IN THE EYE OF AN ENDLESS STORM

McDowall is buffeted by ill winds from all directions

You would go crazy if you worried about everything that was going on. I’m at the helm and there is no point in me worrying about anything other than trying to beat Alloa

IT’S doubtful Kenny McDowall was even aware of the fierce winds buffeting Murray Park yesterday. Every way the Rangers caretaker manager turns just now, a new storm is brewing.

Not three weeks into his new role, the former assistant manager must already feel he has been occupying the chair for a lifetime.

Already devoid of his star player in Lewis Macleod, each day of the January transfer window is a trial. If only that was the sum total of his worries.

In the past week alone, McDowall has seen both Ian Cathro and Felix Magath separately linked with coaching and technical director positions respectively at the club. It can safely be assumed they would not be hired to complement the remainder of the backroom team.

More immediately, Rangers are rapidly running out of money. Further loans will be required to see them through January unless unforeseen funds can be raised by selling more players.

Sensing the existing board are running out of rabbits to pull from the hat, Dave King, the group known colloquially as the Three Bears and American financier Robert Sarver are manoeuvring independently but with the common goal of usurping the Easdale brothers and Mike Ashley from their positions of power.

It would be a brave man to wager on who will be sitting in which seat when the music stops.

Somewhere amid the relentless tumult, McDowall has to put a football team on the park that stands half a chance of eating into Hearts’ 13-point lead at the top of the Championship.

Little wonder he fielded an enquiry relating to his enjoyment of the job yesterday with a broad grin as opposed to robotically answering in the affirmative.

‘I am not going to kid you on, it is a big job,’ was his diplomatic reply. ‘It is an absolute honour to be in charge of Glasgow Rangers, whether it is caretaker or manager or whatever post.

‘At the moment, I am at the helm and I have to try to get this team winning games and see where that goes.

‘In terms of getting easier, I know the boys well and have worked with them long enough. It is not as if a lot has changed and I’ve been flung into a bunch of guys I don’t know. I know them, they know me and we carry on regardless.’

There was a time under Ally McCoist’s watch where team meetings to enlighten the squad about off-field matters seemed only sensible.

Had that continued into 2015, McDowall, you suspect, would be spending more time around a table than on the training field.

‘They are human beings,’ he added. ‘They read the papers and get to know what is going on.

‘If you choose to, you can get to know as much as you want to know. When they go out, they are professional football players. It is our job to get them concentrating and enjoying their work.

‘That is all we can do to get their minds off it: have a bright week, get them up for it and then comes Saturday.

‘In terms of having meetings, I don’t think that does anything apart from highlight there is stuff going on. We go the opposite way if we can.’

McDowall stonewalled the notion of Cathro — the Taysider who is now assistant manager at Valencia — returning to Scotland.

‘I am the caretaker manager at the moment. There is no point in me worrying about anything apart from trying to beat Alloa,’ he said. ‘You could go crazy if you worried about everything that was in the paper.’

Considering the fanfare that previously accompanied t he elevation of men to the Rangers post, it’s impossible not to sympathise with McDowall — an individual who did not seek to be at the centre of this maelstrom. He has not been short on sympathy or advice.

‘I have been speaking to a lot of people who I have worked with or know through the years,’ he said.

‘People in the game understand the situation. Listen, I just have to do what I have to do. I have a good group of boys and I have to get them going, motivate them as far as I can.

‘Walter (Smith) always used to say to the players when he was in charge that the motivational side has to come from within. A coach or a manager can motivate so far, but it has to be self-motivation as well on their behalf to win and to want to achieve. The boys know that.’

If the mere mention of Alloa does not get the blood pumping in the Rangers dressing room, then all hope of pipping Hearts to automatic promotion is surely lost.

Three times this season the Ibrox men have set out to defeat Barry Smith’s part-timers and three times they have failed — with a capitulation from two goals up in the semi- final of the Petrofac Training Cup the nadir.

‘They let themselves down on the night — and our support who back them wherever we go,’ McDowall said. ‘I am sure they will want to fix it for them as well. A bit of personal pride would come into it.’

Stevie Smith can count himself as one of the lucky ones. Suspension and a family matter ensured he only had to watch what passed for a performance at the Indodrill Stadium that night from afar.

‘I was suspended and wasn’t there,’ he said. ‘My brother Christopher was getting married and I was at my mum’s the night before.

‘I saw it was 2-0 to us and then I saw it went to 3-2 and couldn’t believe it. These things shouldn’t happen, but it did happen and we’ve got to go and put it right. My brother was watching it as well.’

With Hearts still to lose a league game, Rangers’ best hope of seeing their season have a happy ending appears to rest with successfully negotiating the play-offs.

Smith acknowledged that, if such a scenario comes to pass, only a radical improvement on the display his side turned in at Easter Road two weeks ago will suffice.

‘They were night and day by far the better team and deserved to beat us convincingly which, from our point of view, i sn’t good enough,’ he said.

‘It was so far from good enough it was incredible. You have to take your hat off to them and say they played really well on the day but we never turned up and that has been the case for the majority of the big games this season.

‘ But i t’s not a worry to me (playing Hibs in a play- off). It’s quite a bit away and there’s a lot of football to be played, and the talk about play-offs or catching Hearts... there’s still a lot to happen.

‘I would like to think we would be playing better by then because everyone knows the performances haven’t been great.’