Gio’s time is up... and others should go too

GIOVANNI VAN BRONCKHORST now seems to spend so much time talking about the sack — or, at least, not being scared of it — that it is beginning to take on the air of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Certainly, anyone present at yesterday’s 1-1 draw at home to Livingston would find it hard to make a case for keeping him in position any longer.

Whatever the league table says, people clearly know what they are seeing. The boos from the stands tell you that the calls for his head on internet messageboards have gone from being the views of a hardcore minority to something that resonates within the wider fanbase.

The team lacks invention, seems to be running out of ideas and possibly running out of interest. Van Bronckhorst says the players are still behind him, but it doesn’t look or feel like it.

Even he admits there was no urgency about them until they scored an equaliser right at the end of the regulation 90 minutes and that is inexcusable just days after he demanded a reaction following a bad display against Dundee.

It is uncertain whether Rangers can salvage this season with this squad and these players. It seems nailed-on that it isn’t going to happen with Van Bronckhorst in charge.

He was finished the moment he came out after defeat to Ajax and admitted Rangers couldn’t compete at Champions League level. Finished, really, when he meekly accepted no new signings from his hugely underperforming board after the play-off win over PSV Eindhoven.

Time to call a halt and then start emptying some of the dead wood further up the chain.