PEDRO’S PRIDE
New Ibrox boss Caixinha thrilled to be following in footsteps of Rangers icons
PEDRO CAIXINHA spoke of his pride at following Rangers managerial greats into the Ibrox hotseat last night after jetting into Glasgow to sign a three-year deal.
The Portuguese coach was confirmed as the 16th manager of the club yesterday but will take a back seat today and leave caretaker Graeme Murty and the players to their Old Firm preparations.
Caixinha will watch the Premiership action from the Celtic Park stand this lunchtime and commence work as the permanent replacement for Mark Warburton at the training ground tomorrow.
The 46-year-old flew into Glasgow Airport from Dubai yesterday morning and evaded media and fans in the arrivals hall.
Within three hours, Rangers released a statement from their ‘No 1 target’ for the post who posed for pictures at Ibrox and spoke of his pride at joining the club.
Caixinha said: ‘It is a great honour. This club has a great history and tradition and I am proud to follow in the footsteps of legends like Walter Smith, Graeme Souness and Jock Wallace.
‘Rangers is a name that is known worldwide and I am looking forward to forging a positive relationship with fans and meeting the playing squad and staff at the club.
‘There is a lot of hard work ahead and I assure all fans that I will do all I can to provide a winning and entertaining Rangers team.’
Caixinha was released from Qatari side Al-Gharafa, where he had been boss since 2015, thanks to a £300,000 compensation deal.
Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson stressed that the new appointment — described as manager rather than head coach — had made an instant impression on club hierarchy.
He added: ‘We are delighted to welcome Pedro to Rangers. We compiled a shortlist of high-quality candidates but we knew after our initial meeting that he was the right man to take this club forward.
‘He is a man of great experience and authority and the board has no doubt he will help us achieve our long-term goals.
‘I would like to thank Rangers fans for their patience throughout the process but we were determined to appoint the best candidate possible. I would also like to thank Graeme Murty for taking control of the first team. He will complete his duties at Celtic Park before returning to his role with the Under-20s and Pedro will begin his work on Monday morning.’
Caixinha was accompanied by fitness coach Pedro Malta yesterday. Two other assistants are set to join him today but the make-up of his backroom staff is yet to be finalised. It’s understood he accepts that a Scottish member would be a wise addition to lean on for local knowledge.
ERIK SVIATCHENKO’S Old Firm debut featured an intoxicating high, perfectly illustrated by his leap of a celebration in response to his first Celtic goal at Hampden. By the end, the Dane was at rock bottom, his head and shoulders slumped in the face of a penalty shoot-out defeat to a Rangers team bound for both the Scottish Cup Final and promotion.
Less than a year later, the Danish defender admits he is astonished at the fact that not only the width of the River Clyde but a full 33 Premiership points separates the big two Glasgow clubs.
Last April’s Scottish Cup semifinal heralded regime change at Parkhead, with Ronny Deila swiftly ushered offstage to make room for boss Brendan Rodgers who instantly raised standards among a playing staff that had been going through the motions.
The dual effect of Rodgers’ appointment and a woeful summer of recruitment from Mark Warburton at Ibrox gave way to a 5-1 win for the Premiership champions at Parkhead in September, a result that established the tone for a season that has seen the gap between the teams widen almost by the week.
‘Thirty-three points is a massive gap and, personally, I didn’t expect that,’ admitted Sviatchenko. ‘Had we been told of that gap at the
start of the season it would have been a surprise, especially with what we experienced when we played them at Hampden last season.
‘Rangers were on a really high level that day but then the manager came and we worked effectively — we had to become another team.
‘We’re different now and we’ve shown that although we’re so many points clear, we still keep on pushing. Now it’s all about the winning mentality which you want to show first and foremost to your teammates, but then outwards as well.’
Although Rangers celebrated with understandable glee last spring, the result perhaps proved the most pyrrhic of victories for Warburton.
Expectations rose way beyond reasonable levels for the promotion winners and manifested themselves in a giant card display on the opening day of the season proclaiming that the club was ‘Going for 55,’ a reference to the title challenge expected in the first season following a four-year stint in the lower leagues.
Instead it’s Celtic who have racked up the numbers, with 27 points separating the leaders from second-placed Aberdeen in an unbeaten domestic run that now stands at 34 matches.
‘Relentless is the word I would use,’ continued Sviatchenko, an FC Midtjylland player before Deila sanctioned his £1.5million move to Glasgow in January of last year. ‘We need to keep this focus. It’s so important not to get into emotions, just to keep our mindset.
‘Keep facts and feelings separated in some way — that is what we are trying to do.
‘Positivity keeps the momentum going. If you want to keep a flow, keep your rhythm and that mindset where everything just happens as you want to, where even if you lose the ball you get it back, where the lucky pass still goes through, that’s something you can work on.
‘These things will come to you if you talk about it positively. The luck will also come to you instead of you being afraid of it.
‘So far, I’ve not seen anything which suggests we’ll be complacent or lacking in spirit.
‘Even though the title will be secured in a couple of weeks, I believe we’ll still be going. Everyone wants to win as many as possible, keep that margin as big as possible.’
The result of today’s match may be irrelevant in the context of the league outcome but that does not mean the home side enter it immune to pressure.
Evidently, Celtic would love to complete the campaign as unbeaten Treble winners but the party line demands that no such predictions be made.
‘Obviously it’s a big thing, but for us it’s not a target,’ insisted Sviatchenko. ‘I’m speaking transparently here — we haven’t put it up that ‘unbeaten’ is something we want to do, because that will disturb your mind.
‘I know it’s diplomatic to say one game at a time but if you want to achieve something as big as this, it’s important. It’s a massive achievement and if it happens, it happens, but if not I will still be proud of what we’ve done.’
The Dane eased through the first two derbies of the season but looked much less comfortable when the teams met on Hogmanay at Ibrox.
Rangers took the game to Celtic and established an early lead in a 30-minute period that had Sviatchenko looking especially rattled at the pace and intensity of the home side’s play.
‘They did really good for the first 25 minutes to half an hour when we were caught (out),’ he added.
‘They wanted to press high for the first ten or 15 minutes and they succeeded because we weren’t as calm and composed on the ball as we wanted to be. We knew what the game-plan was.
‘Sometimes it gets disturbed by a goal or something that happens in a game. We are 11 players but everyone is thinking with one brain. After that I think we dominated as we have done in the previous games.
‘At home we will do our best to keep the game in our hands, be forward-thinking and play the football as we want to.’
An equaliser from Moussa Dembele — a hat-trick scorer in the 5-1 game and also the match-winner in the League Cup semi-final between the teams — allowed Celtic to regroup at half-time and take control of a game that was eventually won by Scott Sinclair.
In the midst of it all was a calm intervention from Rodgers in the away dressing room.
‘Different managers have their own approaches but I like the approach that he brings,’ said Sviatchenko. He gives us the calmness we need, especially at halftime in a game when things are not going as you would hope they would. He never panics.
‘It reflects on us in a good way that he is composed and shows what I would say is positive arrogance, which is about having respect but knowing that you are good.
‘We know we are good players and a good team because we have shown it in so many games.’
We might be 11 players but everyone is thinking with one brain