He opened up on time he almost replaced Sir Alex Ferguson at United

IAN LADYMAN: 'Let's talk about Manchester City...'

GRAEME SOUNESS: 'Well they have only played one big team and they came unstuck. That was Tottenham.'

LADYMAN: 'No, they have played Manchester United as well.'

SOUNESS: 'No, I said a big team…'

Liverpool and Scotland legend Graeme Souness spoke to Sportsmail about all things football

Souness, who was an all-action midfielder during his playing days, is now a Sky Sports pundit

One question in and Graeme Souness has found his stride. There is a twinkle in his eye. He is only half-serious, but he has made his first point.

'Look, everything I did when I was manager at Liverpool was wrong but the scenario at United now is exactly the same,' he says.

'The only difference is that it was one man for 25 years at United whereas we had gone Shankly, Paisley, Fagan, Dalglish. But the point is the squad needed changing, as it does at United post-Fergie.

'In my time, it was an old group and there was a reason. Kenny had been through the Hillsborough tragedy with those players and didn't want to let them go. I get that, but they were past their best.

'So you go in there and you want to get back to that status immediately. But you are in a rush. So you make mistakes, I certainly did.

'And look at United. Moyesy signed Fellaini and Mata. Then Van Gaal spent big on Di Maria and Martial. Now it's £100million on Pogba. It's like there is no patience or strategy. What United had under Fergie, and Liverpool had during the great years, was to go out and buy a couple of players and it didn't matter if they didn't do it straight away. They could be absorbed and allowed to settle down.

Souness was a phenomenal footballer, a force of nature at the heart of Liverpool's midfield

The 63-year-old Scotsman is effusive about Chelsea and optimistic about ex-club Liverpool

At United now there's no strategy in the buying policy Souness on Manchester United

'But United are having to buy players to be an instant success. They haven't got time. They are buying players under pressure and then those players are immediately under pressure. And that's hard.'

Souness is talking at Sky's west London HQ. We are standing up as he has driven from his home in Dorset. As he looks ahead to the Christmas and New Year period of football, he is effusive about Chelsea and optimistic about Liverpool.

'Liverpool can win the league,' he says. 'They are the best to watch and it's still the best place to play.

'I have a slight concern they have that fast-forward gear and that's how they want to play from the first minute. Chelsea can find a different way. I am not sure Liverpool can. But we'll find out.'

Souness pictured competing for the ball with Paul Goddard during the 1981 League Cup final

Souness, a former Liverpool boss, is looking ahead to the Christmas and New Year period

Interestingly, the conversation returns regularly to United. This time, it's Jose Mourinho.

'There was a list in your paper of the number of times he has got in disciplinary trouble,' he says. 'When things are going well those things don't happen. He announced himself as the happy one and that's fine but in management you are only as cool when you are winning.

'The pressure you feel gets us all. He is at one of the biggest clubs in the world and he knows his neck is on the line in his job like never before. He has been brought in and six months on I think he is still scratching his head.'

The former midfielder admits: 'Everything I did when I was manager at Liverpool was wrong'

Jose Mourinho's Manchester United are struggling despite signing a number of new players

Souness was a phenomenal footballer, a force of nature at the heart of Liverpool's midfield in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Robbie Fowler described Steven Gerrard as the second best player in the club's history after Dalglish. Many who saw Souness play would disagree.

As a brilliant Sky pundit and a newspaper columnist for the Sunday Times, he is no less forthright. He is 63 now and as lean as a middle-distance runner.

His former Liverpool colleague Michael Robinson once described him as 'deceptively cuddly'. That may be stretching it but there is a warmth and generosity about him that he never showed on the field.

I ask him if he used to swap shirts after a game.

'I didn't even shake hands when we lost,' he replies. 'No f*****g way. I couldn't get off the pitch quick enough. I wasn't alone either. It was quite different back then.'

Souness's last managerial job was at Newcastle, who he left in 2006 - he is now a TV pundit

The legendary footballer sat down with Sportsmail's Ian Ladyman to discuss modern football

Some ex-pros can't watch modern football. The money, the circus. They can't stand it, they get bitter.

Souness loves it. Can't help himself. But he wouldn't swap then for now. 'The game, the actual football, doesn't change,' he says. 'These are not guys coming in with really new ideas. A great player in my day would be a great player today. It's that simple. It's not rocket science.

