Michael Beale won’t settle for being second best in Glasgow - and insists Rangers’ squad is every bit as good as Celtic’s. The new Ibrox gaffer, who replaced Gio van Bronckhorst, is under pressure immediately as they trail their Old Firm rivals by nine points at the top of the Premiership.
But Beale won’t be happy until he’s made Rangers the number one team in Scotland again. And he’s adamant that when he’s got a team on the pitch that is fit and firing - they’ll be a match for Ange Postecoglou’s men. When asked if he wouldn’t rest until Rangers were champions again, Beale said: “I don’t think anyone will.
“And if I didn’t think we could do it with this group of players, I wouldn’t have come back. By that, I mean everybody that’s available in our squad. If you write our squad down and put it next to our biggest rivals’ - OK then, it’s game on. Game on.
“I’m watching the World Cup right now and there are teams who are committed, together and beating sides outside their means. So if you put our two squads together? Game on.
“In terms of resources, their spending power has been slightly bigger than ours. But it’s game on. We’re not the have’s right now. In that particular battle, we’re the have-nots, slightly. So game on.
“Let’s go, but we need everyone fit and together. The small wins for me at the moment will be around: ‘Are the players happy, do they know what they’re doing and are they training well’? If I can’t get those three things right, we’re knackered.”
Beale has revealed there WILL be funds available to him in January to strengthen the squad. He’s already earmarked certain positions in Rangers’ side that need to be addressed.
Despite knowing the majority of the players in the dressing-room from his spell under Steven Gerrard, Beale says there will be no old pals’ act. In fact, if he doesn’t get a response from certain individuals before the Premiership restart on December 15 - he doesn’t want them at Ibrox.
The new manager said: “There will be money available to recruit in January. I’ll be keen to do it if I don’t get the right vibe off one or two players in the squad right now.
“Without mentioning names, I have to get the right vibe off certain players. I have to know they’re still the boy that we recruited to come in.
“Because if they don’t want to be here, I don’t want them. And I don’t think the club does either. Have I got targets already? One or two but it’s more positional.
“And it’s about what I want from the quality of those players. The cross border market has been really important to us with Calvin Bassey and Joe Aribo.
“It’s been magnificent for the club, in terms of bringing in additional revenue. In my time at Rangers under Steven, we knew we didn’t have £5 million or £10 million to spend on a player.
“But a lot of our best signings cost nothing like Aribo, Bassey and Glen Kamara. They took time to become elite players - but it didn’t cost a lot.
“When the team is playing a certain way and the fans are happy, this is a good place to come and play. A lot of players want to come here.
“Under Steven, we knew a lot of players who wanted to come but we couldn’t always finance it. That’s where we are in the money chain of football and we’re aware of that.”
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