Rangers, for the second SPL fixture in a row, have abandoned press conferences and chosen an internal interview with RTV’s Nick Thompson which reveals… absolutely nothing about tomorrow’s match with St Johnstone.
Indeed, this new formula has appeared in the wake of the removal of the media charge for press groups who would previously have paid £25,000 for the privilege of asking a question or two of the manager or players, and are instead realising there’s no chance now for them to ask anything at all whether they can pay or not.
Normally a key question is when the general press would ask who is available and how the squad is looking, which would draw an intriguing gamut of information.
Now Thompson asks how the squad is, and Gio completely avoided the question, saying:
“Yes, we’re doing well, we have a lot of players back now, we have a big squad to choose our squad and make the XI so after the last training we will see who’s going to start and the best game plan we need for playing against St Johnstone at home.”
Some fans are quite happy with this, in the sense that they’d tribally defend anything Rangers did regardless of how awful it could be viewed, but others are a little disquieted at the lack of info now actually coming out even from official channels.
It appears, internally, it’s been decided to only hold a single press conference per week for now, and it’s been chosen to be the Euro match it will precede.
But given the process of interviewing and recording an internal chat with Gio isn’t exactly much easier or quicker, we do wonder the point.
Them’s just the way it is for now, like it or lump it.