Liverpool legend Graeme Souness reveals bizarre pre-match routine which included laxatives

Liverpool legend Graeme Souness has admitted he “did everything wrong” when he was a player and believes he “might have won even more” if he had a better pre-match routine

Former Liverpool captain Graeme Souness has revealed his pre-match routine included taking laxatives.

Souness played for the likes of Middlesbrough, Liverpool, Sampdoria and Rangers during his career, winning five English First Division titles, three Scottish Premier Division titles, three European Cups and eight other major trophies.

However, the 71-year-old believes he “might have won even more” if he had looked after his diet better. Detailing his pre-match routine in an interview with BBC Radio Tees, Souness admitted: “When I was a player I did everything wrong.

“I’d eat on a Friday night, and then I’d take some laxatives, because I wanted to feel empty the following day, get up, go on the loo, have five cups of tea with sugar in it and play the game.

“You know, the importance of refuelling now and your diet, I think I might have won even more if I’d known how to look after my body better in those early days.”

Souness went into management after joining Rangers as player-manager in 1986 and he returned to Liverpool in 1991, replacing Kenny Dalglish after he resigned. Souness won the FA Cup with Liverpool in 1992, but left under a cloud in 1994 and later admitted he should never have accepted the job in the first place.

He told the Athletic in 2023: “I shouldn’t have taken it. I’d turned it down twice. But I was being hounded in Scotland. I’d been banned from the touchline and I had helicopters above my house in Edinburgh, reporters following me along the motorway.

“There was no escape from it. I ended up saying ‘yes’ because of my love for Liverpool. I thought I was the best man for the job. I took it at the wrong time. There’s no one sadder than me about how things turned out.

“When I went to Rangers, I was talking to a group of guys who had won very little. They bought into it pretty quickly when I said: ‘You aren’t going out to get p***** two or three times a week, you aren’t going to have beer or fish and chips on the bus after away games’.

“These were things I’d learned in Italy. When I said those things at Liverpool, I was told: ‘You did the same thing here and you were successful’. There was a bit of resistance and I fell out with a few people.”

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