Pundit left ‘literally staggered’ by what Michael Beale did at Rangers for Philippe Clement to sort out as millions wasted
The mess left at Rangers by Michael Beale for Philippe Clement to “sort out” in spending millions on misfiring forwards has left Tam McManus “literally staggered”.
The pundit reacted on Twitter (30 November) after the Light Blues drew 1-1 at home to Aris Limassol to leave their Europa League campaign in the balance, claiming that all of the permanent summer signings at striker were worse than the departed Alfredo Morelos.
Danilo drew a blank in 90 minutes of action at Ibrox against the Cypriots, while Sam Lammers was eventually substituted after a surprise start led to another underwhelming performance, and Cyriel Dessers didn’t even get off the bench.
McManus wrote: “Michael Beale has left some mess for Clement to sort out. I’m literally staggered at the amount of money spent on Danilo, Dessers & Lammers.
“None anywhere near the player Morelos was for Rangers.”
Universal opinion
As the summer transfer window wore on and Beale appeared to be getting everything he wanted in attack hopes understandably built that it would produce exciting results.
Yet it has been anything but at Ibrox since the season started, with only Danilo really showing signs of potentially being worth the money spent on him.
The frustrating European draw on Thursday night looks to have signalled the new-manager bounce is over leaving the disjointed and ineffective squad that cost Beale his job with many of the same problems.
There had been fears heading into the summer that Rangers wouldn’t be able to muster the transfer budget required to fund an extensive recruitment drive, and yet around £13million was spent on the three strikers [Daily Record, 13 November] despite Beale’s claims otherwise.
Danilo and Dessers have six each in all competitions while Lammers has just two from more games than either of his fellow summer signings.
That is absolutely not a sufficient return on investment, and currently it doesn’t look like the situation is set to improve greatly.
Clement provided a definite uplift upon arrival to paper over some of the cracks but the momentum is starting to run out and the fallout from the summer mistakes still remain.
In other Rangers news, a BBC pundit has admitted he was shocked by a “big, big” decision made at Ibrox.