There’s a whistling in my ears this morning and it isn’t tinnitus. It’s the sound of air being let out of a wind-bag, a collective one, containing all the wit and wisdom of a number of our tabloid hacks and radio panellists, those who predicted Sevco would have a great season. They do exist, you know. Some of them, and I won’t name them and shame them – because you can’t; these people are beyond shame – even said they’d win at the weekend.
Last night Warburton heard a different sound, rolling out of the stands at Ibrox, the sound of booing, a sound he’s becoming accustomed to as his long, hard second season drags on and on and on. It looks like an afterthought already although the league portion of it is still only a quarter done. There’s a desperation about their club right now, and about him in particular, that is highly amusing but was also easily predicted.
I said many times on this blog that he would be where Ronny Deila found himself long before the season ended, and we’re right on course for it.
There were other noises at Ibrox last night, howls of frustration, wind shrieking through the gaps in the roof, the slap of boots on leather and behind it all the sharpening of pencils. You can hear that noise today, in the background, and it’s that noise which signals the end for this guy long before Dodgy Dave gives him the dreaded vote of confidence.
There are several managers in Scotland who can attest to how their time was brought to a premature end by the media. There are others who offer marked testimony to the way in which the press can protect and defend their reputations long after that has become sheer madness. The case in point is Ally McCoist, who had so many pals in the press boxes that seasoned hacks would fully admit that they couldn’t be objective when it came to him.
Had McCoist been any other manager his time in the Ibrox hot-seat would have been cut well short. The hacks would never have allowed the club many of them love and which their editors are so afraid of offending, to go downhill the way it did without taking remedial steps to bring his tenure to an end. They did it with others, including the stand-in boss who came after him, Stuart McCall, who but for a few loyal mates was pretty much filleted.
These people have no loyalty to Warburton, and they are sharpening their knives for him already. Many of them would always have been much happier with the blood and thunder football a “Real Rangers Man” would have brought to the club. The argument – and it’s not one without some merit – is that this is more suited to the SPL than the tippy-tappy stuff he allegedly tries to play. A more direct boss would adapt to suit and better results would follow.
Therein lies the theory, as grounded in the 90’s and Walter Smith thinking as it is. McCoist tried it for years and Warburton has built such a lightweight squad of weaklings it’s never going to work for him either, but you can see how this thinking would gain a following.
The quest to have a Real Rangers Man in the dugout will be gathering pace before long, as the pressure on Warburton increases. Already The Daily Record is turning the guns on him, warning him today that even Joey Barton may be at Ibrox longer; he’ll certainly prove a lot harder to sack. You need grounds for that. Arguing with the manager doesn’t give them any. Being out of a cup and fifth in the league, on the other hand ….
When the media turns full tilt – and they will, the second European football starts to look like a forlorn hope – that’s the ball game, that’s the end, and the Magic Hat will be retired back to whatever idiot cupboard this bizarre and unintentionally hilarious notion came out of in the first place. The clock is ticking down, but the sound of it is fading compared to the steady click click click of keyboards in the editorial offices.
The media doesn’t have the sway it once did, but they can create a firestorm which spreads and utterly consumes managers. This is what Warburton is now facing, criticism like he’s never seen or heard before in his life, because he is failing, because he’s bursting the media’s credibility bubble, because he’s at Ibrox and the media won’t tolerate failure there.
It’s now just a matter of time.