I CAN HELP REKINDLE RYAN’S FIRE
Beale insists he knows how to get the best out of Kent and keep him at Ibrox
THE remainder of Ryan Kent’s Rangers career might be measured in months if not weeks. Yet even if we are in the final days of the £7million signing’s Glasgow adventure, manager Michael Beale has reason to believe he can still coax a tune out of the winger.
The two have a relationship that stretches back over a decade to when Beale first coached a teenaged Kent in the Liverpool youth academy.
As a first-team coach under Steven Gerrard, Beale was a key driver when Kent moved from Liverpool to Rangers initially on loan and then on a permanent deal the following summer.
And, ahead of his first game in charge against Hibs this Thursday night, the new Ibrox boss intends to deploy Kent (right) as a key attacking player.
Chairman Douglas Park may have let the cat out of the bag when he used his platform at the club AGM to declare that Kent and Alfredo Morelos had effectively priced themselves out of new contracts with the club. Yet Beale insists he hasn’t given up on keeping Kent at Rangers for the long term.
Both players struggled to produce their best form under Gerrard’s successor — and Beale’s predecessor — Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
While there has been a sense for some time that the patently out-of-shape Morelos has been a lost cause at Rangers, Kent has kept plugging away.
Adjudged fit enough to start only one league game for Van Bronckhorst this season, Morelos’s wasteful centreforward performance contributed to dropped points at St Mirren last month. By contrast, Kent kept demanding the ball and carved out the equalising goal in what proved to be the Dutchman’s last game in charge.
‘Listen, I trust Ryan,’ said Beale, who inherits a side nine points adrift of Celtic in the Premiership title race. ‘I think sometimes he wants to do so well that he does too much. Confuses himself.
‘Less is more. Play with a smile on your face and keep your energy pure. We have known each other for so long. I know his parents and they come to every game.
‘Ryan is sensitive. He thinks a lot and he cares a lot. That comes out sometimes in his body language.’
It’s not all about emotion. Tactically, Beale will surely fancy he’ll get more out of the attacker.
During Gerrard’s reign, Beale was behind the tactical set-up that saw the Englishman deployed not as the conventional winger he became under Van Bronckhorst, but operating in a narrower position as one of two No10s.
‘I lived with these players when they were a slightly better version of what they are right now,’ added Beale. ‘That was down to a collective identity and way of playing football. That gave us strength.
‘The way we defended as a team, the amount of cohesion we had and the way we moved around the pitch gave the team a certain belief that we wouldn’t concede goals against really good teams in big games.
‘That then gives you the confidence to score and create.
‘In Ryan’s case it’s just smile, take people on, have a shot or cross and just keep doing that.
‘I think he has to feel the strength of his coach. I haven’t spoke to him about his relationship with the previous staff but with me he knows he has that. If I give him a certain look, then he gives me a look (back). We have always been at complete ease with each other. I have always been a strong guide on his journey. There is an honesty.
‘We’ve only spoke on the phone two times ever in 12 years. The first was when I rang him to see if he was coming to Rangers and, believe it or not, he said he wasn’t sure if he was good enough.
‘And then last Friday when he called to find out if I was coming back. I think he did that because he didn’t call when we left!‘
However much Kent enjoys
Ryan is sensitive. He thinks a lot and he cares a lot. We are at ease with each other
working with Beale, it’s not unreasonable to surmise that, after five years, the player may feel that, at 26, he has reached the natural end of his time at Rangers.
Sporting director Ross Wilson has come under fire for not cashing in on either Kent or Morelos when their market value was at its highest.
Just as Lille saw a £16m bid for Morelos rejected, so Leeds United expressed a firm interest in buying Kent ahead of Rangers’ title-winning season of 2020-21.
‘Ryan has been so committed here,’ said Beale. ‘One or two things have been said about the fee paid for him but he has been here a long time now and he has certainly paid that back by being part of a team that has won a league, won God knows how many European games, got to a Europa League final and played in the Champions League. The output is the whole pie.
‘We had a conversation, all of us, with him a few years ago when there was a lot in the media about a club being after him. He said he didn’t want to leave here until he had won. So fair play to him. Those are the background conversations people don’t see. I think he tends to play well in the big games.
‘Looking from afar, he was the best player on the park against Borussia Dortmund last year.
‘On that night he looked top. This is a player who wasn’t playing at Bristol City before he came to Rangers, so there was a lot of work done with Ryan. He is one of the players I came back to Rangers to work with because we have such a good relationship.’
Wilson has described the respective situations of Kent and Morelos as being different and it’s not hard to surmise that Rangers will hope to find a buyer for the latter during next month’s transfer window to try to rake in some kind of fee.
If Beale has his way, then it’s likely that Kent will stick around until the end of the season at least.
He continued: ‘The big thing for me is to get back working with the group, all those other conversations can come in time.
‘We don’t want anyone here who doesn’t want to be here.
‘Now, I think Ryan does want to be here. Everything is looking really positive but there has just been a huge change at the club. Change for the worse, change for the better? Time will tell. But he wants to be part of an exciting Rangers that is moving in the right direction.
‘The important thing is he looks like he is all in. He looks like he is ready and committed for this period right now, so let’s deal with that.
‘I’m really hopeful with Ryan. If it’s six months, if it’s six years — well, I don’t know how long I’m going to be here.
‘Let’s not worry too much about Ryan, let’s just start winning games.’