RANGERS legend Graeme Souness has given an insight into dressing room fall-out dynamics in football as he urged Steven Gerrard caution at Aston Villa.
The Ibrox hero offered his take on how dressing room dynamics can spiral out of control in the modern game after commenting on Gerrard's management down south.
Ex-Rangers boss Gerrard's Villa fell to a 2-0 loss to Bournemouth on the opening day of the Premier League season with new captain John McGinn leading the team and former skipper Tyrone Mings on the bench.
For Souness, there's no issue with manager's leaving out players for their own reasons, but only if results don't suffer.
Discussing Gerrard's decision to leave Mings out, Souness commented: "There's something about him that the manager doesn't fancy, and that's the manager's prerogative.
"What you have to say is it's alright leaving players out but you have to win games in doing so."
Souness then explained his thoughts on the dressing room dynamics in modern day football as he suggested it's easy to lose players as a manager.
“Let me tell you how dressing rooms work.” “You dig out a player, they tell mates, they speak to agents, you’re on sticky ground.” Graeme Souness reveals why Gerrard must be careful with how he deals with Mings. pic.twitter.com/gRQlTWKA7i
— talkSPORT (@talkSPORT) August 8, 2022
Moving on from Aston Villa and more generally discussing possible dressing room fall-outs in football between managers and players, Souness told talkSPORT: "Let me tell you how the dressing room works.
"As a manager you walk into a dressing room you're a player, Jim, I'm after you, I'm digging you out.
"There's 25 players in that dressing room listening to it. You sit there, you look at me but you don't say a word.
"And when I walk out that dressing room you say to Simon, who is your best mate, 'I'm not having that off him'.
"And then Simon has got a best mate and it's a chain reaction. By the time they've had their shower and they're in their new Bentley in the car park and they're driving out they've spoken to their agents.
"Me as the manager, I'm on sticky ground. I've fallen out with half-a-dozen of you that collectively might be worth £150million.
"And then one of the agents leaks the story...'You know he's fallen out with the dressing room, the dressing room are not having him any more'.
"That's leaked to the press, chairman and chief executive reads that, you're then on a sticky wicket, they've withdrawn their services."
