“Ran out of steam” – truth about Gio’s Feyenoord reign

Anyone who’s looked at Gio’s Feyenoord spell with more than half a glance will notice that after they won the league and made a decent trophy hall under Rangers’ new manager, it tailed off a little before GVB moved on.

It ran out of steam, some might say, with his final trophy won in 2018 before he moved on a year later.

There are analysis articles complaining he ran out of ideas, that he had no alternative to his 4-3-3 and teams cottoned onto it eventually. Sounds a bit familiar, right?

There’s a big big caveat to this.

The seasons after Gio won the title, he lost his best players, in particular his talisman Dirk Kuyt and defenders Calvin Verdonk and Terence Kongolo. Not to mention Karim El Ahmadi and Rick Karsdorp.

In short, he lost most of what made up his title-winning side, and DESPITE that he still won three more trophies, just not the league.

This shows what a fine coach he actually is, that despite losing the bulk of his Eredivisie-winning XI, he was still able, for two seasons afterwards, to pick up another three gongs, even if his side no longer had the quality to win the Dutch league.

What does this mean?

It means give Gio the tools, and he will deliver. True, Rangers’ budget isn’t stunning right now, and won’t be in January, but it’s envisaged we will finally sell a player for premium value at last, and this will give GVB a few quid to play with.

We definitely don’t want to judge him too much before he’s finally able to put his own stamp on the team.