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Rangers manager focus now clear as update on Michael Beale emerges
Michael Beale is currently the sole priority of Rangers as they look to replace Giovanni van Bronckhorst as manager, according to Alan Nixon.
The QPR boss, and former assistant to Steven Gerrard at Ibrox, has emerged as the front-runner for the manager’s job after the Dutchman was removed on Monday (21 November).
Beale previously rejected the chance to take over at Wolves in the Premier League in favour of remaining at Loftus Road, but Nixon suggests that the return to Glasgow is a different matter and the club are currently focusing all their efforts to appoint him, even though as of Tuesday an official approach hadn’t been made.
Responding to a question on the situation at Ibrox currently on Twitter, Nixon wrote on Wednesday morning (23 November): “Just trying to sort the Beale thing”.
In reply to a further question about Beale rejecting Wolves Nixon added: “Then came the Rangers chance”.
Destiny?
It seems clear that there is a special connection between the QPR manager and the Ibrox board, which Van Bronckhorst now feels was being cultivated while he was still in charge.
Based on Les Ferdinand’s statement that he would not fight to keep someone in west London it should be possible to secure Beale, but it won’t necessarily be cheap.
If the Light Blues were prepared to pay the £3million or so that it took to sack Van Bronckhorst then there would be little point in trying to save on his replacement.
If Beale, 42, is seen as the best placed to lift the club out of the alarming slump they’ve fallen into this season then the board need to pay what it takes to get him out of his Rs contract.
Whether he is that is open to debate, since his success as the brains of the Gerrard era cannot be overlooked with the 55th SPFL title sitting in the trophy cabinet.
But with just six months of experience as a manager after leaving Aston Villa, and the landscape in Scotland very different to how he left it, there remains a significant element of risk.
With his QPR side experiencing their own dip in form in recent weeks, which saw them fall from top of the Championship to seventh, there isn’t yet evidence that he knows how to arrest a slide.
But it certainly looks like he will be the next manager if the numbers can be worked out between the two clubs and the man in the middle.
In other Rangers news, a surprise recent Premier League manager has now been named as in the running for the job.