Interim manager Graeme Murty has revealed this week that guiding Rangers to their biggest win of last season taught him an incredible lesson when it came to social media.
Making the call last campaign to take off Kenny Miller at the half time break and replace him with Joe Garner is the Cup thrashing of Hamilton, Murty admitted that a tweet at the time from a fan showed him he should have confidence in his own ability and trust himself when making the tough calls in games.
No more apparent than now when he finds himself in charge of affairs once more following the sacking of Pedro Caixinha.
Speaking to the Official Site as he looked ahead to another tie against the Accies this weekend, he explained.
‘I do have good memories from the game against Hamilton last season because I got one of the all-time best tweets. I made the decision to change from Kenny to Joe Garner at half-time, against some advice I have to say. Someone tweeted “Miller off Garner on. Murty you haven`t got a clue.” and the abuse he got after that was epic.’
With Garner going on to get a hattrick in the game despite spending a chunk of the second half off the pitch getting treatment on a cut around his eye, and with Rangers hitting five goals in 45 minutes, Murty went on to say.
‘I took a screenshot of it to say that whether it works or it doesn`t work sometimes you have to have the courage in your conviction and believe in yourself. I have been criticised a bit for not being confident in myself and doing myself down and I thought that was a good moment for my education. I think you have to portray yourself, particularly to the first-team, how you want to be perceived. Not every training session is going to work, not every tactical change is going to work but you have to be confident.’
He added.
‘If anything this has given me the understanding of how I need to be and how I need to act that will get the best out of the players. It was a big call to take Kenny off that day and as much as I have been given credit recently for putting him in the team, taking him out in that game for an untried person was difficult. I wasn`t one hundred percent sure that was a good idea, it just happened to pay off. You have to be confident and then if it doesn`t work be man enough to go down swinging your own sword.’
Going into the game against Hamilton, Murty obviously would love a similar conclusion at full time but with a more rewarding first half period and that’s the challenge he’s laid down to the players.
‘I was more proud of what the players did that day because they took what could have been a tricky game and they really owned it. It is nice to go and score goals and it is nice to go and win. I actually challenged the players against Partick because I thought we could have scored more goals, we could have been more hungry to score. That game that really worked, they were hungry and they wanted to put a score and a show on for our crowd. That is the mind-set we need to have at home, that we are going to win every game, we have to be aggressive and dominant and try and score as many as we can. And if it doesn`t come off we are going have lots of chances and we are going to get the fans out of their seats because we are going to be camped in and around their eighteen yard box.’
