It was not the best kept secret in football really, particularly during the current domestic fixture lull to enable the first ever winter World Cup to take place out in Qatar, but when former gaffer Giovanni van Bronckhorst departed Rangers following our form so far during the 2022/23 Scottish Premiership campaign, the name on everyone’s lips was Michael Beale.
Considered by many to be the tactical brains behind Steven Gerrard’s operation, he parted company with the club when Gerrard made the switch to Aston Villa, and Beale again pretty quickly moved on to take the Queens Park Rangers hot seat in his own right. Although QPR’s form has been a little bit choppy in more recent times, he won a lot of plaudits given their performances under him and this week he made the switch back to Glasgow and his first task is to turn around our form that has seen only two wins across the last seven games (all competitions). For fans who like a flutter they can place a bet with Lottoland sports on Beale achieving the turn around he wants.
“I’ve told them I’ve got a big belief in them, otherwise I wouldn’t have wanted to have come back. It’s a privilege to be here working, but I think we just need to have a little bit of a shake and a bit of an honest conversation and get back the standards. Six months ago this was the Europa League finalists. This team is not as broken as people think. If people think that outside then the only people that can change that are the people inside and we’ve got to go now. There’s no time to wait, so if people are not all in then they can go to one side and the people who are, I’ll move forward with those.”
With a couple of youth prospects already promoted into the first team, fans will undoubtedly be looking at the January transfer market now, and although Beale has been clear that he would love new deals to be agreed with both Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent, he will also have his eye on an addition or two to freshen the group up and he is confident that the board will back him if necessary.
“The guarantees that I have are the same as the last two managers. If players are identified within the budget, the board has always supported the managers. I’ve been made aware that there’s definitely an opportunity for the right players, in the right positions.”
With the World Cup motoring through their games, Scottish football will soon return and Beale’s real task of course, is to get us back on track in the league.
“My job is to chase Celtic down, the players’ job is to chase them down. That’s a mentality shift in terms of how we look at things, because when I left here we were the one in front. So now the mentality’s shifted and we have to chase them down. It starts with winning all the other games, it doesn’t start with games against them. We have to get closer. The most important thing right now is we have to reconnect with our fans in terms of the way we play, I think that’s really important.”
Gers fans will be watching on and hoping he hits the ground running.
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