Michael Beale has completed an emotional return to Rangers after being appointed as the club’s 18th permanent manager little more than one year after leaving Ibrox. The 42-year-old was first team coach under Steven Gerrard but has left Queens Park Rangers after just six months to become Light Blues boss, signing a three-and-a-half year deal.
Beale succeeds sacked Giovanni van Bronckhorst, who replaced Gerrard when he moved to Aston Villa, for what is the Londoner’s second senior managerial job after moving to Loftus Road in the summer following spells assisting Gerrard at both Rangers and at Villa Park. After Gers made an official approach on Saturday, permission was granted for him to speak to his former club. Beale, who recently knocked back English Premier League outfit Wolves, will take charge of his first competitive game in the Scottish Premiership clash with Hibs in the opening top flight fixture after the World Cup winter break on December 15. His immediate task to try to cut the nine-point gap to leaders and rivals Celtic.
However, he will have one opportunity to field a team prior to that when the Light Blues take on German side Bayer Leverkusen in a mid-season friendly at Ibrox on December 10.
Beale was delighted to be back at Ibrox, telling the club's website: “It is fantastic to be back and to see everybody this morning, there are some new faces but some people that I know really well so it is great to see everyone. I am hugely proud, it is a wonderful, wonderful football club, it is an institution.
"For everyone that works here it is a huge privilege, but to be the manager of this football club, that is extremely special. Some wonderful people have sat in this chair prior to me, and I am hugely proud to be the person sat here now."
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