Rangers fans to be delighted after Michael Beale Celtic jibe emerges
Michael Beale is gearing up for his tenure at Rangers to really get underway as Hibernian make the trip to Ibrox on Thursday evening.
The 42-year-old has been under the spotlight on Wednesday (14 December) ahead of the fixture and the Ibrox faithful will be delighted when it comes to how he responded to a question about Celtic.
Rangers are currently nine points behind their rivals, and Beale faces an uphill battle to salvage anything from the 2022/23 season. However, when discussing The Hoops, the new Rangers manager refused to name Ange Postecoglou’s men and just referred to them as “the other team” (Glasgow Times, 14 December).
Winning the Scottish Premiership is clearly a long shot for the new boss, but considering there is no expectation for the Gers to chase down Celtic, the pressure is somewhat off the 42-year-old. He almost has a free pass to set up his team in the way he sees fit and can look to experiment.
Celtic travel to Ibrox on 2 January and if Beale’s side can put together a perfect record the pressure could start to grow on Postecoglou’s men. The team at the top is always going to be looking over their shoulder and that can sometimes have an adverse impact on performance levels.
The Gers certainly have enough in their ranks to beat The Hoops, however, it’s up to Beale to unearth the quality which has clearly been missing in the first part of the 2022/23 season.
Considering Rangers have yet to kick a ball competitively under Beale, he’s certainly made a good start when it comes to talking to the press and how he views the Gers’ fiercest rivals.
In other Rangers news, Beale has confirmed a senior Rangers player is set to sign an Ibrox contract extension