Ibrox may seem a bleak place right now but Giovanni van Bronckhorst has found himself in darker spots.
For all the doom and gloom that currently hangs over Rangers amid a campaign that’s witnessed humiliation on the continent and frustrations at home, it’s not quite the pit of despair the former Feyenoord coach found himself trapped in during his Rotterdam reign.
If you want to know what pressure feels like, try going nine games without a win. But that nightmare experience, a grim run that included seven straight losses that dragged itself out over two agony-filled months, is precisely what the Light Blues boss went through during his rookie year as he tried to scratch out a managerial career with his hometown club. Lucky enough to have been given time and the Eredivisie giant’s trust, he recovered from that miserable set of results and the following season led Feyenoord to their first Dutch title in 18 years.
Van Bronckhorst’s former Ibrox mentor Dick Advocaat referred to that turnaround earlier this week when he used the Record Sport pages to urge his old club to show similar patience amid the furious fan backlash that followed Sunday’s shock St Johnstone defeat. It was a brutal result which leaves Rangers trailing title rivals Celtic by seven points.
So far there has been no signs to suggest the Gers board are preparing to pull the trigger but van Bronckhorst knows he’s still very much in the firing line as the frothing continues on social media and elsewhere. And yet, his current predicament still doesn’t match up to his worst experiences he’s suffered since moving into the dugout.
“No I had worse,” said the Dutchman. “I had worse because at Feyernoord I had a period where I lost a lot of games and that was not a nice period to have because of course, you want to do the best you can and if that’s not happening it’s hard. You see the stature of this club, it’s big. It’s well followed.
“Celtic and Rangers are the biggest clubs so they have a lot of backing and people talk about the clubs. That’s what I’m used to and of course you want the results to go well but when they don’t go well you have to keep fighting and face the storm.
“There are so many channels now. People have an opinion. Before you maybe had a press conference and the papers and that was it.
“Now you have all the social media and podcasts and even quoting posts of fans as headlines. Everyone can be in the papers. Everyone can have an opinion and the opinion is well-broadcast.
“That is totally different from Dick Advocaat’s time. I don’t think he even had a phone!”
Just as well given the Little General’s famously combustable temperament. Van Bronckhorst is less likely to flip his lid but don’t mistake his cool exterior for a lack of determination to succeed within.
He added: “It’s also about the experience I had as a player and also as a coach at Feyenoord, when I had a very difficult period.
“Maybe my character is to not get distracted. I had that as a player and I say it to my players: when you look in the mirror and look at yourself you have to be able to say, ‘OK I did everything I can, I gave everything’.
“That’s how I see it as a coach. I give everything, every day I am here, to prepare my team and to push them for success. That’s all I can do.
“Anything that happens outside of that, I don’t have an influence on that so it’s not influencing me.”
Yet the truth remains that if van Bronckhorst is to convince the Rangers board he’s still the man for the job, he must find a way to make his side more competitive than they’re currently showing. Certainly, dropping points this lunchtime when they make the short hop along the M8 to face St Mirren would be unthinkable.
It’s been a rapid collapse with dropped points at home to Livingston and in Perth last week now leaving Ange Postecoglou’s table-toppers clear favourites to make it two-in-a-row.
But Van Bronckhorst isn’t giving up. “It’s seven points,” he said. “A couple of weeks ago we were only two points away and then with one result maybe we could have overtaken so the margins are really close.
“You can score the winning goal in the last minute or concede a goal for a draw. The margins are so, so close.
“That will be every weekend and we have to make sure our results are very constant in winning games. That is our most important message and what we have to improve.”
The final whistle in Paisley will signal the start of a five-week break as the Premiership shuts down for the World Cup. A change may be as good as a rest but the Rangers boss has opted against taking his team abroad and they will return to Auchenhowie to prepare for a friendly clash with Bayer Leverkusen on December 10.
But only after van Bronckhorst and his squad head their separate ways to clear heads and refresh from a first half of the campaign that has ripped away any lingering belief from last season’s Seville surge. The Rangers gaffer said: “It’s always good to have a break because you can reflect on the months before.
“A five-week break I compare with a safety car in F1. You only go at half speed and you have five weeks to get your players up to speed again.
“The break comes in a good moment for us. I will go back to Holland. We will have a two-week break so I will go home and spend some time with my family.
“We have decided to stay here to make sure we prepare well for the start. We have the Leverkusen game. We had the option to go to a training camp and sometimes it’s good to go away.
“But we have everything here. Good training pitches so we decided to stay here.
“Mentally and physically it is good to take your time, to relax a bit. But it will be like the summer when you don’t ever switch off totally. You are still thinking about the things you have to do.
“You cannot completely switch off. Hopefully there will be players back after the World Cup.
“We know that there are still some who are long term. But we have to do everything to get our players back as quickly as possible without taking any risks. We’ll see where we stand after the break.”
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