Promotion today or not, it’s time for a new manager

11
Promotion today or not, it’s time for a new manager

While not his most ardent fan
among Rangers supporters, this blog has nonetheless praised present manager
Stuart McCall highly for the short-term impact he has made in making Rangers
contenders for promotion, when previous regimes had the side sinking further
away from the notion.
Some of his tinkering has been
quite excellent, such as that 3-5-2 at Easter Road which saw Rangers’ first big
win against a serious promotion rival this season, and the use of Wallace as a
CB at Palmerston in another 3-5-2 which also utilised Smith as the left wing
back, Rangers prevailing 2-1 on the day.

So there is no denying McCall is
a safer pair of hands than those who went before him. Unfortunately, weighing
up his overall performance, even taking into account the absolutely cesspit of
a squad he inherited, it looks increasingly like he is not the man to lead the
Club into next season.
The names linked to replace him
have included Brentford’s Mark Warburton, Valencia’s Ian Cathro and MK Dons’
Karl Robinson, and it is very clear that approaches have certainly been made
towards them by Rangers’ board, who clearly believe, despite the overall
positive effect McCall has had, that they envisage a different path forward for
the Club.
Despite my own praise of him, and
despite the fact the tools he has are far from impressive, I would have to
agree that Rangers next season are going to see a colossal overhaul, regardless
of today’s result at Fir
Park, and that overhaul
will include a manager with a vision for the future.
If one observes what the
Championship runaway winners Hearts did, they took a risk on a completely untested
rookie in Robbie Neilson, shipped out all the ‘dead wood’ and cobbled together
a glut of club youth, handy free agents, and a few remaining first team
players.
Compare that with Rangers’
approach in 2012, of sticking with a clearly useless manager in McCoist, and
throwing all the money possible at SPL duds while ignoring all youth other than
Lewis Macleod.
The Hearts model, which I will
explore in another entry, was the cost-effective and intelligent approach,
which, admittedly guaranteed little and was of mild risk, but it clicked from
the first minute.
And this is clearly the route the
board wants now. To ship out all the out of contract players (rumours abound
they have already been told they can leave) and rebuild the squad with a decent
young coach, the best youth at the Club, and the best quality free agents in
the SPL along with the likes of Scott Allan, and the occasional other premium
signing.
In essence, a completely
different route from the one which has plainly failed over the past three years
and has left Rangers looking an absolute embarrassment.
McCall has made some tactical
errors in his time at Rangers, but he will not get a bad word from me; he put
his reputation on the line by signing on at Ibrox and overall he has done
remarkably well with resources as poor as Rangers have.
But he is not the right person to
take the Club forward, and none of the players are either.

No posts to display

11 COMMENTS

  1. Can't wait to get at them. Certainties we are, and all set to clean up – 6 to 1 is brilliant odds for the famous Glasgow Rangers

  2. I agree with your blog time to clean out all the dead wood and go with youth with a few season professionals in the spine of the team,cut the wage bill and more important ADVERTISE for a new manager we must go to the market and see who would want to take Rangers FC back to the top of Scottish Football and Europe…..ADVERTISE the position !!!!!!!!!!!!!

  3. Dont know how you can say "stuart mcall put his reputation on the line" ,,,,,,eh he was going to get sacked at motherwell but left "mutal agreement" ,,so its quite sad that you suggest someone with the low reputation of failure and "impending sack" can surely not be putting there reputations at risk by managing my great footballing club!! Get real please!!

  4. Agree 100% that McCall is not the man to take us forward but recruiting platers from the SPL, (with perhaps the exception of Scott Allan), is not the answer either. There are better players in the lower leagues in England and in Western Europe than anything we have in Scotland these days. There needs to be a clear out at Rangers, no doubt about that and if truth be told players like Simonsen and Hutton should never have had their contracts renewed just as Miller and Boyd should not have been resigned. Tomorrow we need to be looking forward and in reality I doubt hat there are any more than perhaps four of the current young lads that are ready for first team action with possibly another two or three that could make the subs' bench. That means we need to recruit at least six quality players, (assuming that we accept that Bell, McGregor and Wallace are good enough for first team action). We need a quality young coach with knowledge of European Football and a top DoF that can pick up three or four quality youngsters 'on the cheap' from Europe, we need a couple of old heads that can work with the youngsters and help get us back to the top. King needs to have a vision that we haven't seen since the days of Lawrence Marlborough and his appointment of David Holmes and Souness!

  5. only 2 head coaches i would want anywhere near rangers next season would be, mccall or cathro, possibly robinson but certainly not warburton, the guy is useless, brentford are getting rid of him because he isnt progreesive enough, they are looking to follow a hearts type model like rangers are and warburton would just be another ally mccoist.
    ohh but he has an eye for a player he bough macloed, no no no he didnt
    brentfords board bought macloed because they have been thinking of following this route for a while, they are starting fresh in the summer aka, letting the management staff contracts run out

  6. Fact – Warburton has a proven record of success, albeit in the lower leagues. History of identifying and developing young players from all over Europe. He also has the intellect required to motivate players. Cathro is a progressive young coach but has no managerial experience and would be a gamble. McCall has a proven record of failure and I would respectfully suggest that he has very little chance of securing the position.
    'Hearts type model' was hard working, organised team operating under a new coach. Lets monitor their progress over the next few years. Hearts won the second tier of Scottish football and will always be a team, I suspect, that wins a cup every ten years.

    • 0h aye lets monitor the hearts , that will be from below I suspect … oh imagine it only winning a trophy every ten years who would support their team if they only did that , real supporters would , lets see how big your average crowd is next year in the championship when you trail behind … oh imagine it sandy . only winning a trophy every ten years oh the shame of it …. oh … dear…. laughable if it wasn,t so sad…..

    • interesting reaction. suspect that you agree with my observations although your emotions wont allow you to admit it? Hearts won second tier league title and history suggests that you will, in fact, only win a trophy periodically. A previous poster suggested that Rangers follow that model. Sure you will agree with my hypothesis that while that may satisfy Hearts supporters, it will always fall short of Rangers ambitions, as we are the most dominant club in Scottish football history. Glad to hear that you are a 'real supporter' and good luck monitoring the Ibrox attendances next season. Think you might be disappointed.

  7. how much money is our saviors got out going players wont rake cash in so are future intentions to build or patch up the team again if we sign the 2 newcastle boys on a perm contract its a start but we need the players who want to be in that blessed jersey [nacho type]and not the cash mungers we cant kid ourselfs we need the big boys at the top to have deep pockets cos if they have gers blood in the vains they must see we have problems to be solved so keep the faith troops

  8. WALTER YOUR CLUB NEEDS YOU!
    The only one to get the job done.
    Mc Call & McLeish to be responsible for player recruitment, failing that the laudrups or the de Boers should be approached ?

  9. I Blame RST & Sons of Struth for blinkered thinking
    Stuart Mc Call was never the answer and he same goes for Dave King we will improve to mediocrity for the next few years and fan base will dwindle away as will the ethos of this great club
    The real shame is our own fans have contributed to this downfall
    Blue tinted glasses and age old sayings ( hes a bluenose) have warped the thinking of too many fans
    Ally was given too long , due to this yes he was a bluenose and a great Player but never a manager everybody knew that when he blew a 15 point lead
    Didn't stop him trousering millions and getting free shares (along with backroom staff)woth millions
    Fans wake up and smell reality we can still make a recovery , lets get someone from outside of Rangers and clear the whole place from top to bottom and start again

Comments are closed.