Barry Ferguson’s admission, as the dust settled on a pretty toothless Europa League quarter-final loss to Athletic Bilbao, that he is prepared to go back to his ambassadorial role at Rangers said lots.
The nature of the defeat in the San Mames — and the failures in terms of tactics and selection within — showed, without doubt, that the former club captain is not the future. It’s hardly a revelation of Damascene proportions, but Ferguson cannot remain in the dug-out beyond this term. He knows it. Everyone knows it. It remains remarkable he was ever given a crack at the job in the first place.
Now the season’s over for the Ibrox club and it’s time to get properly serious again. That means the spotlight is back on CEO Patrick Stewart to detail what the future exactly is — and it will be interesting to see what he delivers providing his meeting with supporters at Edmiston House on Wednesday goes ahead as planned.
Stewart’s first four months have hardly been impressive. He spent the early part of it throwing his weight behind former manager Philippe Clement even though it was clear to see the Belgian was just a hop and a skip away from wandering around Edmiston Drive with two magic markers up his nose, talking to the aliens through his tinfoil hat. Probably about the importance of shots on target and how being taken apart at Aberdeen was the best display of the year.
Even before the home defeat to St Mirren that made a parting of the ways inevitable, Stewart was still backing Clement. Rangers had been knocked out of the Scottish Cup by Queen’s Park, but the party line was that the problems ran deeper than one man.
Sacking the manager solved nothing. You can’t fix a broken house by starting with the ceiling, etc, etc.
Barry Ferguson was unable to prevent Rangers slipping out of the Europa League in Bilbao
John Souttar and James Tavernier reflect on a night when the Ibrox side failed to land a blow
Rangers chief executive Patrick Stewart is set to address fans at Edmiston House this week
That’s why the U-turn to bin the boss after St Mirren’s visit a few days later didn’t make sense. If it was Stewart’s call, it went against everything he’d been saying in public.
If it wasn’t his shout and he was simply doing what he was told by the Brains Trust in the boardroom, that just makes him look like another nodding dog.
He certainly needs to start coming up with some proper answers and it is to be hoped he offers more than just the usual corporate claptrap when popping his head above the parapet in midweek.
Whatever the confidentiality clauses, a concrete update on the proposed takeover by the US consortium involving Andrew Cavenagh and the investment arm of the San Francisco 49ers is an essential place to start.
Given the last set of accounts and the promise of more of the same next time round, it is hard to see where Rangers go if this tremendous opportunity doesn’t work out as planned.
Even if precise details cannot be revealed, a guide on the general direction of travel is the least the supporters deserve after years of being driven round a cul-de-sac by those in the directors’ box.
Precise details, however, should be offered on the ‘root-and-branch’ review into the football operations of the club which was announced by Stewart on January 11.
Back then, he stated this forensic investigation — conducted by New York-based consultancy Sportsology — would normally take ‘sort of six to 12 weeks’.
Oihan Sancet scores Bilbao’s first goal from the penalty spot as Rangers’ resistance crumbled
Well, we’re now 14 weeks down the line and haven’t really heard much at all, other than the former Manchester United executive’s admission in mid-February that it looks like the club really needs to be looking at bringing in a sporting director.
What that means for Nils Koppen, inexplicably promoted from recruitment chief to technical director, is anyone’s guess.
The Belgian’s signings have involved way more misses than hits and rumblings of discontent from within the support over his continued involvement in the hierarchy will no doubt have made their way to the prospective new owners.
It doesn’t really matter all that much now, but a little more investigation of the rationale of appointing Ferguson, if time permits after more pressing matters have been addressed, might be worthwhile too.
Yes, it’s hard to bring in a stop-gap appointment three months before the end of the season. However, no matter the club’s problems, managing Rangers in the latter stages of UEFA competition would surely have been seen as a wonderful shop window for any coach out of work.
Did Stewart really have to go to a former player, who hadn’t been involved in the game for three years after an ill-fated spell in League One at Alloa Athletic, which ended on a run of two wins in 15 games? Is that the extent of his imagination and ambition?
At the time, it felt like Rangers were pretty much giving up on the season. It might have been excusable to bring in Ferguson, along with other former players in Neil McCann and Billy Dodds, to end the toxicity around Ibrox if there was nothing left to play for.
However, Rangers were in the last 16 of the Europa League. Admittedly, Ferguson did oversee a fantastic, incomprehensible 3-1 first-leg victory over Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce which paved the way for progress in the competition. He also led his side to an away win at Celtic Park in the league.
Many fans are concerned about Nils Koppen’s role at the club despite recruitment failures
Over the piece, though, his reign has been the kind of jumbled mess you would have expected. Lots has been said about the fight he has put into the team and the standards he has demanded, but it doesn’t really bear scrutiny.
