McDowall has the resolve to stick around, claims Murdo
A POPULAR view of Kenny McDowall’s discomfort in the glare of the spotlight is that he would rather be anywhere else on planet football than mired in the role of interim Rangers manager.
McDowall described the job as ‘tainted’ after taking over from his friend Ally McCoist and being ordered by the board to jettison long-time colleague Ian Durrant from the first team coaching set-up.
A daunting League Cup semi-final against Premiership champions Celtic, described by defender Stevie Smith as an occasion to fill the club’s fans with dread, now looms for the caretaker coaching team.
Murdo MacLeod suspects that his former Celtic Park coaching colleague will be viewing the event rather differently — that the prospect of posting a shock result on his Old Firm managerial bow could be the making of a permanent career in the job.
MacLeod said: ‘People think Kenny’s just in for the short term but results will dictate how long he stays in the job for. The board might be looking at it just now that something is going to happen in the summer and they’ll make a change then.
‘But if Rangers are up in the top league or if they have knocked Celtic out of the League Cup, things could change.
‘Kenny is more determined than anyone to succeed. I’ve known him for years. He had a reputation at Celtic and he was fantastic. That’s the reason Walter Smith came across the city and appointed him as one of his coaches, which was a great accolade for him. You don’t do something like that if you’re not bringing quality.
‘Kenny is a determined guy and I hear people talking about him saying he doesn’t want to be there. That’s the furthest away quote I’ve ever heard because I think anyone would take the Rangers job tomorrow. Kenny’s got a chance.
‘No one seems to be considering him and I don’t think that helps him because the last thing you want, when you’re trying to do your job, is hear so-and-so is in the stand watching your team playing and they’re tipped for the job.
‘He was a coach at Celtic, then all of a sudden he was a coach at Ibrox and now he’s a manager at Rangers. It’s a boyhood dream to do something like that. Obviously he’s been a coach all his life and is new to the management side.
‘It’s a tough one but he’s had the best of managers beside him to learn from in Walter.’
Celtic are long odds-on favourites to dismiss their troubled old rivals with the minimum of fuss on February 1 at Hampden and striker John Guidetti has already addressed the issue of how many goals he might fancy putting past Steve Simonsen.
That boast could, however, turn out to be an own goal according to MacLeod. A veteran of the fixture as a midfielder in a decade of service for Celtic then as assistant manager to Wim Jansen when putting the blocks on Rangers’ 10-in-arow attempt in 1997/98, MacLeod believes Guidetti has only raised the motivation levels in Ibrox ranks.
He explained: ‘Celtic’s players have just got to win the game — end of story and no matter what it is. If it’s 1-0, I’ll take 1-0. If they start thinking it’s going to be too easy, anything can happen.
‘The opposition often won when the favourites thought they were good enough to win an Old Firm game.
‘I wanted to score a hat-trick as well but I must say it’s a strange one for him to say that because he’s never played against Rangers.
‘It gives the centre-backs from Rangers, whoever it is that’s playing, a target to make sure he doesn’t score. They’ll target him for saying something like that and, if he doesn’t achieve it and all of a sudden Rangers win, there’s egg on his face and he’s the first player they talk about.’
On the promotion front, MacLeod believes Rangers and McDowall will have to negotiate a way past another of his former clubs — and an ex-Celtic skipper — in order to return to the top flight next season.
A showdown in May between Hibs and Rangers will make for a dramatic conclusion to a quite unique season in the second tier.
‘It’s a tough one now because you look at Hibs and I think they are looking a vibrant side,’ noted MacLeod.
‘They’ve got a lot of good young players. But, after beating Rangers, they’ve dropped four points. I think the most important thing for (manager) Alan Stubbs is to keep Hibs rolling along. It’s looking more and more like it will be a Rangers-Hibs play-off.’