Keith Jackson has warned Micky Beale that he is one more defeat away from starting next season on a shaky peg.
The rookie boss at Ibrox has mastered how to get the better of the rest of Scottish football from the squad he inherited last November but hasn’t made any inroads on Celtic.
On Saturday his side avoided a hammering across the city but another defeat means that the countdown is underway to when Celtic celebrate their SPFL title success.
Beale can pull out statistics, talk about his grand plans for the future and his own genius as a coach but unless he discovers how to beat Celtic the storm clouds will gather over him at Ibrox.
The bulk of Saturday’s side was put together by Steven Gerrard and the current boss, five months into the job Gary McAllister’s bibs and cones guy is carrying the can as Jackson explained to Daily Record readers about Beale’s circumstances:
It is a matter of monumental misfortune, for example, that he finds himself returning to Glasgow at a moment in time when a miracle worker has arrived on the other side of town all the way from the opposite end of the planet. And unless he can find a way of outmanoeuvring Ange Postecoglou in the Scottish Cup semi final at the end of this month, Beale will begin next season with his managerial jacket already on a shaky peg.
Unfair? You better believe it. If Beale’s body of work was allowed to stand alone then Rangers might consider themselves lucky to have such an astute, streetwise tactician mapping out the club’s way forward. The progress this team has made since his appointment is actually bordering on the remarkable, given how flaky and entirely unreliable it had become under Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
But, in this particular part of the world, fairness is a luxury which is seldom afforded. And Saturday’s derby day defeat at Celtic Park has left Beale boxed into an unenviable position. He was smart enough to see it coming when he spoke through the week about his big plans for the transfer market and he thoroughly deserves the opportunity to build on the solid foundations he’s already laid down in a short space of time.
But promises of jam tomorrow won’t sweeten Beale’s situation in the event that Celtic kill his season stone dead at Hampden on April 30. On the contrary, he’ll go into the summer with a huge dark cloud hanging over his head and with goodwill and patience in short supply as Postecoglou celebrates a treble on the other side of the city.
Postecoglou isn’t a miracle worker, he is a time served manager that knows the game inside out and is open to new ideas or to be more accurate new markets to find quality players of outstanding value.
The disastrous influence of Peter Lawwell has been sidelined but not yet fully removed, just five years ago the Celtic chairman refused to sign John McGinn from Hibs as he eyed up Youssouf Mulumbu instead.
Postecoglou inherited a squad that included Albian Ajeti, Varilis Barkas, Marian Shved, Ismaila Soro, Vakoun Bayo, Boli Bolingoli, Leigh Griffiths and Chris Jullien who had no part in his future plans.
Ryan Christie, Odsonne Edouard and Kris Ajer were on their way to England with the skills of the new manager used to get a tune out of two of them before he had to rely on his transfer market judgement.
On his own, without any of his own backroom staff the managerial talent of the former Australia boss saw off Gerrard, McAllister and Beale, the van Bronckhorst with Beale back again for another tilt backed by his own coaching team.
The former QPR boss is five months into the job at Ibrox with just two additions to his squad as he delays the inevitable overhaul in order to provide some soothing statistics- a distant second behind Celtic.
Management involves more than sweet talking your way through media conferences as Beale will discover as he attempts to match van Bronckhorst by reaching the group stage of the Champions League with his new look squad- and learns how to beat the lucky guy across the city.
Listen spoty has been lucky with some results the men in black will try their hardest to help him get all 3 points all they do is get into to box and as soon as they feel contact just go down and the man in black has got his whistle in his mouth mr clancy gave them freekicks for nothing on Saturday the second half was terrible everytime a blue shirt fell clancy blow for a freekick he tryed his toget a 3rd goal for sevco but he failed and i bet clancy wont get another game involving sevco for a while wullie collum got bad through slippy g but got back to ref sevco games and since then wullie collum has done his best to help them out as we all have seen on telly how collum.beaton.dallas.robertson.walsh.and a few others seem toget the liebrox games.howmany refs are in scotland and yet we get the ones that support sevco thats afact.