Rebuilding Rangers from the ground up was always going to be a costly business.
Unfortunately for Gio van Bronckhorst, his appointment as manager has coincided with a time when the men who were writing the cheques for those expensive renovations were looking for some payback. Big money sales and qualification for the Champions League have finally put the club back in the black, as last week’s annual results showed.
But most of those lucrative profits have been handed over to the Ibrox investors who ponied up sums totalling £80million to keep the lights on in the time since the club was wrestled away from Mike Ashley in 2015. Unfortunately now for Van Bronckhorst, the price for recompensing those who provided that financial lifeline appears destined to be his own job. Patience is running thin on the back of another damaging draw with St Mirren that has put Celtic firmly on course for their 11th Premiership crown in the past 12 years. While his predecessor Steven Gerrard was given time and £30million to end Celtic’s domination of Scottish football, the Dutchman has been denied most of the riches he’s brought into the club.
His former team-mate Maurice Ross fully understands why the money men at the club have been looking for a return on their investments now the Light Blues are at last self-sustainable. But he can’t understand the clamour for the manager’s head when whoever replaces him will have to work with the same bargain buys that are looking more and more like the cheap option.
Ross told Record Sport: “Rangers threw money at stopping 10 in a row. But the people who threw money at it wanted their money back so it’s been a business transaction.
“Everybody seems to think the money that’s been spent to rebuild the club comes from nowhere. But it does - it comes from the investors and those guys rightly want their money back. That’s what happened when Rangers got to the Champions League. These guys who have been kind enough to help the club when it needed support and are well within their rights to be looking for those sums back.
“You can’t talk about Rangers without talking about Celtic. Rangers were in the doldrums for the best part of a decade. They come back thanks to some sound decisions made by Gerrard, the board, the investors and managed to stop 10 in a row, which is an achievement in itself considering where Rangers were.
“However, Gio has found himself coming in at a time when the investors have decided to call in their loans. And unfortunately that means on the park, the product suffers. You’re not going to tell me Giovanni van Bronckhorst isn’t a good manager. I’m not buying into that.
“Last year in the Europa League, Gio produced three or four of the best tactical performances from a Rangers manager I’ve ever seen. It’s just six months since he was being lauded as a genius. What’s changed? Only the personal. They’ve sold their best players in Joe Aribo and Calvin Bassey and they haven’t really reinvested in the same level of player.
“But that’s the club’s stand point. Not Gio’s. He has been dropping hints all over the place about the fact we can’t compete with the top teams in the Champions League. He keeps talking about finance and he’s right.”
Van Bronckhorst isn’t due to mark his first anniversary in the job until next Saturday but the odds on him surviving that long appear slim. But will binning the boss make a difference?
“For me it would be crazy to sack Giovanni,” insisted Ross, now manager at Cowdenbeath. "You might get a wee bump with a new man coming in but after four or five weeks you’d still be left with the same players, showing the same traits and the same lack of execution. “Gerrard got time. Maybe that’s because he had a sexier name than Gio, even though Gio played for Arsenal and Barcelona and won more than 100 caps for Holland.
“But Gio played for the club so I’d have thought he should deserve more time. Let’s remember that Gerrard presided over a period when Celtic won two trebles. The club was classy though. They knew what the end goal was and got their reward in stopping 10 in a row. But right now, sacking Gio and bringing in another manager won’t change a thing because at the end of the day you’ve still got the same group of players.”
Ross got his chance at Ibrox when the club was forced to tighten belts following the excessive splurging of the Dick Advocaat era. It was left to Alex McLeish to cut costs but when fan expectation failed to reduce with the budget, he was forced out. It’s a familiar tale for van Bronckhorst, who has lost the faith of a support that only six months ago was cheering him all the way to Seville.
Ross said: “The past few years have been good for Rangers fans with the euphoria of winning the league and reaching the Champions League. But there’s no divine right that’s going to happen every year.
“The simple fact why the club is in its current position is because they didn’t invest in the squad. It’s weaker now than last year.
“Are we blaming Gio for that? I just don’t subscribe to that. He’d have wanted to sign another eight players after reaching the Champions League but because of the situation with the club’s finances, the funds weren’t there.”
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