RONNY Deila feels Pedro Caixinha has it easy compared to the task which faced him as an outsider hoping to establish himself in one of the Old Firm managerial hot seats. While the 46-year-old Portuguese arrives at Ibrox as a virtual unknown after spells at Leiria, Nacional, Santos Laguna and Al Gharafa, Deila was just 38 and a similarly left-field appointment when he arrived in Glasgow in the summer of 2014 on the strength of six years at Stromsgodset which had seen him turn them into unlikely Norwegian champions.
While there is clearly room for improvement with a Rangers side who currently sit third in the Ladbrokes Premiership table, Deila - now living in Oslo and managing Valerenga - feels that part of his problem was having to imprint his mark on a successful team which had grown used to winning leagues and Champions Leagues under Neil Lennon. While he won back-to-back league titles and feels he helped lay the groundwork for future success by changing the culture at the club, the fans and board ultimately expected more. The lack of Champions League football was a hammer blow and he was replaced by Brendan Rodgers shortly after a damaging Scottish Cup semi-final defeat to Rangers in April 2016.
"It is of course a totally different thing to come in when the club is No 3 or No 4 in the SPFL," Deila told Herald Sport. "When I came in, Neil Lennon had won three or four leagues so the expectation was much higher. I think it is much easier for Pedro to come in to these circumstances. But at the same time I don't know what kind of money he will get to change the team around."
Whatever lofty ideals and patterns of play he wants to implement, Caixinha will also soon realise the difficulties of implementing them amid the rough and tumble of the Scottish game, and on pitches which for months of the year simply aren't conducive to it. "The biggest difference for him is to come into the British culture of living, of working, and also the style of play," said Deila. "You see even [Pep] Guardiola coming in and having some problems with the intensity of the British game. So there are a lot of things that he will feel that are different."
As much as he enjoyed working with John Collins and John Kennedy, one area where Deila feels Caixinha has hit the ground running at Ibrox is in his insistence on bringing some of his own staff with him. While the Portuguese will appoint a Scottish-based assistant coach - candidates for that role include Barry Ferguson, Peter Lovenkrands and John Brown - he has also surrounded himself with assistant manager Helder Baptista, fitness coach Pedro Malta and goalkeeping coach Jose Belman. Deila feels with hindsight it would have been prudent to bring in more coaches who know his methods instinctively.
"The new Rangers coach is coming into a new culture, a new language, new opponents, new team, the whole environment in Glasgow with Celtic, Rangers, religion, all these things," he added. "And I came alone as well. I didn't bring anyone with me. Of course I should have brought someone in with me, I should have done that at once. Not a huge group, because it can't be a group inside a group, but you need to have people who understand what you are about. In saying that, John Collins was a fanastic assistant, along with John Kennedy. They are friends in life."
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