GRAEME SOUNESS: It never fails to amaze me how football mad the city of Newcastle is

I only had to step out on to the streets of Newcastle, on any day of the week, to understand the obsession with football and the monumental weight of expectation in that city.

I don’t think there’s a city in the UK where you’d see as many people out wearing the local team’s colours when that team weren’t even playing. It never failed to amaze me.

I was like all the managers before and after me there, thinking, ‘If you get this right, what an amazing football club this could be’, when I took over in 2004. But managers didn’t stay at that club very long.

It was a very hard place to work, in terms of getting everyone rowing in the same direction. You are only one game away from everything being wrong. You can go on a good run but the moment you lose a game, things change dramatically.

There was an unhealthy relationship between the local newspaper and the club when I arrived.

The paper was quick to criticise: the quickest I’ve ever experienced in my time in football. I’ll never forget a local journalist taking pride in telling me, on my first day at work there, how he’d got previous managers the sack.

I managed the team there over two seasons and the city was full of promise as we went into the second week of April 2005. We were playing a UEFA Cup quarter-final at Sporting Lisbon on the Thursday, and an FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United, on the Sunday.

We were 2-0 up on aggregate against Sporting but conceded three in the last 20 minutes, then lost the semi-final to United.

In the space of four days everything had gone from good to bad. From right to wrong. That typified how things were up there, at that time. I always felt there was a self-destruct button.

It didn’t always help that Newcastle is such a social town. Nothing wrong with that, so long as the socialising happens at the right time.

There were some rascals in my group overdoing it. The place is something of an outpost and the players were put on a dangerous pedestal when they went out.

There are always anniversaries being quoted at a club which has been looking for trophies but the 68 years since Newcastle last won a major one is some burden to carry into tomorrow afternoon.

They are the biggest British club without a domestic trophy in the past 50 years and when you look at the smaller sides who’ve lifted one — Wigan, Birmingham City, Swansea City — you can see why there has been such a desire to end this drought.

I think it’s a 50/50 game. United are over-reliant on Marcus Rashford for goals, but the absence of Nick Pope is very significant. Pope’s had a great season and the goalkeeper-defender relationship is like a team within a team. The keeper and his defenders know each other’s strengths. If you’re a centre half, you instinctively know when your goalkeeper’s going to come for a cross.

But Newcastle will still go into this match with great confidence. Their success this season is not about the Saudis throwing money around. The £250million spent under this ownership has been proportionate.

The achievements are down to Eddie Howe getting a tune out of the players and managing the squad very well. His team are bold and I like that. Under some previous managers, they were super-cautious both home and away. But Eddie’s come along and wherever the team have gone, they’ve said: ‘Right, we’re going to take you on in a game of football. We’re going to outscore you, out-football you and try to win the game.’ That’s all to their credit. So far, so good.

I know the significance of what lies ahead for Newcastle. They’ll be dancing on the Quayside and the Bigg Market in that great football city if they can find a way to win.

Modric shows you can't blame ageing midfield for Liverpool's ills

That was a gigantic wake-up call for Liverpool on Tuesday. Having started so brightly, they were back at the level they’ve been at in the last five years, before they fell apart.

From being rampant, confident and energetic, Liverpool ended the night chasing shadows against a Real Madrid side hardly pulling up trees in their league.

A lot of Liverpool’s ills came from their midfield, who for three or four years were the best at bullying teams.

When they’re not good at that in a game, the whole team suffers.

You are not winning the ball so high up the field and the strikers suffer. You are not stopping the opponent from making the pass he wants to make, so the defence suffers.

The temptation is to look at the age of the midfield players and say, ‘That’s the problem’ but it’s not as black and white as that. It’s not a case of getting to the wrong side of 30 and everything becoming a problem. Everyone hits that wall at a different age. There’s no better example of that than the little wizard Luka Modric running the show from midfield on Tuesday at the age of 37.

I’m sure the manager is aware of what is needed to get the team back to where they’ve been for the last five or six years and the season is by no means over.

Liverpool have 16 games left this season. That’s 48 points to make sure they qualify for next season’s Champions League.

Lack of bravery hurting Hammers

A big weekend for West Ham, against Nottingham Forest, and I would point to some numbers which say a lot about their problems.

Last season, they were fourth in the Premier League rankings for goals from set-pieces, with 15. This season they’re joint 16th, with four so far.

There are two components to scoring those set-piece goals. Delivery, which I would suggest has not changed. And a willingness to take a blow for the cause — put your head where you might get an elbow across your chops — which I would suggest has.

I know Craig Dawson’s gone to Wolves but this feels like a reluctance to take one for the cause. If the bravery is not there at set-pieces, that will also be missing from the rest of their game.

Bobby Moore was a true knight of the game

It was 30 years yesterday since Bobby Moore died and I’ve never forgotten what an exceptional man he was.

When I was a 17-year-old trainee at Tottenham in the late 1960s, I’d go to a particular nightclub which was popular with West Ham and Spurs players.

I’d been a few times when I was introduced to Bobby. A few weeks later I was back at the place when he came across and remembered my name. This was 1969-70 and a World Cup-winning captain was remembering the name of a young Spurs apprentice.

We youth players would play in the mornings in the South East Counties league, 11am kick-off, and get complimentary tickets to watch the first team in the afternoons. That was how I occasionally got to watch Bobby play.

It’s often a sign of greatness when someone makes a job look easy. Bobby wasn’t the quickest physically but he was the quickest thinker and never got caught out for lack of pace.

The words ‘great’, ‘world class’ and ‘legend’ are scandalously overused these days but all applied to him. It’s a crime he has never been granted a posthumous knighthood.