Anyone there in the media room at Ibrox after Rangers had been rolled over by Hibs two weeks ago couldn’t have missed how defeated Ferguson looked. He pretty much admitted he wasn’t getting a reaction. His exasperation over a flaky squad who more or less turn up when they feel like it was almost tangible. At times, it has been hard not to feel a little sorry for him.
Despite those incredible triumphs in the Sukru Saracoglu and Celtic Park, the 47-year-old’s time at the helm has brought just four wins and two draws in 10 games. Rangers have conceded 18 goals. In seven of those games, they have gone 2-0 down.
Part of the reason Rangers need new ownership, investment, recruitment and ideas is that this squad needs completely taken apart. Ferguson could only ever do so much with these guys, but Bilbao exhibited his shortcomings too.
Facing a team built on a far bigger budget, they should have had a penalty for a shirt-tug on Cyriel Dessers and were digging in well when Ridvan Yilmaz went down injured after 20 minutes.
Why Ferguson replaced the Turk with Connor Barron — instead of defender Clinton Nsiala — and shunted Mohamed Diomande to left wing-back will remain an eternal mystery.
Too often, Diomande fails to deliver domestically, but he does have real talent, can take the ball in dangerous areas and makes it easier for the team to attack effectively. Taking him out of the engine room was a mistake. As was removing Ianis Hagi for Nsiala — an attacker for a defender when a goal down — at half-time.
Hearing James Tavernier admit afterwards that the team didn’t do itself justice, was probably overtaken by the occasion, just added to sense of Thursday night being an opportunity squandered.
Ferguson took a major scalp in Jose Mourinho’s Fenerbahce but overall results have been poor
Ferguson said he would happily go back to his ambassadorial role when he vacates the dugout
Of course, it’s all water under the bridge now. Ferguson’s overall legacy at the club will not be harmed by it.
It’s the future that matters most. And that’s where Stewart comes in. Ferguson will surely remain part of the fabric of Ibrox in that ambassadorial role. He has earned the right down the years to walk those corridors, represent the badge.
The same can’t yet be said for the current CEO. Up to now, he has come across as being about as steady and predictable as Ferguson’s ever-changing team formations. It’s time for him to present something of substance.
Defence of Idah feels more like deflection
Brendan Rodgers’ words on the sadness of numbnuts filming football players on their smartphones — draining all the goodness out of life with these evil contraptions — were undoubtedly correct.
They felt like something of a diversion, though. An attempt to switch attention away from a matter of deeper interest — that Adam Idah’s £8.5million transfer last summer is starting to look like an expensive mistake.
Listen, only a select few know the real story behind that viral video of the Irish striker on social media, which appeared to show him being sick out of a car door.
There’s no firm evidence of him overdoing it. Nothing at all to suggest he did anything terribly wrong. Rodgers has conceded he was ‘letting his hair down’ ahead of a day off, but said he has no concerns over his professionalism. And that’s fine.
Adam Idah was caught on camera being sick in a taxi during an ill-advised midweek night out
Rodgers held talks with the Irishman and insisted he was satisfied with his striker’s explanation
Celtic skipper McGregor wasn’t slow to criticise Idah on the field against Kilmarnock last week
The fact the Celtic manager is having to field such questions over a multi-million pound investment is not a good look, though. Particularly when he will be calling for plenty more to spend on other new players at the end of the season.
Despite his price tag, Idah finds himself playing second fiddle to a converted winger in Daizen Maeda and is showing little to suggest he will be starting regularly at centre-forward any time soon. That cannot be tolerable long-term, given the money he cost. And cameraphone footage that could easily be construed as showing him in an unfavourable light sure doesn’t help matters.
Rodgers made an error in the wake of last term’s Scottish Cup final by stating his eagerness to keep Idah when the club, for reasons best known to themselves, hadn’t put an option to buy in his original loan agreement from Norwich City.
It ended with Celtic, by common consensus, paying over the odds for his services on a permanent agreement.
Rodgers has to defend him in public now. Whatever Idah told him about his big night out during their telephone calls and in-person conversations this week, there is a need to talk up his value should a buyer have to be found.
If he doesn’t show himself capable of being Celtic’s main man up front in the wake of Kyogo Furuhashi’s departure in January, that might be sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, Idah ought to think about being a little more mindful in terms of those he chooses to spend his social time with.
Folk who still kick about with a good old-fashioned Nokia brick rather than splattering anything and everything on social media — like the foul creatures who sullied a recent trip to the Picasso Museum in Barcelona for yours truly by barging in to film themselves beside the paintings rather than actually look at them — might be a start.
