Michael Beale continues to make friends at Ibrox after the former assistant manager admitted his major ambition is to manage Rangers in the future if he proves himself good enough.

The likeable Englishman who left on such good terms with the club and its fans was speaking about his appointment at QPR, with his gig in the Championship being his maiden voyage as the sole captain, when he admitted Rangers were still huge in his heart.

But he revealed such modesty in believing he needs to prove himself in the hotseat alone before he could remotely consider himself a candidate to take charge in Govan.

See, Graeme Souness once admitted he wasn’t the manager of Rangers at all, and never was. That it was only by name, and the real boss was Walter Smith.

This is why Rangers were in such safe hands when Smith took over as the official manager all those years ago.

Beale and Gerrard were the same.

Gerrard did make the final calls as boss, but it was Beale doing the coaching, tactics and training while always being the audible one on the sideline.

So in reality, most of Rangers’ success was down to the assistant because frankly he was the one doing most of the work.

In short, he’s already clearly ready to be manager, to be the one who makes the decisions, and into the future, well into the future when Gio is no longer manager of Rangers we could do far far worse than Mick Beale as a manager down the line.

He’s always one of us.