Michael Beale left hanging as Rangers board lay ground work to sack him amid John Eustace links
Michael Beale’s position as Rangers manager has become even more precarious after he was contradicted by the club over spending this summer.
The board appear to be laying the ground work for a possible sacking if results don’t improve in the coming weeks by pushing the responsibility for the poor start to the season back onto the man in the dug-out.
Following the 1-0 loss to Celtic on Sunday (3 September), off the back of a 5-1 thrashing at PSV Eindhoven in midweek (30 August), Beale has been left under heavy pressure from sections of the fanbase who want to see him removed.
While John Bennett is not thought to be looking to get rid of Beale during the international break results are going to need to improve fast.
And with Birmingham City’s John Eustace already emerging as a possible candidate to come in at Ibrox if the Rangers chairman doesn’t see an improvement from the current head coach, and Wayne Rooney then lined up to come in at St. Andrew’s if necessary, it appears wheels may be in motion behind the scenes.
Beale is unlikely to be sacked within days, but it increasingly seems like moves are being made to prepare for it becoming necessary dependent on the next run of fixtures.
The former QPR manager has overseen an extensive revamp of the squad this summer, with nine new first-team players brought in while a host of the old guard left and other players were sold or allowed to leave on loan.
Beale appeared to have got most of his targets in during the window so it looked on paper like he was set up to start the season relatively strongly, but that hasn’t gone to plan, with the expensively assembled forward line of Danilo, Cyriel Dessers and Sam Lammers drawing particular focus after blowing hot and cold.
The Light Blues boss had stressed the importance that “we break even as a football club each season” while suggesting that the squad had been built on a “very modest or competitive idea of what we’re going to earn” when speaking to the media a fortnight ago [Rangers Review, 23 August], to play down the extent of the spending he had required.
But on Friday (8 September), via an in depth review of the transfer window from Chris Jack for Rangers Review, it has now come out that the net spend is apparently £6million.
A much more board-friendly perspective is put forward, with Jack writing: “Bennett and his board had to, therefore, commit to underwriting Michael Beale’s recruitment blueprint. By the time agent fees are taken into account, it is understood that Rangers have a net spend of close to £6m this summer.
“Beale was backed by the board to oversee the process and he worked in tandem with John Park, the head of recruitment, as Neil Banfield and Mervyn Day provided experienced sounding boards.”
That is all very well if things are going to plan, but with the manager on the hot seat the message seems clear – we gave Beale what he wanted, and if he doesn’t get it to work it’s on him.
It may well be an accurate assessment but the timing of that coming out isn’t encouraging for Beale’s long-term prospects, as the narrative has been set for his removal.
If the former Ibrox assistant manages to turn the current situation into a siege mentality within the squad and they go on a run he won’t be going anywhere, but this has only increased the pressure on them and arguably reduced the likelihood.
As Heart & Hand Podcast reacted on Twitter to the Friday report: “[The] board had to back or sack Beale and they’ve managed to do neither.”
In other Rangers news, Beale has been branded “delusional” for his response to the rapidly developing crisis situation.