If there was one thing Giovanni van Bronckhorst moaned about vividly as Rangers manager, and we certainly have a spot of sympathy for him over this, it was that coming around November last year meant he got absolutely no time with the players, no space to implement anything.

Of course, we ended up in Sevilla and with a Scottish Cup, so it was far from a complete washout in 21/22, and even more intriguingly a preseason this summer saw the performances deteriorate utterly as Gio’s reign capitulated in upon itself for one reason or another.

But new manager Michael Beale has already praised the three+ weeks he gets on the training ground with Rangers players, a complete system reset, the boss calling it a mini preseason.

Indeed, as we said some weeks ago, while we don’t support the world cup in Qatar on any level (who would) what we do appreciate is its timing – it gave injured players a month to recover, and it now gives a new manager, in this case Beale of course, around 3 weeks to completely prepare for the return of football by getting his ideas in there.

In fact, Beale is being given such a rare thing – a settling in period, akin to summer preseason, which has never before happened in football at this time of year, and these weeks ahead give the new boss precious time at Auchenhowie to prepare the players in a way that Gio never had this time last year.

In short, this gives Michael Beale the best chance possible of hitting the ground running at Rangers and giving him a really healthy spell of time to get players back and implement his management style before the season resumes.

It’s a rare opportunity, and it’s a major reason the board parted company with Giovanni – by getting in a boss now, a change was made, that was needed to give the players a kick up the backside, and gives him plenty of time to prepare for the rest of 22/23.

Beale is indeed blessed by this spell, the only other time of the year a manager getting this kind of privilege being preseason, of course.

Here’s hoping he proves his worth and Rangers hit the right notes in preparation for the 15th of the month.

There is of course the small matter of Leverkusen in 10 days…