George Overhill

Tue 12 September 2023 7:40, UK

It is “business as usual” at Rangers as the club have “knocked down” all the rumours of Michael Beale’s future in the past few days, according to Chris Jack.

The Herald journalist said on the Rangers Review daily update (11 September) that “sources at the club” had “completely” dismissed suggestions that the manager is about to go, while he wrote off speculation that the Ibrox boss changing his Instagram profile picture [Football Scotland, 9 September] was a sign of an imminent exit.

Pressure has built significantly since Beale lost another Old Firm derby, this time against a weakened Celtic, with John Eustace emerging as the first named candidate to replace him, and Beale’s social media move had only increased expectations of a change.

Jack said (28m 30s): “Every rumour that has done the rounds has been knocked down over the last two, three, four days.

“The social media stuff, people shouldn’t be reading too much into it. Michael will know his reasons and only he can tell why he’s been changing pictures etc.

“In terms of his situation, sources at the club have completely knocked it down over the weekend and it’s business as usual.”

Calm?

Unfortunately for Rangers “business as usual” has meant struggling for fluency while picking up an increasing number of bad results so far this season.

If he continues in that manner then speculation is likely to turn to concrete action, so Beale has to react after the international break with a run of wins right off the bat.

That was essentially what he was supposed to do to open the season after an extensive transfer window, and he simply hasn’t, even if there is the mitigation of getting so many new players to adapt at once.

He will have known as well as anyone what sort of spotlight he is under, so unless he was trying to deliberately cause rumours to fly it was an odd time to suddenly change his photo to a QPR one.

Similarly, the club will know what impression it gives off to have apparently briefed Jack with information on the summer transfers that directly contradicted what Beale had been claiming publicly.

So, while officially it might be a non-starter, there looks be a wide acknowledgement that a managerial change isn’t far off if the situation doesn’t change, and both sides have been making needlessly inflammatory moves at this time if they are in fact perfectly innocent.

In other Rangers news, Michael Stewart reacted to a controversial mooted Light Blues transfer live on BBC Sportsound.