Ibrox board can’t afford another gamble after this £8m mess
RANGERS TURMOIL
Doubts were vindicated by months of dismal results
RANGERS directors spent the summer backing Pedro Caixinha to the tune of £8million. It could take another £8m to clear up the mess he leaves behind.
It’s not hard to see why an illfated seven-month reign had to end. Why they picked him in the first place is the bigger question.
There was no reason to gamble on the appointment of a manager from a middling club in Qatar. Nothing on an average CV featuring ten jobs in 12 years which screamed ‘Rangers’. The selection of Caixinha remains a baffling business.
The concerns were there from the start. Some of the players he acquired for hefty sums looked a poor fit for the Glasgow landscape. The doubts were vindicated by months of dismal results.
Tot them up. Three losses to Celtic included the heaviest home defeat in living memory. The first Ibrox loss to Aberdeen in 26 years. A failure to win three league games in a row. One win in five home league matches this season. Fifteen points from a possible 33 at Ibrox. Fourth in the league by October. Out of the Betfred Cup after defeat to Motherwell. Dubious manmanagement of Barrie McKay, Michael O’Halloran and Kenny Miller didn’t help.
Last — but not least — came the embarrassing Europa League qualifying defeat to Luxembourg plankton Progres Niederkorn. A team which finished 21 points behind last season’s champions, Progres have scored just three goals in Europe since 1977. Two of them came against Caixinha’s Rangers.
An early exit from Europe was costly in itself. Yet the full cost of his reign has yet to be fully calculated.
A £400,000 pay-off — six months of compensation — is just the start. Assistant Helder Baptista, coach Pedro Malta and goalkeeping coach Jose Belman will need paying as well.
And then come the players. A bewildering array of signings secured on three-year contracts with no guarantee of a return.
The statement confirming the manager’s departure blamed results ‘not commensurate with the level of investment that was made available.’
A quarter of the summer spend went on Carlos Pena.
Of all the dubious decisions taken by the former manager of Rangers, throwing £2.5m at a mercurial midfielder with a reputation for burning the candle at both ends remains the most perplexing.
When news of a Rangers interest emerged, it needed only a cursory Google search to find tales of homesickness, wine, women and song.
In Scottish football that’s hardly a rarity, nor a crime. But players earning £30,000 a week don’t usually need a special fitness regime to shift a bit of timber. Pena wasn’t fit enough to start a game for Rangers until an extra-time win over Partick Thistle on September 19. When he did, rare flashes of brilliance were overshadowed by an inability to get around the pitch.
The others have been a mixed bag. Daniel Candeias has had decent moments but missed the penalty against Kilmarnock which proved Caixinha’s final roll of the dice. Eduardo Herrera has scored twice in 11 games. Fabio Cardoso has been underwhelming. Bruno Alves — a Euro 2016 winner — has flattered to deceive.
What happens to these players now is the question. Protected by fat, lucrative deals, shifting them could now prove tricky and expensive. Rangers are poised to reveal their latest financial results, but the final bill for the punt on Caixinha is in the post.
After Mark Warburton and Caixinha, the expectation is the Ibrox board will now opt for a safe pair of hands. A man who knows the landscape, the front-runners for the job are on familiar lines.
It’s not clear if Derek McInnes wants it. Alex McLeish might and was touted when a three-man selection panel of managing director Stewart Robertson and board members Graeme Park and Andrew Dickson recommended Caixinha. Park is now routinely blamed for the poor choice and that’s unfair. The decision was collective; they’re all to blame.
The absence of chairman Dave King from the selection process was a strange business. King’s defenders point to the fact he’s a non-executive chairman with no day-to-day office-bearing responsibility. Yet the same might be said of Dermot Desmond at Celtic. When the Parkhead club needed a strong managerial hand, he delivered Martin O’Neill, Gordon Strachan and Brendan Rodgers. If geography prevents King doing the same, there might be a bigger question over his status in the first place. The unknown here is the role of director of football Mark Allen. The Englishman was appointed in June, after Caixinha’s arrival, and to some that felt like putting the cart before the horse. It makes sense, now, for Allen to have an active hand in the next manager.
That could mean another leftfield candidate. A name not yet mentioned. But this is no time for another gamble. For directors to be wrong once was human. Twice looks careless.
Rangers need a sure thing and that costs money. Already facing a huge bill for backing Caixinha, many will ask if they can afford it.
Perhaps it’s time to ask a different question. If halting a runaway Celtic juggernaut is the name of the game, can they really afford not to?