Daily Record

Never mind Lennon, McInnes and Deila ..the manager most upset by King rant should be Caixinha – the guy has been lobbed under a bus

Gers chief has put pressure on Pedro to deliver

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DAVE KING has angered the whole of Scottish football with his ill-advised and silly remarks.

Never mind the likes of Derek McInnes, Neil Lennon or Ronny Deila whose achievemen­ts don’t count as far as the Rangers chairman is concerned.

The manager who should be most annoyed is Pedro Caixinha as he has now been placed under the most extreme pressure by his own chairman.

On one hand King has backed the Portuguese with new signings and funding for his personnel changes.

Now he has lobbed him under a bus and piled unnecessar­y pressure on him. Does he not learn his lessons?

Last season the ridiculous “Going for 55” campaign did Mark Warburton and the squad absolutely no favours. They just became a laughing stock because of finishing so far behind having come out with it all in the first place.

It might not have been his idea but he’s the chairman so you’d imagine he has to sanction something like that.

That was a constant for Rangers all through last season. Delusion. There wasn’t a gap, there wasn’t a gulf. That was the narrative when clearly there was. They kept saying they were better than Aberdeen yet didn’t prove it on the pitch. You’d think doing your talking there would be seen as the way ahead after that, yet no.

King has just done the same thing again. The jury is out on Caixinha and his signings, we haven’t seen them yet. It could be a success or it could all go horribly wrong. But it does not help the manager or players when their own chairman is piling expectatio­n and pressure on them.

King says Celtic won’t get close to 10. That’s setting his own staff up for a big fall. Why say it? A publicity stunt? It smacks of playing to the gallery which, for a supposed smart businessma­n, is not a smart move.

The first thing Pedro will be asked this week is does he agree.

If he says no he’s not toeing the party line. If he says yes he’ll be disrespect­ful. It’s a stupid and pointless position to be put into.

Everything was really positive about Rangers and King over the last week. Arranging the deal to end Mike Ashley’s involvemen­t with the club and also backing his manager with signings made it a tremendous summer for the chairman.

King had come good. And deserved great praise for doing so. Now he has gone and ruined it. Not only that, he has made things worse.

There are two aspects to this, actually three. Firstly, he has ignited a situation with inflammato­ry comments which did not need ignited.

I’m not one who thinks Rangers should have had their titles stripped. They won them on the pitch and deserved it.

I know a lot of Celtic fans hate people saying that but the games and the points were won and that’s that.

The basis of King’s comments are basically: If Rangers aren’t involved in a competitio­n it doesn’t count. That is just ridiculous and a slight on every other person in the game in Scotland.

When he first took over did he not say he was going to stop 10 in a row? Did he not say it in the same speech as saying Celtic had actually not won six in a row?

History is what it is. When Rangers won their nine in a row Celtic didn’t finish second very often. Does that mean it didn’t count. Of course not.

Rangers won their nine in a row and deserved to win it. Just as Celtic have won their six in a row and have deserved to do so. To suggest anything otherwise is to behave like an infant.

All this is doing is dragging up old and needless arguments. Has there not been enough of that in Scotland over the past five years?

Secondly, he’s just sorted out Celtic’s motivation for the season ahead. There were understand­able reasons to think the champions might have had a little

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