Sean Fisher

Sun 27 November 2022 13:40, UK

Michael Beale is inching closer to becoming Rangers manager, and the 42-year-old seems to be burning bridges on his way out of QPR.

BBC Sport report that Rangers have already held talks with Beale about the vacant manager position at Ibrox, with the Glasgow side set to pay £1.5million compensation to buy him out of his QPR contract.

Beale moved to London to take the QPR job after thriving as Steven Gerrard’s assistant at both Rangers and Aston Villa. But his attitude around his return to Ibrox this month has seemingly angered his current boss.

QPR chairman Amit Bhatia liked a tweet this week suggesting that he is fuming at the way Beale has handled the Rangers interest.

“Actually low that Michael Beale at QPR who talks very high (well though he did) speaks highly of the owners, fans and what he is doing at QPR then sees Rangers offer him a job and does a runner, deletes Twitter the lot!

“That’s low… Amit Bhatia must be fuming,” read the Tweet.

Turning sour

It doesn’t seem there’s a way back for Beale at QPR – which for Rangers fans is great news.

The former Gers assistant is yet to break his silence on the Rangers rumours, but it now seems inevitable that he’ll be appointed as Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s successor at Ibrox.

He did superbly well at QPR this season and even turned down approaches from Premier League side Wolves to stay with the London-based club, but Rangers coming calling was too good to turn down.

Most managers would jump at the chance to move from a Championship side to a team competing for titles and European qualification, so Bhatia can hardly blame Beale for wanting to leave.

Relations at QPR seem to have soured to the point where Beale can’t turn back. While it’s sad to see him leave on bad terms, it’s great to see him back at Ibrox where he can hopefully turn around what has been a dire start to the season.

In other Rangers news, the club board was reportedly split on whether to hire Beale or Dyche, with Ross Wilson coming out on top.