'In my day Bob Paisley would say, "Would someone tell me what a blindside run is?" and "What does leading the line mean?" They were the buzzwords in those days and Bob wasn't having it.

'Now it's other phrases. Was Kenny not a false No 9? Full backs joining in? I played in three European Cup finals and Phil Neal scored in one and Alan Kennedy in another. I think the full backs joined in on those nights, don't you?'

The former manager with Sportsmail's Ladyman as the pair spoke at Sky's west London HQ

(Left-right) Souness, Kenny Dalglish and Alan Hansen pose with the 1981 European Cup

Souness arrived at Anfield in 1978 from Middlesbrough. Previously he had failed to settle at Tottenham where he knocked on the door of the great Bill Nicholson to ask why he wasn't in the team. He was 17.

'I never was one to undervalue my worth,' he smiles.

There were some early mistakes at Anfield. Innocent ones, like using Tommy Smith's hairdryer.

'I picked it up and started drying my hair,' Souness laughs. 'Tommy came over and looked at me. He turned to the rest of the dressing room and said, "Everyone is allowed one mistake". I was still drying my hair, saying, "I can't hear you".'

In six seasons at Liverpool, Souness won five League titles and three European Cups. For the last three years he was captain. Paisley — hardly verbose himself — told him not to say much, just to lead by example.

'I walked in the door at Liverpool at 23 and I am Jack the lad and I am doing things and having the odd night out,' recalls Souness. 'And the senior players — Tommy, Emlyn Hughes, Ray Clemence, Steve Heighway — were like, "No we don't do that here, we do this". Then when you become a senior player you pass that down the line. You have no chance of success unless you have good senior pros. Not then, not now.

'Nobody needed to tell me I had a bad day. There were not many but when I had one, I knew. That has changed. It's too soft. When a team gets beat now it's always the manager's fault. That allows players to escape responsibility.

'If you have a bad game, put your hand up. Have a look in the mirror and see if you see a proper player staring back. You were s*** today. Don't be talking about everybody else. Have a look at yourself.'

Scotland team-mates Souness and Dalglish moved to Anfield in 1978 to great success

His former Liverpool colleague Michael Robinson once described him as 'deceptively cuddly'

You can’t go out drinking if you're captain of England Souness on Wayne Rooney

That Liverpool team enjoyed a night out. Two weeks before the 1984 European Cup final in Rome, for example, manager Joe Fagan took the team on what amounted to a week's holiday in Israel. When Souness became manager in 1991, he discovered the players liked a can of beer on the bus the day before an away game. He substituted it for a weaker brand.

Despite this, when I ask him about Wayne Rooney's boozy night after the recent England-Scotland game his answer is categorical.

'Being captain of United and England, you can't do it,' he says. 'I have been captain of my club, been captain of my country.

'There are certain responsibilities that go with that and I don't think that drinking red wine until three or four in the morning is something you should be doing.

'People will ask, "Is this what he normally does?" It's about leadership.

'There is a chief and there are Indians. Do you want the lesser lights to go down that road? I am from an age when it happened and I'd certainly go out at the right time. But I wouldn't be in the Scottish team hotel as captain, sitting drinking 'til four in the morning and certainly not in public. Absolutely not. Impossible. Never done it. Never happened.'

Souness disagrees with referee Adolf Prokop during the European Cup match with Aberdeen

United skipper Wayne Rooney made headlines for the wrong reasons while on England duty

There is much we know about Souness and much we don't. He would, for example, have replaced Sir Alex Ferguson as manager of Manchester United had Michael Knighton's takeover gone through in 1989. And then there is the Peter Schmeichel story. And the one about Eric Cantona.

'Fergie was having a difficult time and the banners were up in the Stretford End,' he says.

'I was manager of Rangers but I would have gone there. Damn right. I was flying. I am not sure how well I would have been received and I am sure United supporters will look upon that as a lucky escape now! But I would have taken it.

'And yeah, Schmeichel wrote to me when I was at Liverpool in the early 1990s. Ron Yeats came into my office and told me there was a young Danish goalkeeper who was a Liverpool fan and was willing to pay his own travel and hotel in exchange for some time with us.

