Sutton tells Portuguese to sack ‘rat’

RANGERS boss Pedro Caixinha has come under pressure like never before this week. GEORGE GRANT tunes in to last night’s live coverage from BT Sport to see how he fared with the TV pundits...

AFTER the tough last few days Pedro Caixinha has had, he might have expected to receive it with both barrels from the most outspoken football pundit on the box. Instead, Chris Sutton had some timely words of advice for the beleaguered Portuguese coach following alleged leaks from inside the dressing room about a heated meeting between management and players. ‘The dogs may be barking at the caravan but there’s a rat inside,’ declared the former Celtic striker in typically bullish fashion. ‘If he (Caixinha) knows who the rat is, he should sack him. There is absolutely no doubt about that, it just has to happen. ‘When you have a private meeting at a football club, it should stay in the dressing room. ‘The person who leaks the details of that meeting, what was his desired outcome? The desire must have been to cause problems for the manager. ‘That person must not want Pedro Caixinha at the football club, so find out who he is and “out” him. ‘What chance does he have as a manager if he has a traitor in the dressing room?’ Presenter Darrell Currie was naturally at pains to point out to viewers that just because Kenny Miller had been dropped from the squad for last night’s game with Hamilton Accies, it didn’t necessarily mean that he was the rat Sutton was talking about. Asked by the channel’s pitchside reporter, Eilidh Barbour, just prior to kick-off if there was an on-going problem between him and the veteran striker, an evasive Caixinha replied: ‘Not at all.’ Former Rangers star Kevin Thomson certainly wasn’t convinced by what he has been seeing unfold at Ibrox this last week. ‘I think it doesn’t look good for Kenny, Pedro and the club,’ he said. ‘It’s disappointing... folk are likening it to (Paul) Le Guen... if there’s a divide (in the dressing room) it’s a disaster.’ Stephen Craigan and Terry Butcher had their own takes on the situation, but Sutton was waiting in the wings with another zinger for the headline writers. ‘The senior players have a responsibility to manage that dressing room,’ he blared to his colleagues. ‘If Rangers want to move in the right direction, they have to get the rats out. ‘Where was Bruno Alves when this meeting was taking place? Getting treatment in Madrid. They do have Scottish physios, you know.’