Ex-Rangers manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst has come under fire today over allegations his training regime was part of the club’s injury issues and sluggish performances, but, of course, as you’ll realise, the accusations are false and unfair.

An unnamed publication used physio Jack Ade’s recent Rangers TV interview to explain that the players were benefiting from Michael Beale’s preseason program, and that the hard running and intense work had been the order of the day ‘a couple of years ago’.

Now, the clear inference here is that that was back under Steven Gerrard and current boss-then assistant Beale, and that the claim is that their replacement, GVB, had NOT done this and instead focused on technical rather than fitness.

Only we know this is a fabricated statement because last summer saw the Portuguese summer camp under Gio and Rangers’ training there was as intense as always, if not more – there was a tonne of running, physical work, fitness, you name it, so the idea that he wasn’t interested in players being fit seems, to us, to be a load of absolute cobblers.

Indeed it was so intense that, in part, it led to the season-ending injury Filip Helander suffered, because his body couldn’t withstand the vigorous workouts. Alex Lowry, also, was instructed to work on himself physically in the gym to bulk up, and that also doesn’t point to an emphasis on technical at the cost of physical.

Of course, Gio was very interested in technical – he’s Dutch, and that’s a big part of the game over there to say the least. Total Football is a way of life in Holland.

But the idea Giovanni van Bronckhorst slacked off in preseason and didn’t give the players the workout and prep they needed is extremely unfair at best and false at worst.

It didn’t work out for a lot of reasons last season under Gio, but his preseason wasn’t one of them.