Gio has to ditch dull persona and get tough with directors... or it’s game over
GREY. Vanquished. Benign. That’s what GVB stands for right now. And unless Giovanni van Bronckhorst, owner of that particular acronym, starts showing some real personality and making demands of a rump of directors you wouldn’t send for the messages, chances are his office will be Getting Vacated Briskly.
Make no mistake, the Dutchman is under serious pressure ahead of a week with the potential to bury his debut season in charge at Ibrox.
Supporters rightly aggrieved by a club stumbling repeatedly from one mess to another under some dreadful leadership are turning on him, too, and receiving little in return to disabuse them of the notion he just doesn’t have it as a Rangers boss.
It is not easy defending Van Bronckhorst. A 15-point swing in the league to end up nine points behind a rebuilt Celtic with a game in hand is, in most circumstances, a sackable offence.
Domestic performances, even when he was winning, have not been convincing.
Yet, you get the feeling he is a guy working with one hand tied behind his back. If those at the top of the club did decide after a rigorous process that the 47-yearold was the only man for the job, they have surely got to give him a proper shot at things with his own players next term.
Yes, Van Bronckhorst has had a transfer window, but can anyone seriously reflect on the nonsense of January and believe those signed were individuals he desperately wanted?
Amad Diallo? James Sands? As for Aaron Ramsey’s loan deal, it was just a late act of desperation which has served up precisely what you’d expect from recruiting a 31-yearold who had played six minutes of club football in four months.
Sporting director Ross Wilson was all over that one. He needs to take proper ownership of it then.
Wilson, who must be as close to the tin tack as anyone, and those above him have to take ownership of a lot of things. Like the summer window that preceded previous manager Steven Gerrard walking away and delivered Fashion Sakala, John Lundstram, Juninho Bacuna and Nnamdi Ofoborh.
Like the fact there is no centreforward capable of replacing the injured Alfredo Morelos, including £2.7million Cedric Itten. In the meantime, the club still have no established trading model with Connor Goldson close to leaving for free and Morelos, Ryan Kent and Joe Aribo entering the final year of their deals.
Certainly, the next transfer window can’t be anything like the last three. And that’s where Van Bronckhorst comes in. If he lasts that long.
He should have stamped his feet and made firm demands about transfer funds before he joined. It was clear before Gerrard left that the team was going stale and needed refreshed.
He says he wants to play with wide men, but, outside Kent, who is arguably better in other positions, he doesn’t appear to have any he can trust. Scott Wright is limited, Ianis Hagi was no right winger and it is hard to say what Sakala is — other than good at running and not so good with the ball.
Van Bronckhorst (right) should have made it clear he needed more than illogical loan deals, but, with his career now hanging on turning back the tide, he needs to realise that it is not just behind the scenes where he needs to make more noise. It’s in public.
Van Bronckhorst admitted he made a conscious decision to keep his media calls low-key during his time as Feyenoord boss, being careful not to scare the horses.
That might be fine in a different environment with less expectation. Might be fine when you are winning. It doesn’t wash at the moment.
Van Bronckhorst has a growing problem with this public persona. Punters are getting fed up with dullness and neutrality as a season that started with Rangers as champions and Celtic in tatters now teeters on the brink.
They need someone to rally behind, to believe in. A figurehead who can take them with him, even in adversity, and ruffle feathers.
Gerrard managed it. He was brutally honest — often too much so — in interviews during those first seasons when things weren’t working out. Even when it looked like he was heading for the sack before the pandemic, the fanbase generally stayed on his side.
Strong results in Europe undoubtedly helped keep him in a job. Just as they might save Van Bronckhorst ahead of next term. However, Gerrard wore his heart on his sleeve. He showed people he cared. He was someone Joe Public could identify with.
That bond doesn’t appear to exist with Van Bronckhorst. His inability, or refusal, to excite is also leading to questions over his influence on a squad who seem to have slipped back into the old pre-‘55’ habit of pretty much turning up when they feel like it. People who have dealt with Van Bronckhorst talk about what a good guy he is. Same goes for his assistant Roy Makaay. Are they too nice, though? Are they too malleable for club and plc boards making one wrong move after another against the backdrop of former chairman Dave King and his acolytes firing cannons from the outside? Rangers managers need to be able to see round corners. They need a grip on the politics of situations, when to speak out and when not to.
Walter Smith, particularly first time round, was more than capable of making a press conference agonisingly dull, too. Yet, when he saw the need to make a point, he was clinical and pitch perfect — because he understood the club and the many elements of his role that extend beyond the training pitch.
VAN Bronckhorst’s involvement in the shambolic — now shelved — Sydney Super Cup did little to inspire confidence in his own grasp of all this. With punters baying for blood over their club being painted as the support act for Ange Postecoglou’s Homecoming, commercial chief James Bisgrove put the manager at the heart of the decision to go there in an interview in which he described the board as ‘disappointed’ with the reaction.
Van Bronckhorst also released a statement calling it ‘a terrific opportunity’ and describing Australia as a ‘particular hotbed’ for Rangers fans.
Whether those were his words or not, his name was on them. And he’s marked by them. In future, he needs to make sure he doesn’t look like a nodding dog for directors looking more and more remote from the rank and file at Ibrox because, as the ill-fated Aussie trip showed, punters will still get what they want if they shout loudly enough. And some are now shouting for his head.
There must be much more behind Van Bronckhorst’s facade than he has been willing to show, mind you.
He won the Champions League, La Liga, an English Premier League title and an FA Cup as a player.
He turned out 106 times for the Netherlands and captained them in a World Cup final. He won a title against the odds as coach of Feyenoord.
That is a special career. And such special careers are the domain of special people.
Go out of Europe to Braga and see the season end with next Sunday’s Old Firm cup semi and Van Bronckhorst will have to draw on all that experience in figuring out a way to win hearts and minds quickly and create a positive imprint.
GVB needs to Get Very Busy. Otherwise, he’s in danger of seeing his Ibrox reign being cut short with a most unfortunate epitaph: Goodbye, Vanilla Boy.