Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards drop ‘Surprised’ verdict amid Michael Beale sack as Rangers manager
Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards have shared their verdicts after Michael Beale was sacked as manager of Rangers.
The Londoner was sacked after defeat to Aberdeen left the club seven points behind Celtic in the title race after just ten months in charge of the club.
And speaking on their ‘The Rest is Football‘ podcast (5 October), the trio were asked what they made of the decision and all dropped different opinions with Shearer admitting he understood the sacking while Richards said he was “surprised”.
“That was an early one wasn’t it, Michael Beale,” Lineker said.
“Yeah but you know Gary, there’s two clubs that have to fight for the title up there and without looking at the league I think they’re already seven points behind. Already lost three games and that’s not acceptable up in Scotland with Celtic or Rangers,” Shearer replied.
“So it didn’t come as a huge surprise to me. I said the other day that the nearer it gets to international breaks there’s going to be sackings.”
Lineker then added, “I suppose with the expectancy levels with the fans up there with a club like Rangers will be very high.”
Richards then jumped in and shared his verdict.
“It’s a strange one for me,” he said. “Michael Beale was talked about as a great coach when he was at QPR. Was he staying, was he going? He was at Aston Villa with Steven Gerrard, and I thought just by the way his teams played on the front foot, the way he spoke in interviews, I thought he would go up there and have a real good success.
“He got in a few quibbles with Chris Sutton on Twitter. He said something about Chris because he’s Celtic and he’s commentating on the games up in Scotland, and he sort of got drawn into that when perhaps he should’ve just focused on the football side of it.
“Because he put more pressure on himself than anything. I think he picked the wrong battles. I was surprised though.”
Had to be done
It’s fair to say that Shearer, Lineker and Richards don’t pay much attention to Scottish football and the things that are going on with Rangers judging by that conversation.
It was clear as day to anyone who pays attention to Rangers that Beale had to go, and while Lineker may be saying it was “early” in the season to do it he arguably should have gone even sooner.
The writing was on the wall after we got thumped by PSV Eindhoven and then beaten by Celtic within days of each other before the last international break and it would have taken something crazy for him to turn it around completely.
In the end the board did the only thing they could and it now means the new manager, whoever he is, will have time to come in and do things and potentially not write the entire season off like we did when we waited too long to sack Van Bronckhorst last year.
In other Rangers news, Fabrizio Romano drops fresh update on new manager chase.