5. Graeme Souness - Newcastle United
Souness could probably make it in to the list for his spells at both Liverpool and Newcastle but he is in the list predominantly for what happened at Newcastle. Despite having a torrid time at Liverpool, his poor spell started before the Premier League era, he did manage to win the FA cup and was overseeing a transitional period in which he brought young players such as Robbie Fowler in to the first team. His tenure at Newcastle seemed to have few or no positives: after finishing 5th the previous season Newcastle were looking to push on from there under Sir Bobby Robson but with the board failing to back him and then disastrously announcing this would be Robsons final season Newcastle started the season slowly. Robson was sacked unceremoniously in August and Souness was brought in. Newcastle fans were shocked, Newcastle were 19th at the time and the only club below them was Souness Blackburn. After the great days of Robson Newcastle fans predicted grim things. Souness started well at Newcastle and picked up some good results but this began to fall away as every player in the squad seemed to fall out with him. Craig Bellamy went off on loan to Celtic due to a falling out with the manager and Laurent Robert left amongst others due to further disagreements with the manager. Transfers in during his first year also didnt help, with a lot of Newcastle fans seeing the £8 million spent on Jean Alain Boumsong a huge waste of money. Newcastles season fell away and they ended up finishing down in 14th despite finishing 5th just a year earlier, and though they did reach a UEFA Cup quarter-final and an FA cup semi-final, the natives were restless. That summer was crunch time for Souness at Newcastle, with the squad looking threadbare and leaky at the back, so he did what all Magpies managers used to do, and splashed the cash, which probably ended up being his downfall. Michael Owen joined the club for £17 million and Albert Luque joined for almost £10m, while Emre and Scott Parker came in to player in central midfield, however the club still looked hugely short at the back. There was much optimism with their new big money signings through the door but the next season was a disaster. After Michael Owen came in Newcastle picked up some good results but things soon started to unravel - they were 15th in the table and in a relegation fight they didnt want to be in and after a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Manchester City the board sacked Souness. Over £50 million was spent following Souness arrival at St James Park but these players were wastes of money, Boumsong was probably one of the worst transfers in the history of the Premier League, he looked out of his depth and probably would have been at Sunday league level. The signing of Owen was a marquee signing which backfired when the squad was in need of reinforcement elsewhere. He turned Robsons squad which was competing at the top end of the table in to a relegation threatened side. Souness was replaced by Glenn Roeder who used the remainder of the season to steer Newcastle back in to Europe.