Michael Beale to Sunderland ‘astonishing’ as Rangers reign ignored in England – Ewan Murray
It is “astonishing” that Michael Beale is set for the Sunderland job and suggests his time at Rangers was ignored in England, according to Ewan Murray.
The journalist reacted via Twitter on 15 December after it emerged that the former Ibrox boss was expected to take over at the Stadium of Light, two and a half months after losing his job in the SPFL.
Beale lasted just under a year back in Glasgow following his stint as Steven Gerrard’s assistant, after spending just six months in his first managerial role at QPR, but lost his job after an extensive summer transfer overhaul produced negative results to start the new season.
Murray wrote: “Astonishing. If further proof that clubs in England pay no attention to 99% of what happens in Scotland.”
Unscathed
Perhaps Beale will be a success back in the English Championship, and as Rangers Review’s Jonny McFarlane suggested in the replies to Murray the fact that he will be the head coach rather than the manager might be key.
But it was a risk for Ross Wilson and company to bring him back to Glasgow last year when he had only managed 22 games at QPR and the fast start he had made at Loftus Road looked to have fallen away already.
So to spend nearly a year at Ibrox and not win a trophy, while only picking up one victory against Celtic at the tail end of last term, it is hard to tell what has convinced Sunderland to move for him this quickly.
Tony Mowbray was sacked by the Black Cats after a poor run of form, having been deemed to have overachieved in reaching the play-offs last season [Guardian, 6 December], so Beale as a replacement seems a doubly-strange move off the back of his summer transfer business taking Rangers backwards, while being accused of behaving poorly along the way.
Philippe Clement is now picking up the pieces and appears to be doing a fairly strong job of it, and while there were some positives to his predecessor’s time at Ibrox it is a surprise development that he is walking into a job the size of Sunderland already.
Even if they have ignored everything north of the border aside from his win percentage on paper they won’t have been able to miss his controversial stay at QPR, where he infamously made a big point of rejecting an approach from Wolves on the grounds of “integrity and loyalty” [Sky Sports] before leaving for Rangers less than two months later.
Perhaps Beale proves any doubters wrong and makes it third time lucky, but having ultimately come up short in the big moments as Gers boss and undermined himself with a propensity for big talk in public in Scotland it is a turn up for Sunderland to have been convinced as a result.
In other Rangers news, an eight-figure windfall at Ibrox is now expected to benefit Clement in the January transfer window.