Pascal Jansen makes ‘massive’ Rangers job admission to Sky Sports
Pascal Jansen has admitted that he was flattered to be linked with the Rangers job and insisted that the Ibrox side are a “massive club.”
The AZ Alkmaar boss was one of the first names linked with the manager’s position at Ibrox following the sacking of Michael Beale, only for the Light Blues to appoint Philippe Clement with the former Monaco manager beating Kevin Muscat to the position.
It is unknown how close Jansen came to succeeding Beale in Glasgow, but while the Alkmaar boss was quick to praise Rangers, he did admit that he was slightly shocked by the talks of him making the switch to Scotland.
As quoted by Sky Sports (25 October) he said: “That Rangers talk caught me by surprise.
“It flatters me, of course, because Rangers are a massive club and I have dreams and ambitions. But it does not make me do my job differently. I just keep working hard to make my players better than yesterday.
“I am very happy with this job at the moment, working at a fantastic club, working with elite players and helping to improve young players. Even though we are a smaller club than the other three and we have a far lower budget, we are still trying to achieve silverware.”
Dreams and ambitions
It seems as though there were never particularly concrete talks for Jansen to take over at Ibrox, seeing as the Dutchman has admitted that the links caught even him by surprise, but it does seem as though he would have been tempted to accept the role had it been offered.
Jansen has paid the Light Blues plenty of respect with his comments and has likely ensured that should Rangers need to once again look for a new boss he will be linked with the position a second time, given he has his “dreams and ambitions.”
But the early signs suggest that the Gers have made the right call in appointing Clement, with the Belgian getting off to the perfect start against Hibernian on Saturday (21 October) with a commanding 4-0 win to ensure that the Ibrox crowd are on his side.
One game won’t define Clement’s tenure in Glasgow and he will have to continue to impress week in and week out to genuinely be considered a success, but if he continues his excellent start, there will likely be very few Rangers supporters wishing that they had appointed Jansen instead.
In other Rangers news, Clement could unleash Ross McCausland against Sparta Prague after the latest developments at Ibrox