Former Rangers centre-half, Clint Hill has revealed the reason why he was allowed to leave the club after Pedro Caixinha arrived to begin his ill-fated spell in charge.
In an interview with Si Ferry on Open Goal (and reported in The Scottish Sun), Hill was less than pleased about the way in which the Portuguese manager handled his departure.
Hill, during the interview, also covers his time under Mark Warburton, who had originally signed him, expressing his surprise that he refused to practice defensive set-pieces – which won’t come as a shock to Rangers fans who had “the fear” every time a corner was conceded.
When asked about his dealings with Caixinha, he said:
“I had spoken to Warbs and Davie before they left and they were talking about getting maybe another six months or a year.
“But obviously they left then and Pedro’s called me in before the Hearts game which was my last game and he’s gone ‘I don’t think we want you here next season’.
“So I said ‘Ok, can you explain why?’ and he said ‘We don’t think you can get the ball and pass out from the back and play the football that we want to go to.”
As expected, Hill’s response was less than polite and hindsight shows that Pedro could’ve done a lot worse than retain the services of the experienced defender with Fabio Cardoso, Bruno Alves and laterly, Russell Martin all failing to make the grade the following season.
The Liverpudlian is remembered fondly by Gers fans despite being in a hopeless Rangers team, his obvious highlight being scoring a late equaliser against Celtic at Parkhead to secure a 1-1 draw.
He may not have been of the same standard as the likes of Richard Gough and Terry Butcher but he, at least, understood what it meant to wear the famous Light Blue jersey and did everything in his ability to succeed, if only there had been more likeminded individuals around him at the time.