Frequently on Ibrox Noise we see Rangers fans discussing who fellow fans want as the new boss, and one of the biggest accusations is ‘well the fans picked the last boss didn’t they, and look how well that went’.

Can we just, absolutely, definitively and unequivocally say that is, if not completely false, a very inaccurate revision of history and Michael Beale is, by a distance the single most unpopular and unfavoured managerial appointment Rangers have EVER made.

See, when initially Giovanni van Bronckhorst came under threat, yes, a fair few fans were indeed quoting Beale’s record with Queens Park Rangers and plugging him to take over – then when Gio did actually leave the club those same fans once again bigged up Beale and suggested he was a natural successor ‘and should never have left Ibrox in the first place’.

Ibrox Noise was also in favour of Beale at this point, also being sucked in by his decent record at Loftus Road and the 55 angle. We rejected the loss of form there as being due to the interest from Wolves, which he turned down.

However, once Rangers were actually in genuine talks with Beale, that’s when the tide changed.

Suddenly all the favour promoting him as a good manager vanished, and he became instantly unpopular, with only about 10% of supporters at this point being in favour of him getting the job – Ibrox Noise at the time was dumbfounded by the change in climate, given we still wanted him to get it. We suspect within the 10% were the ones loudly bigging him up before talks started.

He was completely panned by around 90% of the support, with Ibrox Noise monitoring opinion about him and being frequently amused by the turnaround in consensus.

So, the idea that fans picked the manager is not true – they did, in parts, favour him for a while, but once Rangers began speaking to him seriously, the favour vanished and very, very few Rangers supporters wanted Michael Beale to be the next boss.

He is absolutely the most unpopular and unwanted manager Rangers have ever appointed, and Ross Wilson completely flubbed his lines with that one. Not for the first time.