Overkill: Rangers in suspicious response to Michael Beale sack decision rumour as speculation emerges
Rangers have not just shot down a rumour about Kevin Muscat replacing Michael Beale at Ibrox – they’ve launched missile after missile at it.
If you missed it on Tuesday (5 September), the AussieScout Twitter account reported that Yokohama FM manager Muscat, 50, is being considered to replace Beale at Ibrox with the 43-year-old incumbent under increasing pressure after Sunday’s defeat to Celtic at Ibrox.
AussieScout claimed that “contact is believed to have been made with associates of Muscat”, who played for Rangers in the 2002/03 season and last season won the J-League title with Yokohama.
It’s not a massive surprise to see this rumour emerge.
Rangers only seem to be dealing with managers who have previous at the club based on their last two hires being Beale and Giovanni van Bronckhorst and the fact that Muscat is an Aussie who’s doing well in East Asia, there’s a chance that the Light Blues could be trying to replicate the success Ange Postecoglou had on the other side of Glasgow.
But what is a surprise is to see Rangers’ response to this rumour about Muscat.
It’s just a Twitter account with less than 10,000 followers from the other side of the world. We don’t know if it’s reliable or not, we don’t know if they’ve got any close links to Muscat and we don’t know if it’s worth reading too much into it based on the reasons stated above.
But even though it’s “just a Twitter account”, Rangers have gone to pretty much every source possible to say there’s nothing in it and that no contact with Muscat has been made.
David Edgar, of the Heart & Hand podcast, tweeted within two hours of the AussieScouts post to say there’s “nothing” to the Muscat report.
Daily Record journalist Andy Newport then tweeted to say there’s “no truth whatsoever” in the claim while the Daily Record also did a story on their website.
Gavin Berry and Graeme Young both reported in three paragraphs that Rangers have “shot down” the Muscat links.
Football Scotland also reported there’s nothing to read into the AussieScouts tweet.
The Scottish Sun also chipped in with an update saying the speculation is “unfounded”.
For some reason, Rangers decided to concern themselves so much with a tweet posted from the other side of the world by an account that’s not really been heard of in these quarters that they had to tell all of these journalists and news outlets there’s nothing in it.
It’s a bit suspicious, isn’t it?
One source saying there’s nothing in it is one thing but this seems like a coordinated effort to bury a news story before it gets away from them.
We don’t doubt for a moment that the club has said this to these journalists but there’s no doubt that their response is overkill to what could have easily been seen as a bit of harmless speculation.
In other Rangers news, John Bennett could kickstart boardroom talks over Beale’s future.