Michael Beale, like Ryan Kent, failed to make many new Rangers friends last night with one final swipe at departing Scotty Arfield after the manager refused to give him one last start at Ibrox before he leaves.
The exiting midfielder, who along with Allan McGregor got the most rapturous reception in Govan, was denied one last place in the XI for Rangers at his home venue, as the manager made the one final dig at him with yet another second-half sub appearance.
We do not know exactly why Beale loathes Arfield so much, but he does, and while willing to give the absolutely finished Allan McGregor and the disinterested Alfredo Morelos final swansongs for the club with starts, was totally at odds with the fanbase yet again when he disgracefully denied Arfield his own.
We’re sure the usual ‘contraries’ who like ‘to be different’ will wholeheartedly defend Beale’s decision here, but by what we’re seeing among the support, they’re in the minority, as the majority are far from happy not only at Arfield being denied the start yet again, but being pushed out too.
It smacks of the Lee Wallace stuff, where an absolute fan favourite, a beloved Rangers man who gave everything to the club was then cast out, made a pariah, and his final appearance for the club was a late second-half sub just to give him the fan reaction.
This appeared to be very similar, and Beale has made very few friends with how he’s dumped Arfield, and treated him poorly.
The bitterly amusing part is his comments on Scotty:
“It pulls on the heartstrings big time. As a man and a person, he’s been absolutely fantastic around the place. He’s adored by the fans as well, not only his team-mates and the staff. That was a real amicable conversation between the two of us over the last couple of months around playing time and players coming in, how the squad will look and what Scott will need moving forwards. So a difficult decision to come to, but I think it’s right for all parties. He’s a key player and gives a lot of energy to the building and his team-mates, but he needs to feel that he’s going to be involved and play from the start or have a significant involvement. I can’t promise him that.”
‘I can’t even promise him a start in a dead rubber at Ibrox just for a final hurrah either but Greegsy can have one’.
This is why Beale isn’t a popular Rangers manager at all, probably the least popular we’ve had post-2016. Fans generally don’t like or trust him, and he appears determined to do things that anger the support in places.
Picking on Scotty and then spouting rubbish about it doesn’t much help.
I am a big fan of Arfield, and wanted him to stay. But in defence of Beale, he probably knows a lot better than me just how long Scotty’s legs will hold up with the fast, high press that we want to play. If he felt that he could not last 90 minutes, which Greegsy got because not the same amount of running involved, I would rather he came on for last chunk as he has consistently in Beale’s time rather than start and get pulled off after 60 minutes.
So I agree with Beale leaving him on the pitch for the end of the game instead of the beginning.
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