Rangers Next Manager If there is one thing to unite Rangers fans in recent weeks, it remains Ally McCoist. Sadly the unity is a general consensus that his time is up, and Rangers need a change at the helm. Rather than analyse his (many) failings as Rangers boss (done it many times already), Ibrox Noise decided to have a run-down of the potential replacements. Over the past year or two a lot of names have been linked with the Ibrox hotseat, and we will now take you through four of the most notable monikers to stand out among the crop, in no particular order. Tony Pulis. Out of work since his exit from Crystal Palace, and loosely linked with Rangers ever since, Pulis is a long shot. He achieved wonders at Selhurst Park, managing a side endowed with such heady names as Joe Ledley, Jason Puncheon and Barry Bannan to its highest-ever finish in the EPL of 11th place. For Palace this was a staggering return given its squad, and Pulis is credited with bringing organisation, discipline, and unity to the team. Hard to argue with that. Pulis is particularly noted in England for his time at Stoke City as well, having had two spells at the Britannia. For a manager who has spent his whole career with ‘bottom 10’-type clubs, his record of never being relegated stands out. Indeed, he would still be at Palace had the owners supported his transfer policy, but a lack of agreement there saw his departure. He would be an outstanding acquisition for Rangers, instilling strength, unity, drive, and passion to the Club while organising the players properly and making them fight for the cause. Many argue he would make the team ‘boring’ – but the most reasonable response to that is to point out Rangers are not even boring right now, they just are not as good as that. Another one would be ‘so?’ Success is needed, a good solid team is required, and if Pulis could bring that, all the better. Stuart McCall. A strongly-linked name sees a former Ibrox son heavily associated with a return. His managerial career has been moderate, with a 30% win rate at Bradford City. Admittedly City were never really expected to be Barcelona, and McCall had some difficult circumstances to deal with there, especially budget-related, but he never really achieved much under them, and as popular as he is among the Ibrox faithful, might find similar circumstances at Ibrox equally daunting. He fared a bit better at Motherwell though, guiding them to second last season, which, surrounded by Dundee Utd and Aberdeen, is not a bad finish at all. Unfortunately this season was poor at Fir Park and he resigned last month, believing his time to be up. Currently he is enjoying life under Gordon Strachan as assistant coach for Scotland, with the national team having a major renaissance, and it might be tricky to persuade him to give that up. Billy Davies. I am unsure if his name is half the reason he is so popular as a potential Rangers manager, but Davies has been heavily mooted for a role at Ibrox for many years. He is the only manager linked who has the ignominy on the list of having been sacked from every job he has had. The closest he got to resigning was Derby County and ‘mutual consent’ which is, as Walter Smith once put it, ‘a polite firing’. He had a very good 2006/07 where he managed to get the Pride Park outfit into the EPL, having secured a route there via the playoffs, but failed dreadfully in England’s top flight which led to aforementioned mutual consent departure. That one admittedly good season aside, Davies simply has not cut his teeth in management, and seems unwilling to take responsibility for anything which goes wrong. The press have had a field day with this attitude, and Davies is now extremely unpopular in England, with some journalists especially heavily scathing of his ghastly media displays. He is unlikely to find work there again, and Rangers should be incredibly wary of even considering him. Terry Butcher. Another one to have had a fair to middling managerial career, Butcher’s name has cropped up again in recent months. Not hugely popular with fans these days after comments he made in his autobiography years ago, Butcher was nevertheless a winner in his playing days and an integral part of 9IAR. His time in various hotseats has been thoroughly mediocre, with his best spell being in charge of Inverness – indeed, he was on the shortlist for manager of the year in 2013. However his disaster at Hibs and subsequent claim he will never manage a Scottish club again pours cold water over the possibility of his returning to Govan. Never say never though. Other names have included Dick Advocaat, Derek Adams and Brian Laudrup, and from a personal point of view the latter would be dreadful, given the Dane is one of my heroes. I do not want what has happened to Super Ally to happen to the Great Dane too, so that one for me is an absolute no-no. Advocaat is a poor one too – he did well at Ibrox with budget, this time there is none. Adams is not the worst shout given a top-6 SPL finish last season but he struggled with Ross County this time around and was rewarded with the sack. Truth is Rangers cannot attract a top-class manager, but if Pulis could be persuaded, he would be by far the best bet. Posted by Ibrox Noise at 11:07 ibroxnoise.co.uk/2014/12/rangers-next-manager.html
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 12:53:24 +0000
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