It's getting difficult not to feel some sympathy for Michael Beale, even if the Londoner wouldn’t wish to be patronised or viewed as some sort of hard luck story.
He’s landed his dream gig after all and - despite obvious, justifiable concerns over his lack of experience - all the early indications suggest he’s actually pretty good at being the manager of Rangers. The problem is, Beale’s long term job security might not be determined by the standard of his own work. On the contrary, and entirely unfairly, his career prospects are likely to be defined by the competence of others. Or, in some cases, the lack thereof.
It is a matter of monumental misfortune, for example, that he finds himself returning to Glasgow at a moment in time when a miracle worker has arrived on the other side of town all the way from the opposite end of the planet. And unless he can find a way of outmanoeuvring Ange Postecoglou in the Scottish Cup semi final at the end of this month, Beale will begin next season with his managerial jacket already on a shaky peg.
Unfair? You better believe it. If Beale’s body of work was allowed to stand alone then Rangers might consider themselves lucky to have such an astute, streetwise tactician mapping out the club’s way forward. The progress this team has made since his appointment is actually bordering on the remarkable, given how flaky and entirely unreliable it had become under Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
But, in this particular part of the world, fairness is a luxury which is seldom afforded. And Saturday’s derby day defeat at Celtic Park has left Beale boxed into an unenviable position. He was smart enough to see it coming when he spoke through the week about his big plans for the transfer market and he thoroughly deserves the opportunity to build on the solid foundations he’s already laid down in a short space of time.
But promises of jam tomorrow won’t sweeten Beale’s situation in the event that Celtic kill his season stone dead at Hampden on April 30. On the contrary, he’ll go into the summer with a huge dark cloud hanging over his head and with goodwill and patience in short supply as Postecoglou celebrates a treble on the other side of the city.
It would, of course, all have been very different had Rangers taken three points from Parkhead at lunchtime on Saturday. Not only would a victory have cut the gap at the top of the table to just six points, but Beale would have laid down a marker while convincing his club’s supporters that Celtic’s domestic superiority might be about to come to an end.
Instead, they were given even more reason to suspect that settling for second prizes is as good as it’s likely to get for as long as Postecoglou remains in charge of their rivals. And yet it must be acknowledged that Beale was not to blame for this latest loss either. Not solely at any rate.
Had others done their jobs as efficiently as he did his, then Rangers might well have taken more than just another sore face away from the home of their neighbours. Beale’s strategy was spot on. Rangers were aggressive and on the front foot from the very first kick of the ball, hounding Celtic into all manner of errors and preventing Callum McGregor from dictating play from the middle of the pitch.
This game plan resulted in Rangers having a great deal more possession than Postecoglou would have planned for but it was a lack of quality and composure when they had the ball at their own feet that effectively neutered the manager’s masterplan. Beale would have reasonably expected the likes of Ryan Kent and Todd Cantwell to provide some precision and purpose to his side’s forward play but, for all of their hurrying and harassing, neither of them had the poise to make a difference.
Kent was played out of the game by the outstanding Alistair Johnston who hardly put a foot wrong in his role as Celtic’s right back. But Beale would have hoped for a great deal more from his winger nonetheless while looking for Cantwell to add some composure and cutting edge in the final third.
He also took a punt on Malik Tillman in the hope that the supremely talented but infuriatingly lacklustre American might write his signature on this fixture for the first time. But, much like Kent and Cantwell, the majority of Tillman’s best work was done when out of possession.
If Postecoglou’s mantra for Celtic is ‘We never stop’ then Tillman appears to operate entirely at his own pace. ‘I’ll start when I’m good and ready’ seems to be the young man’s philosophy and he will only fulfil his enormous potential when he learns to be a lot less relaxed at the workplace.
Beale might be kicking himself for placing so much faith in Tillman and leaving the likes of Fashion Sakala on the bench when the Zambain’s blistering pace and boundless energy could have turned the tide in his team’s favour. But he’ll also be wondering why Ben Davies and John Souttar chose this game of all games to forget how to function when some basic defending was all that was required of them.
Their schoolboy mistakes helped Celtic race into a 3-1 lead and Beale must have known at that point there would be no way back. Having hauled Rangers level on the stroke of half-time with a stunning free-kick, skipper James Tavernier did pull another one back with a header before the end but Rangers’ could not recover from their own sloppiness.
As if all of this was not quite enough, Beale could only look on in disbelief as referee Kevin Clancy ruled out an early opener from Alfredo Morelos which might have turned the entire match on its head - only for VAR to compound Clancy’s error despite having the advantage of studying multiple slow motion replays.
All in all then, Beale has plenty of reason to feel sorry for himself now that his back has been placed against a wall by the mistakes of so many others. But if he’s looking for fairness or even compassion then he’s wound up in the wrong city. Lose again at Hampden in three weeks’ time and he might wonder why he was in such a rush to get back here in the first place.
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