Europa League group stage failure could accelerate Michael Beale sack decision at Rangers as £93m news emerges
The Europa League presents a welcome opportunity for Michael Beale to impress his bosses at Rangers after recent pressure but an early group-stage exit may have damaging repercussions.
The Gers boss was under intense scrutiny following defeats to Celtic and PSV Eindhoven before the international break with the latter defeat meaning Rangers lost a significant £25m windfall which will have not gone down well with the Ibrox boardroom.
However, Daily Record reported on 6 September, that chairman John Bennett and other Ibrox chiefs were “ready to stand behind” Beale for the time being providing him more time to get things right with some tough fixtures ahead.
Daily Record journalist Keith Jackson also reported on the paper’s website on 6 September that Bennett “will resist calls” to remove the under-fire Gers boss “despite the outpouring of fan fury” after the 1-0 loss to Celtic on 3 September but Beale will have to “deliver an immediate upturn in results”.
Such reports will not have been helped by the rumours flying around that the Ibrox chiefs had approached former Chelsea and Brighton coach Graham Potter about replacing Beale [The Sun, 13 September], while Birmingham coach John Eustace has also been linked with the role [Daily Mail, 6 September].
However, Beale and his men put those rumours to bed for now with a comfortable and assured 2-0 win over St Johnstone at McDiarmid Park, but the former QPR boss also faces the added weight of Europa League football to navigate.
A competition that could have positive long-lasting effects financially at Ibrox if the Gers are to get out of their group, involving Real Betis, Aris Limassol and Sparta Prague and a new report has shared some intriguing revelations which further heaps all the pressure on Beale to get his men past the group stages and into the financially beneficial knockout rounds.
According to the Daily Record (20 September), the Rangers squad is the second most expensive in Group C with a total value of £93million, having spent roughly £15million this summer.
Real Betis’ team is the most expensive at £181million, while the other two teams in the group have nowhere near the spending power of Betis and the Gers, with Sparta Prague’s side worth £36million and Greek side Aris costing just £15.6million.
That makes the Light Blues squad £77.4million more expensive than Aris and £57million more than Sparta and that sort of difference in money will make it unacceptable should Beale not manage to guide his side into the knockout stages.
It could prove even more damaging from the outside looking in for Bennett and co after Beale was heavily backed in the summer transfer window with as many as a whopping nine transfers brought in.
If the Rangers boss thought he’d escaped some of the sack pressure after last weekend’s result, he’s certainly got another think coming as a disappointing Europa League campaign will not only prove costly for the club as a whole but will prove fatal for his job position in Glasgow.
In other Rangers news, Nicolas Raskin has broken his silence following his injury ahead of the Europa League campaign