AS the regular reader of this column (thanks mum, keep buying the paper, the grandweans are depending on it) will testify, your fearless correspondent here is very rarely, if ever, proved right about anything.
Certainly, the confident prediction that Hamilton Academical would be relegated from the Ladbrokes Premiership this season was well wide of the mark. Once again.
Yet, the assertion that Paul Le Guen would fail, and, what is more, fail spectacularly, after being appointed manager at Rangers back in 2006 was something which did come to pass and then some.
The capture of Le Guen, who had led Lyon to three successive French titles in his homeland, was hailed as a major coup at the time. The Glasgow club, it was claimed, beat off suitors from around Europe to secure his services. He was tipped to bring silverware back to Ibrox after a trophyless season.
The former Paris Saint-Germain defender turned out to be something of a cold fish who signed badly, failed to understand the unique demands of the game in this country and quickly lost the dressing room. He left “by mutual consent” at the beginning of January.
But watching Rangers being held to a 1-1 draw by Aberdeen at home towards the end of the previous campaign, it was glaringly obvious that a serious injection of cash, not a foreign coach, was required to turn things around down Govan way.
That wasn’t forthcoming. Dean Furman, Lionel Litizi, Makhtar N’Diaye, Antoine Ponroy, Libor Sionko and William Stanger were brought in on free transfers, Phil Bardsley and Lee Martin came on loan while Jeremy Clement, Sasa Papac, Filip Sebo and Karl Svensson were bought, but not for significant sums.
Clement was excellent as was Papac, who became a cult hero to supporters over the next six seasons, but the rest of them, not least the hapless Sebo, bombed.
The sorry episode came to mind earlier this week after Dave King, the Rangers chairman and major shareholder, had sat and spoken to a gaggle of hacks about the arrival of Steven Gerrard as manager as well as a raft of other issues in a lounge at Ibrox.
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To the South Africa-based businessman’s credit, he made himself available for interview for almost an hour. No topic, not his ongoing dispute with the Takeover Panel, not the resignation of Paul Murray and Barry Scott as directors, not his treatment of Graeme Murty, not the abject failure of the team this term, was off limits. No query was fudged.
But, as is so often the case with the enigmatic and idiosyncratic King, you were left little clearer about the future direction of the club at the end of it all. One major question certainly remained unanswered. How much money will Gerrard get to spend?
Bringing in the former England captain and midfielder is, no doubt about it, a bold and exciting move which has caught the attention of British football. His name should help him to attract players his employers would otherwise have been unable to. But if he is to succeed then he must be backed with cold hard cash.
Will the continued soft loans from Rangers’ wealthy benefactors be enough to bankroll his ambitions? Could the renegotiated retail deal give him the funds he needs to build a team capable of challenging Celtic? Will the £6 million of fresh capital that will be raised at an imminent share issue make a tangible difference? It all seems unlikely.
It has been repeatedly suggested that a wealthy investor - from, depending on who you listen to, the Far East or the United States - is poised to come on board. But on Monday morning King stated: “I don’t want more money into the club at this point in time.”
It will be no surprise if Gerrard, who is currently the under-18 coach at Liverpool, brings a few outstanding kids from the Anfield club with him on loan. Mark Allen, the Rangers director of football who was previously in charge at the Manchester City academy, is sure to look elsewhere down south for promising youngsters to join on temporary deals.
But haven’t Rangers been there before? Gael Bigirimana, Shane Ferguson, Kevin Mbabu, Remie Streete and Haris Vukic (all Newcastle United), Dom Ball and Nathan Oduwa (both Spurs), Gedion Zelalem (Arsenal), Aaron Nemane (City) and Sean Goss (QPR) have all sought to further their embryonic careers here. Some of them, Vukic, Ball, Zelalem and Goss, did alright. But none of them was exactly a revelation.
It is difficult to forecast with confidence what is going to happen at Ibrox these days and has been for some time, but it it is hard to see Steven Gerrard avoiding the same fate as Paul Le Guen if he isn’t given the substantial resources he requires.
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