If you’re Giovanni Van Bronckhorst, self-deception will only take you so VAR. If the Video Assistant Referee hadn’t disallowed a goal from Mohammed Kudus, which would have put Ajax three up on Tuesday night at Ibrox, there would have been a possibility the manager wouldn’t have been in charge of the team in Perth today.
The ground would have emptied. Those who remained would have intensified their demonstration of disgust and animosity towards the Dutchman. As things stand, if Gio gets off the team bus at McDiarmid Park this morning and sees Michael Beale, up for another weekend visit to see the team he used to coach, there will be only one course of action available. Van Bronckhorst will need to get dropped off at IKEA on the way home to buy storage boxes in preparation for the flitting back to the Netherlands.
Beale’s visit to Ibrox for the game with Aberdeen looked like a shameless show of self-promotion to the cynical observer. Steven Gerrard’s former right-hand man knew the pressure van Bronckhorst was under after stumbling to a draw with Livingston the week before. He’s also aware of the extent to which his name has been touted as a future Rangers manager. And he knows the image he enjoys as the supposed brains behind the operation with manager Gerrard that stopped Celtic’s longed-for 10-in-a-row. Diplomacy might have dictated that if the QPR boss had a free weekend, it would have been more sensitively spent elsewhere. But his appearance in the directors’ box at Ibrox gave him the look of a vulture circling his prey.
