James Tavernier has told Giovanni van Bronckhorst that he still has the backing of the Ibrox dressing room. When the captain has to go public it is obvious that the manager is under pressure.
Tav put in another anonymous performance in the 3-0 defeat from Napoli on Wednesday night, last season’s Europa League top scorer was posted missing as the Italian’s toyed with their opponents.
After scoring twice in the first 16 minutes Napoli switched to training mode as they pinged the ball around while preserving their energies for Saturday’s match quickly followed by a trip to Anfield.
Tav was posted missing after the 7-1 defeat from Liverpool but found the courage to share some comforting words with the Daily Record after enduring a fifth successive Champions League defeat:
We are always behind the manager. Never once are we not. We have full belief in his tactics and whatever he puts out on match day it is down to us as a team, as players, to go out and put a performance in for him and the fans.
There have been a few games where it has not been good enough and we have accepted that as a team. We can’t let that lapse into our game. Against Napoli, we never hid away from it. We went toe to toe with them as best we could and tried to play our football and create our chances.
As long as we do the minimum and the basics – put the effort in and really go toe to toe with opponents I am sure the fans will take to that.
The fans haven’t taken to the last two months of defeats and questionable attitude of the players.
If the gap to Celtic increases before the World Cup break Tav could soon be welcoming another new manager to the club.
Well that’s the kiss of death then from duff beer Tav, Gio the Fanny can collect his P45 at 4.45 on Saturday.