George Overhill

Wed 2 November 2022 18:45, UK

Giovanni van Bronckhorst was pleading poverty after Rangers limped out of the Champions League with the worst record in its history on Tuesday.

But not only does that contrast with the general consensus of what qualification for the top European competition means, but also his own excited demeanour just weeks ago when the Gers overcame PSV to qualify for the group stage.

Much has been made of the gulf between the top of the Scottish game and the top of Europe as a whole, but despite being drawn in the group of death it has been anything but competitive from the Light Blues, just a few months since coming within a penalty shootout of winning the Europa League this year.

Speaking after the game on Tuesday (1 November), via The Rangers Review on Twitter the manager said when questioned about whether the squad was adequately strengthened for this campaign: “I know the club will do everything to try to build the strongest squad we have.

“I’ve read many stories that we struck gold with so many millions coming in. It’s not true. It’s not true all the figures I see in the papers. We don’t have that budget to spend.

“That’s another thing that we saw in the beginning, that we play Champions League so now we have £40million extra.

“Those are not true, and that creates an expectation that we can buy new players, but I think the way we bought the players this season is to qualify for the Champions League, but I don’t think the club will spend millions if the millions aren’t there.”

Which begs the question: where are they then?

The Dutchman’s own words in his post game interview on 24 August, after the win in Eindhoven confirmed qualification, painted a very different picture, the contrast of which was illustrated on Twitter by Heart and Hutts.

That night a cheerful Gio told BT Sport when asked if the financial implications of a return to the Champions League would impact him in terms of transfers: “Of course it will impact us, because for us as a player or a coach you’re only thinking about competing with the best teams in Europe, and we have the opportunity to do so.

“There are many positives that we take away from this game. I think the club and the board are happy that we get more financial opportunities, and we always have a good conversation and communication on how to spend the money.”

So which is it? Leaving aside the fact that they barely competed with the best at all and have since suggested it was impossible to do so, were there opportunities to spend or not?

Rangers didn’t sign anyone in that final week of the window and now van Bronckhorst is telling everyone they never could have.

At the time, football finance expert Kieran Maguire forecast the club could be looking at a record revenue year of £100million, which given six defeats from six would need to be rounded down slightly, but as he had only expected one win and one draw it would not be hugely lower.

Of course fans got excited by the financial boost of qualification, since even the biggest clubs in Europe need the Champions League money to allow their model to work, and might have got carried away with the possibilities.

It’s possible journalists got an incomplete picture and may have overlooked internal costs or debts that needed to be serviced, and even experts like Maguire might have been over-optimistic.

But even if all were wrong, why was the manager talking up the financial possibilities if there weren’t any, even if he did stop short of explicitly promising late signings?

After all, even if the costs from the Covid-19 pandemic swallowed up a proportion of the money, it came on top of everything earned from the Europa League run, which while not comparable to Champions League cash is not insignificant.

And Rangers have also made the two most expensive sales in their history in 2022, in the form of Nathan Patterson to Everton (minimum £12million, Sky Sports), Calvin Bassey to Ajax (minimum £19.6million, Sky Sports), as well as Joe Aribo’s exit to Southampton (minimum £6million, The Athletic).

So clearly something doesn’t add up, because either everybody else is wrong, or the club isn’t being honest.

And while it is Gio who is the one who has to go out and face the media, he may just be acting as a good company man and trying to shield the board from criticism.

If so that would be pretty unfair on him, as well as detrimental to the team, seeing as his attitude during the miserable European campaign has been defeatist and can’t have gone unnoticed by the players who could do with having belief instilled in them.

So perhaps there are debts that had to be paid, or those outside the club made assumptions that weren’t accurate, or the payment structure of the transfer fees favours the buying clubs. At least that would be an explanation.

But fans have waited a decade to get back to the group stage of the Champions League and when it finally happens the manager was exalting the financial boost and the chance to mix it with the best, so of course they were excited.

When it turns out the squad is nowhere near strong enough and they keep getting hammered, it is hardly fair to switch the official message to be that there was no money and the team never had a chance in the competition in the first place.

The fans deserve better and even the players, underperforming as they are, probably do as well.

In other Rangers news, Andy Walker has accused the club of losing respect around Europa after the Champions League exit.