Brian Laudrup is the latest Ibrox legend to fire a warning a Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
Last night Kris Boyd and Kenny Miller were on the attack as they reacted to back-to-back defeats from Celtic and Ajax.
Van Bronckhorst has had to stew on those results knowing that a repeat at home to Napoli will only make his position even less secure.
It is very strange to see former players turn on an Ibrox manager, even more so when it is mild mannered Laudrup on the attack.
Picking up on his column in the Daily Mail, the Daily Record reports:
After the Ajax game, Van Bronckhorst spoke about needing hundreds of millions to compete in the Champions League. His comments have caused a lot of debate. I don’t think they were the wisest things to say in public.
Last season, Van Bronckhorst’s team took on Dortmund and Leipzig two Champions League drop-outs and got the better of them. Okay, the standard in Group A might now be even higher but Rangers have previously shown they can compete against teams with considerably bigger budgets. No one expects them to win the Champions League. Or be in contention for the latter stages. That’s stating the obvious. But the least you expect is for them to put up a fight within games.
Each time you have a defeat like the last two, it becomes harder and harder to climb the mountain again. But Rangers must haul themselves up. They badly need a performance offering signs of improvement. And a stabilising result. Most fans would accept a draw tomorrow night as long as the performance was there.
Van Bronckhorst will face the media today with a very difficult balancing act to perform. Watering down his ‘we can’t compete’ message while trying to be realistic about the chances of James Tavernier and Connor Goldson keeping Napoli at bay.
Let’s not kid ourselves and be honest they got a lot of good luck going to that final last season, then they thought they were world beaters ,great squad great management etc this season they are found out, wee boncky starting to be put under a train, have a lovely day.
Whilst the knives are being sharpened at Ibrox for GvB,
I thought sevco actually did well to recruit him in the first place.
The question is: who could they bring in as his replacement?
An ex-player again: probably.
But, with the continued Ibrox financial constraints, it could be an even harder sell if a new manager has to retain the majority of the current squad ?
Another 4 – 0 drubbing would be a stabilising result and a very nice one too!