Quiet man Gio can be a big noise at Ibrox, says Hendry
GIOVANNI van Bronckhorst may not hold the same force of personality as Steven Gerrard but Colin Hendry believes his former team-mate has the acumen to make a success of managing Rangers. The Dutchman leads the running to take over following Gerrard’s midweek flit to Aston Villa and is warmly remembered at Ibrox following a three-year playing stint in Glasgow.
Signed by Dick Advocaat during an era of lavish spending by Rangers, Hendry checked in shortly after Van Bronckhorst’s £5million arrival from Feyenoord in the summer of 1998.
He was instantly struck by the midfielder’s quality, a skill-set sufficient to merit subsequent transfers to Arsenal and Barcelona.
Post-retirement, Van Bronckhorst assisted first Ronald Koeman then Fred Rutten at Feyenoord before ascending to the top job in 2015.
He managed Feyenoord for four years, winning the title in his second season, and last year had a less successful spell in China, where he managed Guangzhou.
‘Giovanni has done reasonably well as a manager since he stopped playing,’ observes Hendry. ‘But as a player at Rangers, he was world class. Just exceptional.
‘And the thing about him is that he knows the football club. He’s been there in the past and experienced the greatest heights with Rangers.
‘He knows the club well, having played there. So I would suspect he’ll definitely be in amongst it.’
Rangers are understood to have commenced discussions with Van Bronckhorst and his representatives this weekend, while former Chelsea manager Frank Lampard and ex-AC Milan boss Rino Gattuso have also been quoted.
Gerrard arrived at Ibrox in 2018 with an established reputation not only as an elite player with Liverpool but as a forceful personality.
Van Bronckhorst is much more reserved, but Hendry points to Advocaat as evidence that top-level management is not the preserve of one particular personality type.
He explains: ‘Giovanni was one of the quieter Dutch boys at Rangers at the time. Arthur Numan was more larger than life.
‘And Dick was just Dick. He was dour, you very rarely got a smile off Dick Advocaat.
‘Giovanni was always a seasoned professional. When you look at his playing career at Rangers and what he did after that — he played for Arsenal and Barcelona — that’s an incredible playing career.
‘I haven’t looked into his coaching career heavily but he’s done well enough. And recently he’s been shadowing Pep Guardiola at Manchester City for a spell so he’s involved with him.
‘Do Rangers need a big character? I think you just need the nous to be Rangers manager. You need an understanding of the club and also the experience of working at big clubs.
‘That’s where Gerrard had the advantage of having played for one of the biggest in the UK in Liverpool.
‘He came from there
The thing about him is he knows the club, he’sexperienced the highs there
and got a very sharp and quick understanding of what Rangers are like — the size of the football club and the level required.
‘So Giovanni will already understand all of that having played for them.”
Gerrard’s decision to quit Rangers for Aston Villa sent shockwaves through the Ibrox support, many struggling to understand why he would bail out just months after leading the club to the Premiership and stopping Celtic’s quest for ten in a row.
Yet Hendry expresses no surprise at the 41-year-old’s decision to walk away. He added: ‘I’m not surprised or shocked in any way that he’s gone. It’s a bigger playground he’s gone to. I’ve read social media and I understand that the Rangers supporters are upset.
‘Rangers are a bigger club than Aston Villa. But he’s gone to a bigger playground and it was always on the cards that he would go back down to England at some point.
‘And listen, Aston Villa is a big club. They’re a massive football club in England.
‘Back in the 1980s, they were winning in Europe (Villa beat Bayern Munich to lift the European Cup in 1982) and everything else. Now, 40-odd years is a long time since they were at the high end of English football.
‘But they’re an enormous club, the biggest in Birmingham. I always loved going to play at Villa Park. We were there with Scotland when we lost 0-0 to Holland at Euro ’96.
‘That’s the only way to describe that game, we got beaten 0-0! But that was probably the best atmosphere I ever played in. When people ask me that, I say Villa Park that day.’
Hendry doesn’t accept the argument that Gerrard might have been wiser to sit tight at Rangers and build a legacy as he prepares himself for what many see as his inevitable ascension to the manager’s job at Liverpool.
He said: ‘This was always going to happen. A lot of people thought he’d wait for the Liverpool job.
‘But would Liverpool go for Steven Gerrard after doing five or six years at Rangers? Would that have fitted the bill for them?
‘Obviously, he has that connection and history there already. But I don’t think it’s a bad move for him going to Aston Villa.
‘He’s going to a really big club in England and, importantly, that bigger playground.’