Souness was appointed Rangers' first player-manager in April 1986, succeeding Jock Wallace

Rangers boss Souness (c) is escorted off the field after winning Scottish league title in 1990

'But at the time I was trying to ease Brucey Grobbelaar out and that was proving a hassle. And I think I had just signed David James. So I thought I could do without it.

'Similar with Eric. We had played Auxerre at home and Michel Platini came to see me. He said he had a player — a problem boy but a proper player. Cantona. I said the last thing I needed was another problem player. I had 30-pluses that I was trying to get out so I didn't need more hassle. I said I was looking for something else. I said no thanks.'

Souness tells stories at a gallop. Importantly, there are no enormous regrets. In a recent interview he scored his life at 9/10 and he clearly means it. As manager of Rangers he was hugely successful, usurping Celtic courtesy of three titles and four cups. He also managed Benfica, won two trophies at Galatasaray and gave Blackburn promotion and a League Cup. The hole in it all, of course, is Liverpool.

He won the FA Cup in 1992, but made the dreadful mistake of telling the story of his recovery from heart surgery to The Sun, a paper reviled on Merseyside. He has apologised for that before and means it.

Sir Alex Ferguson enjoyed great success at Old Trafford - but Souness almost replaced him

Souness, then manager of Newcastle, and Ferguson both show their frustration to the referee

He will never forgive himself. In football terms, meanwhile, he just tried to move too fast.

'Did I fulfil my potential as a manager?' he asks. 'No. I won 11 trophies in three different countries.

'There are managers who are considered a success if they win one promotion. So I am proud of what I achieved. I had the courage to go abroad but I had an inner belief and I didn't fulfil what I thought I would do. The Liverpool way was: 'We will tell you once, tell you again and if you still don't get it then you won't be in the team'. I went into management with that attitude and wondered why players didn't get it.

'But you have to remember I was coming from a team of European Cup winners. Serial winners. Top players. Then you go into your own jobs and you aren't dealing with that player. That used to frustrate the life out of me.

'Basically, there are three groups in every dressing room. There are those who will need telling once and will remember for ever, another who will get it for about three weeks and then need telling again — and one final group who you could tell every single f*****g day and it's never gonna be there. That's just the way it is.'

When he was managed of Liverpool, Souness turned down the chance to sign Eric Cantona

Another Manchester United great, Peter Schmeichel, was also turned down by Souness

Souness is from Leith in Edinburgh. It's trendy now but it wasn't in 1953. Youngest of three brothers, he loved his childhood and believes he owes everything to it.

'I was out of the house when I was 12 to live with my grandmother,' he recalls. 'My grandad had died and she was lonely. My brothers had done it before me so it was always going to happen. It was no great thing. That was my job. I got my strength from the fact that I came from such a fabulous family.

'I was the youngest and totally spoiled. My brothers would say I got treated differently and I probably did because I was the bairn. When I was 30 years old I was still the bairn.

'When I was going in for open heart surgery (in 1992) my dad said to my girlfriend — she is my wife now, 'Please look after my bairn'.

'I was still the baby. Out of that came the personality that nothing was too big a challenge. Another advantage was that I always had someone better than me to play football with — my brothers. That stood me in good stead.'

Souness (left) and Terry McDermott toast title success in 1980 while relaxing in the bath

Souness loves modern football, he can't help himself - but he wouldn't swap then for now

I don't see a vacancy for Gerrard back at Liverpool Souness on Steven Gerrard

So Souness's understanding of roots and the importance of stability is clear. But so is the value of new experiences. We close on the subject of Gerrard.

'I don't see a vacancy there for him at Liverpool right now,' he says. 'Jurgen Klopp will look at the club and see everyone pulling in the right direction. So I don't see it. Steven could go to the academy and learn a bit there, but I am not sure.

'Will he get a buzz out of coaching kids? I don't think so. Being around a manager somewhere else, seeing the problems and what he does. That would be far more beneficial.'

It's sound advice but there is something else left to say. As he leaves, we talk about great British midfielders — or more precisely the lack of them.

'This may be the weakest group of English players in my time,' he says. 'A world-class player can go and get in anyone's team. But which of this group can play for Spain or Germany or Argentina? Who? None. That's my argument.'

Sky Sports is the home of Festive Football with more than 60 matches and the biggest head-to-heads in the Premier League, EFL and SPFL.

Another Liverpool legend, Steven Gerrard, has recently called time on his playing career