When Michael Beale first turned up at Rangers he got three years to help wrestle power back from Celtic.
If he’s now appointed as the club’s new manager, he won’t be given the same amount of time to repeat the trick. Giovanni van Bronckhorst is proof of that. Because, after winning a Scottish Cup and taking Rangers to a European Final, he was sacked after just 12 months.
This is a different job to the one Steven Gerrard took five years ago with Beale alongside him. For me, the demands and expectations are now back to what they were before the financial implosion and the club’s demotion down to Scotland’s bottom league. If Michael gets the job, which looks likely, seasons without trophies will not be accepted. In his first two years with Steven, there was no silverware. Very few Rangers managers have survived going two campaigns without winning anything, but it was about building something, so they were given time and there was progress in each season.
