It’s the appointment that’s surprised absolutely no one in the Scottish game, but with Stuart McCall being named as Rangers manager until the end of the season, it shows that the new regime at Ibrox are wanting to flush out the deadwood as quickly as possible.
While not particularly interested in the ongoing saga in Govan, living in Northern Ireland, it’s just about the only regular Scottish football stories I’ve been seeing in the papers, and other than ensuring my father-in-law gets his tea served to him in a Sports Direct mug, I haven’t under taken much to do with finding out more.
What I have caught on to though is that since Kenny McDowall tendered his resignation, he has rarely come across as someone who would be doing the club any favours in sticking about. Having just worked my notice period at my job, I know exactly how much enthusiasm there is to do your job when you know you’re on your way.
There is a big difference however, between managing to stay upbeat on the phones and phoning it in as a football manager when you’re getting beaten, as you eek out your remaining days in the job.
Following McCoist, dealing with the Ashley omnishambles and everything else that McDowall’s short tenure endured will no doubt have ruined any enthusiasm he had for the job, as well as that of the fans for him. While not meaning to be too churlish about it, his Parkhead background would also have had him on a hiding to nothing with large sections of the Rangers support. A thankless task all round.
In McCall though, the Gers fans have another in a similar vein to McCoist; a Rangers man through and through, a member of the Nine In A Row winning squads, passionate about the Scottish game and Ibrox especially. What he has that McCoist lacked though, which I believe will be the biggest thing that he can bring to the Rangers hotseat, is his experience outside of the Southside.
Managerially, McCoist knew nothing about running a team outside of Ibrox, and when Walter Smith eventually let go of the saddle and allowed Ally to pedal away on his own, the bike wobbled and skidded all over the shop, as he’d been too used to the stability the old man had given him.
Had he taken on a job further afield, say Kilmarnock, or Thistle or even Motherwell when we needed a replacement for Jim Gannon, he could have cut his teeth and cycled on on his own to become his own manager, instead of being as much of a bombscare as I am at mixing my analogies.
McCall’s time at Fir Park was filled with a Motherwell level of success. There’s nothing tangible from his reign in Lanarkshire; everything he achieved is committed to memory and the history books, but he left nothing that anyone could actually hold on to. A League Cup semi and a Scottish Cup Final in his first few months set the bar, and ultimately the pinnacle for what he and we hoped he’d lead us to, after initially being reluctant to see him installed as boss.
As Motherwell fans, we know we’re never going to win the big one – the SPL/Premiership title – but having done so well in 2011’s knock-out competitions, the next progression was surely to win one.
Instead, McCall went about trying to help us reach that which we never believed in, by challenging for the league. Challenging is a word to be used loosely, as while we finished third and then second twice, we were still quite a bit off the pace of Celtic during that “Best of the Rest” period.
In doing so, he earned us a memorable (both good and bad) Champions League cameo, complete with unsanctioned usage of the CL theme and with it a sense of pride and achievement from the supporters, even the dissenters that he had in his time at Fir Park.
He worked extremely well on the stringiest of shoestring budgets, and got the best out of the squad he assembled in his first summer in charge. Bringing in Michael Higdon, Henrik Ojamaa and Nicky Law, who he’ll now be reunited with, were masterstrokes of his reign. The combination of the three of them was what propelled MFC from Top Six to Top Two contenders. It would not surprise me one bit if Higdon and Ojamaa were reunited with their former boss this summer.
He also got the most out of the players that were already there. Keith Lasley got a new lease of life under McCall, which rubbed off on Stevie Hammell. Tom Hateley and Chris Humphrey, both survivors of the Gannon era, came good, with Jamie Murphy and Shaun Hutchinson the breakout youngsters in his time, the latter three going on to play in the English Championship to decent reviews.
This bodes well for some of the misfits that are now at his disposal. Your Stevie Smiths, your Ricky Fosters, your…(almost typed Ian Black there) other talented but unimpressive players could have a Lasley done on them. The younger peripheral players could be rejuvenated like Humphrey and Hateley were, (FYI, I would bank on Mark Jr being snapped up as soon as his deal in Poland is up) and the young guns who have been doing well should have the confidence reinstilled in them by McCall’s man management style.
His first task though, will be to get the old guard onside. The likes of McCulloch, Black et al, the chaps who know that their club needs them but have shirked the responsibility to do something about it under McCoist and McDowall, are ultimately what could stand in the way of him being a success. Coming in to an established dressing room and making the necessary changes might not sit well with them, but you’d think that a man who was of the “team that drinks together, wins together” philosophy in his playing days at Ibrox should be able to get this right.
He did lose the dressing room at Fir Park though, for reasons which have never become clear.
The fans will no doubt have the same mixed reaction to his appointment as we did when he came on board, but if the new regime want him to be a success, then they’ll need to give him time to put his stamp on the side.
I really believe that Rangers will spend another year in the Championship. I don’t see them getting out of the division this year via the play-offs. Even if McCall can get them back to winning ways he’ll be doing it with a squad of sub-par players. Not just sub-par in the sense of not being good enough for Rangers, but in terms of the Premiership as well. He’ll be able to cajole them and mould them in to how he wants them to be, but that will take time.
The time between now and the end of the season won’t be long enough, in my opinion.
If they do make the play-off final, I’ll really be hoping that Motherwell are out of the relegation zone by then, as they’d be a shoe in to defeat us in that kind of battle, given our history of results against whatever incarnation of Rangers have thrown at us.
I really do hope it works our for Stuart McCall at Rangers, he’s a good coach and a decent human being. Hopefully he doesn’t become a scapegoat or a hate figure like his predecessors and is given the time needed to part solve the problems at Ibrox, while eventually gifting us points against them in return.
WRITTEN BY KRIS JACK
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