It has certainly been a mixed period for Rangers fans. While there has been the outstanding run in the league and the outstanding six wins out of the last seven, including, of course, against the old enemy, there have been a few slightly more questionable nuggets such as Simon Ireland.
And one of them has definitely been the absolute farce that has been Ireland.
Scott Fry’s strange Rangers appointment before Simon Ireland
When Rangers first appointed Scott Fry last season as “set piece coach”, Ibrox Noise was more than a touch taken aback by this. Not only had Rangers appointed such a bizarre job, which quite frankly the manager himself should be able to do, but they had gone for someone from Lincoln City rather than a decent team.
The curiosity, of course, about Lincoln City was they were a League One team and Rangers were picking their set piece coach. Now, further oddly enough, Lincoln were number one in League One for set piece goals. This was credited to Scott Fry, hence why Rangers made the move to secure him. They scored 30 from set pieces in 24/25. And without Fry in 25/26? 30 again, still number one. It got them promoted.
The bizarre paradox is that since Fry left Lincoln, they remained at number one. Put simply, they are just strong from set pieces. They clearly have big lads up front and they have a good set piece delivery. We would attribute very little of this to Scott Fry. Promotion has changed that. This season in the Championship they are 12th with 2 goals from set pieces. Number one is Bristol with 6.
Simon Ireland comes and Rangers get rid
Fry, of course, left Rangers after having had no effect whatsoever aside artificially raising the media price of Manny Fernandez. The position then remained dormant until the even more bizarre appointment of Simon Ireland appeared.
This lad had next to no CV behind him either (Barrow Town, anyone), at least nothing of any gravity. He only appeared just over 3 months ago and has now left, having barely even made his way into the dugout. Put simply, it was an absolutely empty and pointless appointment, which served no one whatsoever.
Rangers are still making bad decisions such as Ireland
We don’t want to be too critical of Rangers at the moment. The results on the pitch have been a distinct improvement of late and everyone is much happier with their lot at Ibrox. But at the same time, clearly bad decisions are still being made at the top.
Why Ireland was brought in we will never know. Why he left was almost embarrassing and Scott Fry’s arrival in the first place only compounds the matter.
The simple fact is that Rangers at the top level still appear to be learning the trade. The new owners are still being badly advised in places, although, of course, we’ve not mentioned yet the exit of Dan Purdy and that is coming soon.
A mixture of good and bad at Rangers such as Ireland
But nevertheless, there is a mixture of good and bad at Rangers, some very, very good and some bewilderingly bad.
But at least we’ve got rid of a set piece coach that we didn’t even need. It was a pointless appointment and now thankfully we can move on from that.
Let’s just hope we don’t try to bring in somebody else.