The more they talk, the worse it gets.
Whether it’s Michael Beale, John Lundstram, Fashion Sakala or James Tavernier, Rangers are making a nasty habit of saying all the wrong things at all the wrong times. Even worse, together they’re in danger of driving a wedge between themselves and the very core support that they’re trying to placate and keep onside.
As the old adage goes, sometimes it’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. Because the more noise they make, the more they’ve tied their own tongues up in knots over these last couple of weeks. And the angrier and more insulted their own fans have become. So when a banner was unfurled by the militant section at Ibrox on Saturday, it was a clear signal that the time has come for a little less conversation and a little more action. After 55 titles you took your eye off the ball. Time for change.”
The message might have been aimed at those higher up the staircase but, nonetheless, Beale looks like a man who has been badly bruised by some of the flak that’s been flying ever since the final whistle sounded at Hampden last Sunday and Celtic set off on another ticker tape trophy parade. Put simply, the Rangers support is a bear with a sore head right now and it’s growling in the direction of its own club, almost daring any of them to make another misstep.
The mood may have lightened a little yesterday had Ange Postecoglou left some more league points behind in Paisley for a second time this season.
But, despite a sticky first half, the relentlessness of the champions means that there is no such thing as respite for Beale in the battle
to prove that he is the right man for the job of knocking the Hoops off their perch. If the Londoner has been taken aback at the ferocity of the fallout then he shouldn’t be. He may be relatively new to the job but he went into it with eyes wide open having previously been part of Steven Gerrard’s backroom team.
However, he might reasonably have expected a little more love from the supporters than he is currently receiving, given the strides his side has made over a short period of time. Saturday’s 3-1 victory over Kilmarnock means the manager has banked a total of 34 points from the first 36 available to him since he arrived to replace Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
And the reason Rangers are so far off the pace at the top of the table is because van Bronckhorst only managed to secure 33 from
the 48 that were up for grabs over the first 16 games of the campaign. Those numbers alone provide solid evidence of Beale’s excellent work. And yet, despite this very obvious upturn, he still finds himself in a fairly miserable place – and forced into saying the sort of stuff that will only ever make the natives even more hostile.
He hasn’t got a lot of his public messaging wrong either but last week, when he appeared to suggest that Rangers fans should be more realistic in their expectations, he might as well have taken a sawn-off shotgun to his own toes. Hot on the heels of losing the Viaplay Cup Final, Beale bemoaned the fact that Celtic’s budget is more substantial than his own. And that, therefore, on the basis of you-get-what-you-pay-for, it should be no surprise to see them sitting in pole position in the league table.
That’s the kind of defeatist chat that goes down like a lead balloon in this part of the world. And Beale should have known better than to go grasping at such flimsy straws at a time when the pressure was already building. Where he is correct, however, is to point out that success on the pitch is determined by the quality of recruitment off it. Which is precisely why he got himself into a hole when he left both of his January new arrivals sitting on the bench at the national stadium.
Put it this way, it was no surprise at all to see Nicolas Raskin and Todd Cantwell returned to the starting line-up at the weekend, along with Ryan Jack. That was as close as Beale was ever likely to get to an admission that he was in some way responsible for his side’s latest no show on derby day.
And yet, in between times, James Sands was sent packing back across the pond having had his loan deal terminated. And the American’s low key farewell points to the real problem where Beale and his ambitions for resuscitating Rangers are concerned. He simply cannot succeed unless the club’s recruitment department gets its finger out on his behalf – because Sands is just the latest in an unconvincing record of incomings under Rangers’ sporting director, Ross Wilson.
The body of evidence building up behind him over the last three years proves that there’s a Sands, a Cedric Itten or a Juninho Bacuna for every one the club gets right.
It’s also worth noting here, since Beale made the comparison with Celtic’s superior spending power, that Aaron Mooy was offered to Rangers as a free agent before the Aussie ended up signing on the other side of the city. That potential deal was dismissed out of hand on the basis that Mooy did not fit the club’s “player profile”. All of which begs one rather obvious question, especially after Mooy dominated Beale’s midfield in the first showpiece game of the season, helping to create both of Celtic’s goals.
What sort of “player profile” is it that Rangers are relying upon? Because if a player who doesn’t fit it can dominate three or four others who do, then it stands to reason that someone somewhere is getting it horribly wrong. So, now that Rangers fans are making public demands for change, then perhaps it will be more than just Beale who is forced to feel the heat this summer, when the window opens and the temperature reaches a whole new level.
