Caixinha banking on working round the clock to close gap to arch-rivals
I’m the type of person where if I’m not enjoying something then I can’t do it
AFTER six months as manager of Rangers, Pedro Caixinha shares a common bugbear concerning life in modern Britain. The banks.
‘I asked the bank for a card for my wife and I am still waiting three weeks later,’ complained the Ibrox boss in exasperation.
Where Rangers and the events of 2012 are concerned, financial institutions have much to answer for. Yet there is no blaming greedy bankers for the early teething troubles of the Caixinha reign.
Two defeats to Celtic. The first home defeat to Aberdeen in 26 years. An embarrassing exit to Luxembourg minnows Progres Niederkorn in a Europa League qualifier. Another loss to Celtic tomorrow would see the Parkhead side open an eight-point lead on their traditional rivals after seven games.
Six months into his tenure, then, the Rangers manager’s credit rating is dangerously low. Working all the hours to turn things around, Caixinha has seen precious little of his wife and children, his latest job becoming a very public mistress.
‘I am all in,’ he insisted. ‘It’s a fantastic job, a fantastic club, fantastic fans, a fantastic football team, fantastic players, fantastic staff, I am enjoying it.
‘It is fun from 6am till 6pm every day.’
His level of absorption is such that the time passes quickly. The same can’t be said for Mrs Caixinha, a woman finding her feet in a new country without a bank card or a husband.
‘My wife sits here and she is not working,’ said the Rangers boss. ‘And because I am here and absorbed in this she will say that I am never with her.
‘I try to find something for her to do in order that the time will pass as well as mine. That’s the reality.
‘I want her to have something to do in her spare time when the kids are at school and I am working.
‘She needs to have her mind occupied. I think that’s the secret, when you have your mind occupied and focused. You can select on what to focus and occupy your mind with.’
A third defeat to Celtic as manager of Rangers would raise inevitable questions over Caixinha’s future as manager.
Victory, a point or a solid fighting performance could alter the narrative. What the current manager can’t afford is another humbling heavy defeat on the scale of April’s 5-1 home loss.
For now, then, he makes no apology for thinking about football morning, noon and night.
‘My life in football is 24 hours, less than the time I spend with my family,’ said Caixinha. ‘The time I spend with my family I want to be quality time, so if I can give them two hours a day that is perfect.
‘After the Hamilton game we have the international break and we have three days off, so I will be delighted to enjoy it with them. It just needs to be all in on the right moment. Twenty-four hours, minus the family.
‘I am the type of person where if I am not enjoying something or living it I cannot do it.
‘I am all in or I am all out. I cannot live in the middle. So I can say that I am enjoying managing Rangers totally — and I am definitely all in.’
Publicly, at least, Caixinha insists it’s not about him. In current circumstances the first Rangers league win over Celtic since March 2012 would be a deeply satisfying business. It could also have a transformative effect on perceptions of the manager’s reign.
Asked what it would mean to end Celtic’s 56-match unbeaten domestic run, however, he shrugs.
‘Nothing. It just means that we will be by the end of this round two points from the leader, if Aberdeen don’t win their match,’ he added. ‘That’s what it means.
‘Maybe instead of one glass of red I will take two…’
Less noted for their restraint, it’s supporters who would celebrate a victory over Celtic in a slightly more raucous fashion.
Any number of managers have tried the ‘just three points’ down the years.
Yet the mutual obsession Rangers and Celtic supporters hold for the other makes this most tribal of football fixtures a little more than that.
More so when adversity is the pre-match narrative. Rangers have already lost captain Lee Wallace and could enter the Celtic game minus their marquee summer signing Bruno Alves and Wallace’s stand-in Declan John.
Fabio Cardoso and young Ross McCrorie would form an inexperienced defensive line.
Yet Caixinha takes the view that the actors might change. The script doesn’t.
Caixinha said: ‘I will not have any problems at all placing our players — it doesn’t matter which players are in which position, age level or name — playing a game like the Old Firm because I believe in and trust each one of them.’
Asked to assess the chances of the highly experienced Alves overcoming a muscle problem sustained against Partick Thistle, he shrugs. ‘I cannot guess. I am not very good at making guesses,’ said Caixinha. ‘I am a guy who looks to be real all the time. I am a decision maker, but decision makers need information. ‘And if I don’t have information, I am not going to make a decision where I don’t know what’s going to happen. ‘But when I have the information you can be sure that I might make the decision. ‘The more information I have the better decisions I will take.’ Whoever plays, Caixinha is clear on one thing. Rangers have wasted enough time looking over their shoulder, agonising where things went badly wrong since 2012. Most recently in a crushing 5-1 defeat to Celtic. ‘I never look back,’ he insisted. ‘It’s part of the past.’ The experience banked, it’s time now for a withdrawal. Assuming the card arrives by Saturday.
I’m all in. This is a fantastic job. It is fun from 6am to 6pm every day