make this club as big as possible Being a non-League manager doesn’t bother me. Under Talbot, Rushden won eight of their last 12 games and stayed up. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to come back into management,” he said, “and if it hadn’t been for Mr Griggs I wouldn’t have done.