Casting an eye over the contenders for hot seat at Rangers
Wotte believes Ibrox hierarchy needs an old hand and knows plenty of candidates
MARK Wotte feels like Scottish football’s forgotten director of football. The 56-year-old Dutchman, who is currently coach of the under-21s at the Moroccan Football Federation, has barely merited a whisper as Rangers search for a new supremo to oversee the footballing strategy of the club.
But he knows more than most about the roles and responsibilities required to succeed in such a position and you can draw a line directly through him to most of the other contenders who have been quoted for the vacant director of football job at Ibrox, not to mention the man who is currently holding the fort as caretaker manager.
While he only knows Paul Mitchell, currently working his notice at Tottenham Hotspur, and Stuart Webber, whose canny recruitment has made Huddersfield unlikely candidates for promotion to the Premier League, by reputation he has had personal and professional dealings with Robert Rowan, the 26-year-old head of football operations at Brentford, who was reportedly spoken to by the Ibrox hierarchy this week, and rubbed shoulders many times with Ross Wilson, who now holds sway at his former club Southampton.
He reckons that Craig Levein, with whom he dovetailed at the SFA, would be equally successful at Rangers too, in the unlikely event that the Ibrox board could persuade him to give up his similar position at Tynecastle. John Park and Alex McLeish, who worked together in their past lives at Hibs, are other contenders for the post and then there is Graeme Murty, the existing caretaker head coach at the Ibrox club, who Wotte signed as a veteran player to chaperone young talents such as Adam Lallana and Morgan Schneiderlin in a spell which allowed him to cut his teeth as a youth coach on the South coast.
Even if the former director of football at Feyenoord, who was consulted by Rangers director Paul Murray back in 2015, never gets the call himself this time around – he is contracted to the Moroccan FA until 2018 – his backstory makes him uniquely qualified to offer his assessment of the runners and riders.
For the record, Wotte feels instinctively that the post is one for an older, experienced figure. This, you would imagine, would rule out Rowan if not Wilson, who has managed to cram in quite a lot of football life since joining Falkirk in the John Hughes era.
“We signed him [Rowan] as a talent ID guy [for the Scottish FA],” Wotte told Herald Sport. “He was quite a talented boy when he was very young and quite pro-active. Of course I have noticed his career at Brentford and he is doing a Masters course down in England. He is developing, but he is still very raw. I think he has a lot of qualities but if it comes to the ticking of boxes, he is still on his way.
“At Rangers Football Club if you had to work with a head coach like Alan Irvine then you need to have been round the block a couple of times,” he added. “You need to have gravitas in your discussions. It is almost impossible to do a job like Rangers football club without any real experience. So it would be a huge risk.”
With Wilson, on the other hand, it may be he who is taking the risk. Would the former management consultant really be prepared to sacrifice his key role alongside the experienced Les Reed in the smoothlyfunctioning Southampton machine for a far less certain existence at Rangers?
“I know Ross from Falkirk, then he went on to Huddersfield and Southampton and he ticks a lot more boxes than Robert Rowan I think,” said Wotte. “He is also ten years older. I have followed Southampton Football Club and I think Ross Wilson is in the perfect place there, he will maybe be the successor of Les Reed in a few years’ time. Does he want to swap that for a challenging job like Rangers?
“You have to manage so many people within the football club, the medical staff, the recruitment staff, the coaching staff, you have to manage upwards to the board, the CEO, the owners and the fans,” he added. “You are like a spider in the web. There are always people rattling the cage. So you need to be seasoned, a senior guy with a lot of energy and a 24/7 attitude. You need to be a visionary too.”
Alex McLeish commands respect, but then so does Craig Levein. “Alex has a Rangers background so he is always mentioned when a position is vacant,” said Wotte. “He is a very, very experienced football manager but to be a football manager or to be a director of football is completely different.
“Whether it was Dundee United or other clubs Craig was never just a head coach or a manager,” added Wotte. “Even in the national teams set up, he was very much involved in the performance strategy. Of course, he could do the Rangers job, just like he is doing the Hearts job. He is experienced but he is committed to Hearts, so I don’t think that is an option.”
One question in all of this, not least in the mind of Murty himself, is whether Rangers will limp on under their current caretaker manager into next month’s Old Firm match at Parkhead, or expedite matters, even if it muddies the long term picture at the club. It may not be a popular view with the club’s rank and file but Wotte feels that taking that extra bit of time will be worthwhile to land the correct longterm candidate. The club must think big, and think European, and make sure to appoint an experienced figure in the upstairs role. When it comes to the head coach’s position, Frank de Boer would be a great signing, although “maybe in his heart he would love to join the English Premiership rather than the Scottish premiership”.
“I would stick with Graeme for now and take my time to make the right decision,” he added. “This is no time to rush into the wrong appointment. It is not about now for Rangers, it is about next season and the season after - not just to win the Old Firm match. For the fans of course it is an important game but more important for the fans is getting the club back to the highest possible level - the Champions League.”