Pedro: “This is how we’ll deal with wind up merchants”

Rangers manager Pedro Caixinha has surprisingly admitted that he is trying to prepare his players for dealing with wind up merchants on other teams.

Speaking recently following Ryan Jack’s successful appeal over Saturday’s red card, Pedro made the stark admission that he is trying to figure out how to control his players and stop them seeing the red mist when opposition tactics deliberately set about to cause friction.

Many fans have pointed to how Hibs manager Neil Lennon set his men up to try and ‘get amongst’ Rangers players, with Anthony Stokes guilty on more than one occasion of being incendiary, and how sadly the tactics did succeed; well manager Caixinha is aware of it and wants to instil discipline in his men, regardless of provocation.

He said:

“I cannot control what the other players from the opposition teams are doing. I can just control mine. I hope that mine have that focus because one of the points we have definitely is to finish all the matches with 11.”

Very true, and it is wise to try and coach players in psychological aspects as well as physical ones, but it is his stark concession about the treatment his men will face that was the most enlightening:

“Look, the opponents will play the football they want. It’s not up to me to comment on that. I just need to understand what is going on and what type of opponent we are going to face and what type of behaviours might come from that opponent. It’s something we analyse and speak to our players about. We look at the way they play and the way they behave in order for us to be ready.”

Pretty astonishing for a manager to say this publicly; but Pedro definitely has a flair for being quite open with the press, so his revelation of this should not necessarily be such a surprise.

Hopefully whatever methods are being used in training will be effective come Saturday.