Michael Beale has dropped the first hint that Rangers are to abolish the Director of Football position with the admission he’s taking over on transfers and will become more of a ‘manager’ than just a coach.
Speaking prior to this weekend’s St Mirren clash, Beale explained that despite Ross Wilson’s exit, he will now see through the rest of the work himself, which is the first step in his duties increasing and Beale becoming a classic ‘manager’.
He said:
“In terms of the recruitment and targets, me and Ross have been working closely on that. We’ve got an extensive recruitment team and analysis staff that collect the data. There’s meetings that have already been had. Pre-season and recruitment has very much been finalised and now it’s just ticking one or two boxes on some areas. Maybe some players that see their futures, maybe we think that as well. But the main part of recruitment in terms of identifying players has already happened. Now it’s about executing those deals.”
In short, he’s going to complete the work himself, like a manager would.
But he goes on:
“He (wilson) doesn’t play and score goals on the pitch but he does bring a positivity around the environment. I will fill that void as manager and oversee some of the departments for the moment, strongly supported by Stewart Robertson, John Bennett and the rest of the board. We’ll see how we go. There’s only a small portion of the season to go and then we’ll assess things in the summer as any club would in terms of their structure. Nothing changes massively. The team preparation is on me in terms of how we’re going to play and approach each game.”
This is the most telling part, Beale effectively admitting he will fill the void left by Wilson, meaning he will cover more of the proper ‘manager’ role and will be less ‘pure coach’, and he even makes the admission that replacing Wilson directly is no certainty.
This is good news, if true. We know Beale is prone to talking out of his rear end most of the time, so we always take his comments with a sack of saxa, but nevertheless we’d be very happy to see no new Director of Football and Beale being the proper manager, in charge of his own transfers and deals.
It’s his team, his build, a suit should have nothing to do with it.