HIS team had just won their sixth successive match, playing with discipline and attacking dash to inflict a first home defeat of the season on Olympiakos. Tomorrow he welcomes Tottenham Hotspur, his first club, to a St James’ Park starting to feel like home, for an appetising FA Cup tie.

As the first manager to extend Newcastle United’s involvement in two cup competitions to March, Graeme Souness might have felt elated on the plane back from Athens. No chance. And it is his hankering for improvement that makes him believe, at the age of 51, that his best years in football are to come.

With one foot in the last eight of the Uefa Cup after Thursday’s 3-1 victory in Greece and tomorrow’s quarter-final separating them from a trip to the Millennium Stadium, Newcastle’s perennial bid for silverware is coinciding with a timely run into form. Yet Souness, who has won three domestic cups in his managerial career, is not talking up his club’s chances.

“I’m never happy,” he said. “I don’t think you ever can be in football. There were things in Athens that pleased me — I thought we were disciplined and we defended well — but I can never rest.

“When I was manager at Liverpool, Tom Saunders was there. He had also been right-hand man to Joe Fagan and Kenny (Dalglish). Bob Paisley used to stand at the window and look out on to the training ground. We had to run past that window and we were all aware of him watching us. When I went back as manager, I said to Tom, ‘Was he ever happy with his team when he stood there and watched us?’ Even when we had just won the European Cup he was not happy. He was always thinking, ‘He’s not good enough, we can get someone better than him.’ And we used to win the title every year.

“Of course you’re happier winning games. I’m (nearly) 52 years old and I still think that my best years in football are still ahead of me. I say that having had some great moments in the game.”

The St James’ jury may still be out on Souness, notwithstanding this unbeaten sequence, but the man surprisingly lured from Blackburn Rovers to succeed Sir Bobby Robson last September will win a lot of the floating voters if Newcastle come through the next four days still pursuing trophies.

“The longer you remain involved in competitions, the bigger the games get,” he said. “They become harder as well, but confidence is crucial. My team now feel that they can take people on. The job now is to keep them on their toes and stop them thinking they are a good team. They are only a good team because they are working hard. They have to do that on Sunday. If we’re not at it on Sunday, we won’t win.”

Souness is likely to bring back Jean-Alain Boumsong, who is ineligible for the Uefa Cup, and Celestine Babayaro, who missed Thursday’s match with a knee injury, in defence and Lee Bowyer in the centre of midfield. Shola Ameobi could return for Patrick Kluivert, who scored his fifth European goal for the club against Olympiakos, who had two players sent off, and he will be hoping that Laurent Robert, who scored two stunning goals in a 4-0 league win over Tottenham last season, maintains his recent scoring form.

Tottenham retain a place in Souness’s affections, even if he was always challenged to tread in the footsteps of Dave Mackay. “I went to the same school as Dave and I’d always be told I wouldn’t be as good as Dave Mackay. It was the same when I was a young player at Spurs,” Souness said.

He played once for the first team, as a substitute for Martin Peters in a European tie, but his memoirs reveal some indiscretions that would curl Craig Bellamy’s hair. Pre-match dope-smoking and heavy drinking will not be permitted before tomorrow’s televised quarter-final.

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