Ibrox Noise recently spoke with Rangers legend Ally McCoist on a wide range of topics. We will bring you the whole thing in parts, but here he discusses his thoughts on Rangers manager Danny Rohl.
What are your genuine feelings on Danny Rohl? We know you are a good Rangers man and you want the best for the club. Is he the ‘right’ man or are you just hoping he is?
“He has done seriously well, Danny Rohl. Since he arrived, I don’t know the exact figures, but if the league had started from the day he walked in the door at Rangers, Rangers would be top, probably by about four or five points.
“I’m not sure what the exact statistics are going to be, but it’s certainly a work in progress. If somebody had suggested when he walked through the door that Rangers would be in a title race, you’d have thought they were mad. You really would have.
“The first thing he did was get Rangers winning games they wouldn’t have been winning beforehand. They weren’t necessarily playing brilliant football, but they were winning games 1-0, 2-0, 2-1, games they were losing and drawing beforehand.
“So he turned that around. I think he’s brought in a better quality, certainly better than what he had in the transfer window. And they have an opportunity to win the league, without a doubt. From that point of view, I think he’s doing exceptionally well.
“The Rangers fans have really taken to him, and so they should. He’s a likeable man and clearly knows his stuff. The Sheffield Wednesday boys, like Barry Bannan and others, and Josh Windass, have nothing but nice things to say about him. So yeah, I just think, hopefully, given a bit of time, which he will be, he keeps on the upward trend.”
For the older fans, they might also be curious how Ally coped in the 80s on the bench:
How did you cope in the late 80s when Graeme Souness had you on the bench? Did you feel you had something to prove when you finally started getting into the XI?
“You had to work hard and get back in, 100%, 100%, that’s all you could do. You just had to accept that the manager picks the team. It was tough at the time, and I didn’t agree with it at the time, but since getting into management, I can see it from both sides now.
“I can totally see it from both sides. He’s obviously picked the team that he thinks does the best job for the club and for the team. I wasn’t in it. Was my nose out of joint? Of course it was, absolutely. He’d have been more disappointed if my nose wasn’t out of joint, to tell you the truth. So what do you do?
“There’s only one thing you can do and that’s knuckle down, work your socks off in training and wait for an opportunity and when you get it, grab it. And that’s the advice you would give anyone that’s out of the team.
“There’s no point in throwing the toys out of the pram or anything like that because the manager makes the decision for the benefit of the team. And as tough as it was, and it was tough, I hated it because I did feel I should have been playing.
“But I kept my mouth shut and as I say, knuckled down and managed to get back in, which was the right thing to do.”
This Ibrox Noise interview with Rangers legend Ally McCoist was brought to you in association with TalkSportBet Casino
We will have more of our wide-ranging chat with Ally in other entries.