They never accepted him- Simon Jordan tips Gio for rapid exit

Simon Jordan believes that it is inevitable that Giovanni van Bronckhorst will be sacked, claiming that the fans never fully took to the Dutchman.

The pain of Steven Gerrard’s exit 11 months ago was a sore one for supporters to accept with the unemployed Dutchman ticking most of the boxes as a replacement without and real look into his managerial credentials.

A glamorous big name connected to the old club that died in 2012 was good enough for the board to present to supporters while Celtic toiled under a little known Australian across the city.

When van Bronckhorst secured progress in the Europa League and extended the gap at the top of the SPFL from four points to six back-slapping was the order of the day at the turn of the year.

On February 2 Celtic went to the top of the SPFL table with a 3-0 win with only a freaky European run sparing van Bronckhorst the full inquest into losing the Premiership title.

Now, on the back of six defeats since the start of September time is running out on the Dutchman.

Listening in to TalkSPORT this morning, The Sun reports Jordan saying:

I’d like to have seen them be more competitive for third spot spot. Napoli smashed Liverpool, and Liverpool and Napoli are in a far different place to Rangers – but I felt they could have got closer to Ajax and pushed third spot, stayed in Europe and build from there.

The point is that with Rangers, I take no satisfaction out of forecasting the fact they may not get a point out of this group, but I think they will grab a point against Ajax who have nothing to play for apart from being safe.

They’re playing at a level that is beyond them. It’s a combination of three things – the group itself is beyond them, the players are not good enough and the manager isn’t good enough either.

I look at this and think that he hasn’t really been accepted by Rangers fans, I think they want to give him the benefit of the doubt as Steven Gerrard left them in the lurch a little bit.

He set a bar of winning the league, they didn’t follow that up, they got to a European final they gave him the benefit of the doubt on that, and the moment things go wrong for him it feels like the underlying narrative is that ‘we’re not having him’.

The moment it goes a little bit wonky on the tracks, it feels like he is going to be on his way again. I don’t think he’ll be at Rangers for much longer, unless they pick up dramatically in the league.

If Celtic stretch the gap at the top of the Premiership to more than four points it will be difficult for the Ibrox board to resist the easy option of sacking the manager.

With his contract running until May 2025 the Dutchman could be in for a lucrative period on gardening leave.