FROM LAS VEGAS BACK TO LE GUEN
Caixinha on attack over leaks and splits THEIR BOSS FIGHTING FOR HIS JOB
PEDRO Caixinha believes he will leave Rangers a better club in a stronger position when he departs Ibrox — either tomorrow or ten years from now.
And the under-fire head coach insists that he isn’t afraid of ‘dying’ if it means sticking to his footballing philosophy.
Caixinha yesterday tried to close down talk of a desperate dressing-room split reminiscent of the illfated Paul le Guen era, with damaging leaks about Monday’s first-team meeting appearing to reveal serious divisions within the squad.
Insisting he would not break the confidence of a post-Old Firm analysis session, believed to have prompted significant anger among Scottish players singled out for criticism, the Portuguese coach reached for a popular analogy to explain his stance.
Confronted with specific accusations related to the meeting, Caixinha said: ‘It’s weird that you are telling me about that. I don’t know anything about it.
‘But I can tell you that all the analysis we do, we do it privately.
‘Have some of you been to Las Vegas? Yes. OK. So, did you tell your wife everything that happened when you left Las Vegas? What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas. That’s the way it is.’
Asked if it was a problem that someone had broken that understanding, Caixinha declared: ‘No, no, no. No, not at all.
‘It’s good that it’s coming out. It’s just one confirmation.
‘Confirmation that what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.
‘But some guys are going and telling everything to their wife. They go against the promise, they go against the sentence.’
Invited to say whether a story now in the public domain was inaccurate, the former Al-Gharafa boss said: ‘I don’t know. I don’t know the story.
‘I know what happened in Las Vegas. But I know also that what happens in Las Vegas should stay in Las Vegas. Look, I don’t care about the story. I know what happened. It happened exactly in this room. Exactly with that TV set. But it’s between me and my players. It’s private.’
When it was pointed out that the issue is no longer private, he added: ‘That’s not my problem. It’s not my problem and concern, I can tell you that.’
Insisting that he wasn’t in the job to keep supporters happy by saying the right things, Caixinha responded to a question about his team’s inability to win three games in a row by saying: ‘That’s something that I need to be focused on and concerned about — but that’s my job, that’s part of football.
‘That’s not part of the circus we are facing here and you’re trying to use me as a clown — and I’m not going to allow it.
‘You are trying to make this situation a circus, but I don’t care about it. So, if I don’t care about it, it is not coming to me.
‘I feel like, sometimes, we live in a circus — and they want me to be the fish in the goldfish bowl. But I am not taking part in that.
‘I will tell you one thing. It doesn’t matter what people say or what people write. I will be focused on my job, totally focused on my job.
‘I’m not here to please. I am the one who is going to take the responsibility.
‘I’m not here to say that’s his responsibility, that’s not his fault or whatever. I take decisions when I need to take decisions — and I say things when I need to say them.
‘I said the things in the right place, at the right time with the right people. This is normal. We always analyse the games.
‘So why is only this one out? That’s my question.
‘But I am glad that, in a good and open conversation, I have people paying attention to what I said.
‘One thing that maybe was in Las Vegas and wasn’t exposed is that I’m not afraid of dying — at all. Zero.
‘But I always will die with my ideas and mine alone. That’s what makes the difference. All the difference.’
The problem for Caixinha is that Rangers fans have heard this brand of defiance before.
Le Guen, who was at the helm for just 31 matches, famously lost the support of key players — club captain Barry Ferguson among them — in a row retrospectively blamed on everything from mutual disrespect to Monster Munch.
There is now a suspicion that Caixinha is creating similar personality clashes.
Last week, he gave veteran striker Kenny Miller time off ‘to enjoy with the family … and switch off from football’, dropping him for the Partick Thistle Betfred Cup quarter-final and then only utilising him from the bench against Celtic. Caixinha then laid into Graham Dorrans for handing the experienced Miller the captain’s armband on Saturday later in the game.
It is fine for the current incumbent to answer ‘Totally, of course’ when asked if he has the full backing of the first-team squad, then. But, clearly, he doesn’t enjoy unanimous support.
If such a thing even exists in professional football, you won’t find an example of it at Auchenhowie.
The more Caixinha rattles on
about it, raging against the dying of the light and voluntarily using words like ‘clown’ even in a denial, the more natural it is to suspect that he’s in serious trouble.
Contrary and contradictory as he was in his arguments yesterday, the man who replaced super-bland Mark Warburton six months ago remains an engaging and entertaining character.
Yet he has been damaged by results, chiefly his inability to lay a finger on Celtic.
If players felt — rightly or wrongly — that they were then being handed a disproportionate share of the blame for Saturday’s tame 2-0 home loss, there was always going to be a little push-back.
Asked if he’d watched the match back, a defensive Caixinha said: ‘Yes, of course. What does that question have to do with Friday’s game?’
When pressed on whether he’d reviewed the Scott Brown ‘elbow’ on Alfredo Morelos that prompted the Rangers head coach to confront the Celtic skipper at half-time, he declared: ‘That’s in the past.
‘But did you ever see me say one thing and then another thing after?
‘Of course I analysed the game. Of course I analysed all the incidents in the game. How many times? What does that have to do with it?
‘Look, I have the same opinion as I had when I referred to it in the analysis after the game.’
If Rangers supporters will hardly be upset by Caixinha’s dogged insistence that Brown is guilty of a serious offence, despite the SFA disciplinary department having dispelled any suggestion of retrospective action, they may harbour concerns about this stubborn streak extending to tactical and selection issues.
He does not expect major changes to the starting XI for tomorrow night’s trip to Hamilton, where the perils of a plastic pitch lie in wait. He has a plan. And he’s sticking to it.
‘If I leave tomorrow, the club will be better than it was when I arrived,’ he declared.
‘If I leave in ten years’ time, we will be totally in a different position. That is totally what I am focused on. No distractions. No distractions at all.’