The hoops had no answer to Rangers (IL) as Souness snapped up the best players in England to crush Celtic and bring the European Cup back to Glasgow.
More money on offer from Liverpool officially ended the Souness-Murray relationship but a series of transfers and a friendly EBT payment maintained the bond as the debt and tax arrears piled up at Ibrox.
The prospect of Celtic heading for seven titles in a row and picking up £60m from successive Champions League campaigns would have been unthinkable during the Murray reign with the post liquidation reality proving too painful for some to deal with as listeners to Alan Brazil’s TalkSPORT show heard this morning.
After Brazil suggested that that the SPFL was a one horse race with Souness admitting: “Yeah, you could give them the league now and you’ll be delighted about that won’t you?”
Switching to the line that Celtic’s excellence is bad for Scottish football Souness added: “If you are a Celtic supporter you are thinking if there is a real challenge from Rangers (?) will Celtic sell their best players…. No they don’t.
“If you are a Celtic supporter are you seeing the same quality on the pitch as you would if Rangers were strong? No you’re not, you’re team is weaker as they prove in Europe, that is the reality, they don’t need to keep their best players because they can beat Rangers and everybody else without them.”
Brazil then suggested that it wouldn’t surprise him if Aberdeen finished second again. Souness said: “They (Ibrox club) obviously don’t have the money to spend and that is the reality, the people that are at Rangers know that right now. They don’t have the cash to spend. It’s difficult to take for all Rangers supporters including me.”