Antonio Colak reacts to Rangers announcement as Michael Beale is sacked
Antonio Colak has given his seal of approval to Rangers sacking Michael Beale after the former manager sold him to Parma this summer.
The Croatian liked the announcement on the club’s official Instagram page saying that the 43-year-old had been let go on Sunday night (1 October).
Colak was sold to Serie B in a £2.5million deal during the transfer window [Daily Record, 13 July] despite scoring 18 goals in his single season at Ibrox, having apparently never suited Beale’s system.
The summer rebuild saw Rangers spend heavily on restocking their front line after also selling Fashion Sakala, while Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent left as their contracts expired.
Beale’s recruitment saw around £14m spent on Cyriel Dessers [Scotsman, 3 July], Sam Lammers [Daily Record, 15 June] and Danilo [Sky Sports, 28 July], while Abdallah Sima was brought in on loan, but none have been definite successes so far.
Proven wrong
This time a year ago the situation at Ibrox was depressingly familiar in that the summer transfer business had so far proven underwhelming and Giovanni van Bronckhorst was already under pressure.
But at that point Colak was a shining light and looking like he might prove to be the signing of the season in Glasgow, having got off to an excellent scoring start and netted the goals that took the club into the Champions League group stage.
Injuries tempered his progress but there was a feeling that once the Dutchman was replaced by Beale that he didn’t favour the 30-year-old, regularly preferring to use Morelos despite the Colombian apparently being on his way out either way.
Beale got his way at the end of the season and Colak was moved on, which seemed a shame at the time but wouldn’t have been a disaster if the manager had brought in options that suited his gameplan.
The two January signings of Todd Cantwell and Nico Raskin had proven very solid so there was reason to believe that Beale could similarly improve the strike force.
Instead, none of the new arrivals have proven to be definitive upgrades on those that have left and it has ultimately cost him his job.
It may only be a like on social media but players know what significance that will be seen to have, so it suggests Colak wasn’t delighted with how his Rangers career fizzled out under Beale.
And he’s now been vindicated, as his arrival last year has been increasingly held up as evidence of the now-departed manager’s failings in the market this summer.
In other Rangers news, a decision in the Aberdeen loss to “heap misery” on the Gers has been slammed by BBC pundits.