Murty’s muddling misfits need to show a little mettle
AS the Rangers players slunk off the Dens Park pitch in disgrace, the general theme of the gusts of accusation swirling their way from the away end on a freezing Friday night was clear. If the scattergun torrents of abuse had managed to merge into song, they would simply scream: ‘You are not fit to wear the shirt.’
Half an hour later, Graeme Murty stood in a corner of the players’ lounge biting his lip. He admitted trying the hardest he possibly could to restrain himself, his own disgust bottled up. The sensible shift in this trying moment was to offer the failures in his Rangers team a challenge.
It is Aberdeen twice this week. Wednesday night at Ibrox, then Pittodrie on Sunday. Grouping himself among those who must do better, Murty laid out the bare minimum he expects. That each and every man who has shamed himself by his part in losing to Hamilton and Dundee must prove to the support that they merit employment by Rangers FC.
‘They need to find Wednesday as their avenue to possibly start to put some things right,’ said the interim manager. ‘And to actually put a marker down to show our support, who are at the top level, that we deserve to be at this football club.
‘I think they’ve got it in them. I see things. I see flashes of quality. I see opportunities to go and win games. I see some good play. But sustaining it is the key. And the very best Rangers teams of the past had a relentless reputation to go and go and go and go. And we need to dig deep to go find that within ourselves.’
When asked if these players had it in them to handle the supporters turning on them with increasing venom, Murty said: ‘If they haven’t, then we will find out. I hope they have, I expect that they have. You need big shoulders to fill a Rangers shirt and the players know that.
‘The players are desperate to do well, trust me. They don’t get the chance to come out and show it as I do. But what we need to do is make sure that regardless of expectations or past reputation, Wednesday gets sorted out. And we do it properly.
‘Yes, I hope the supporters stay with us. But we need to give them a lift. Whoever’s in post, whoever’s on the pitch, they need to be man enough and shoulder the responsibility of being better than we were, and I include myself in that.
‘We need to be more than we were able to give against Dundee. I have no doubt whatsoever that come Wednesday, they’ll be ready to go.’
A year ago, Rangers slipped down to third in the table after losing 2-0 in midweek to Hearts. The cracks in the trust held in Mark Warburton to guide Rangers to high rank in the Ladbrokes Premiership were becoming chasms.
At least he had a plan, an identity, albeit one with flaws on a first shot back at establishing Rangers in the top flight. The club ripped up what they had believed in for 18 months and decided to start all over again.
The boardroom incompetence that led to the appointment of Pedro Caixinha and subsequent indulgence in the transfer market has set Rangers back years. For there is no character, personality or plan to be found within these bedraggled, divided ranks now.
The weakness in the boardroom since the hunt for a permanent manager began now casts Murty in a thankless position of trying to steer bits of Warburton’s leftovers and the unimpressive Caixinha campers to results. There is no 1-1 at Celtic Park round the corner this time. Derek McInnes has dodged a bullet here.
Murty will understandably tire of being in the line of fire if this situation is allowed to fester. He is an upgrade in many ways on the hapless Caixinha, but is the club’s development squad coach. Late on Friday night, he was like the international manager who could not destroy his players because he needs them to turn up next time.
When asked if it was hard not to vent the fury he felt towards the players, he said: ‘There’s no point. That wouldn’t be professional. It would devolve into something personal and destructive and it wouldn’t add anything to the group.
‘It would just be me making myself feel better by making a player feel worse and I’m not prepared to do that. That isn’t good coaching or managerial work, in my experience, just venting to make myself feel better. That is not the way I’d like to go.
‘I’m doing my utmost to control the fury because it can be very destructive both to myself, to the players, and to my relationship with the players. So it has to be controlled and directed and put into energy to make us better. Because that wasn’t acceptable.’
The ineptitude and frailty at the top was mirrored on the park as Dundee lifted themselves off the bottom of the league with only their third win of the season. The unconvincing Daniel Candeias shot when clear on Elliot Parish — a kind height for the keeper — is entirely typical of the sloppy and wasteful work in front of goal from Murty’s attacking players.
Alfredo Morelos injured himself against the goal frame when missing another chance to end his two-month drought. No Rangers defender showed the same urgency as substitute Scott Allan did when teeing up Mark O’Hara’s winner.
Injuries to Bruno Alves and Fabio Cardoso — the intended first-choice centre-half pairing this season — have left Danny Wilson and teen Ross McCrorie to establish a partnership. Murty reports that Alves is a possible to return for the first time since the chaotic draw with Kilmarnock brought an end to Caixinha’s reign.
Bafflingly, a full five weeks on from his broken nose against Motherwell, Cardoso does not come into the category of a contender to return for the visit of the Dons. ‘He had some time out from that,’ said Murty. ‘Cardoso is coming back. He’s stayed behind to do some extra conditioning. So we want to get him up and running.’
All the while, director of football Mark Allen and his scouting team are casting around the country again this weekend looking for men who, unlike Caixinha’s picks, possess the mettle to play for Rangers. And Murty must somehow turn his fragile lot, who’ve flopped at home to Accies and frozen at Dens, into competitors for the arrival of Aberdeen.
‘There’s no point in feeling sorry for myself,’ said Murty. ‘We have to be man enough to accept it, move forward and get ready for a big game. If we’re not man enough, we need to have a long hard look at ourselves.’