Sevco is getting a lot of credit for failure today.
They went for Ross Wilson at Southampton, for the much vaunted Director of Football role which they claim is part of their “long term plan.”
That plan is already in ruins.
The search has become farcical. There is no structure to it whatsoever. Whoever takes on that job has to be out of their minds.
If someone takes that job.
That is now in serious doubt, with reports that the club is ready to dump the whole scheme.
There was no chance of Wilson accepting it.
Indeed, their attempt to land him was sheer arrogance, the idea that the name “Rangers” is enough to entice people north of the border. It isn’t. It never was. What attracted big names in the past was that the club thought big, looked big and acted big.
It also appeared to have the cash to back up all that bluster and egotism.
They think big, but they act like an amateur organisation. They no longer look an attractive prospect either. Their handling of various issues and situations since King took over has been comedic stuff, some of it frankly irrational. The Barton meltdown and how it was handled, the Warburton sacking, the falling out with sponsors … all of this is mind-boggling stuff to outside observers, who must think the people who run the club are quite mad.
Wilson was highly unlikely to be swayed by the name and reputation of “Rangers.” He has actual things at Southampton, resources, contacts and a plan in place. When he spoke to the media last month about the scope of the operation he has there I knew he wouldn’t touch the job at Sevco with a twenty foot pole. Too much uncertainty. Too little genuine forward thinking. Too much focus on one specific goal; catching us.
He certainly sat down with the club’s reps and discussed this, but that was the problem right there. He would have been hugely unimpressed by what he heard. First, there’s no money. Second, there’s no network. Third, see number one and number two and draw your only conclusions. Fourth, and this one would have troubled him greatly, the club had already offered someone the job as manager, without bothering to wait for his input.
If you are one of the people who believes a Director of Football system can work at a club – and I sort of understand it to an extent, but tend to agree with Brendan that if you have a strong leader it’s neither necessary or even particularly desirable – then you’ll be aware that making a success of it depends on a certain amount of personal chemistry between him and the manager. It depends on trust. On shared goals and ideas.
It can’t be done without them, because then it turns into a source of conflict, where the DoF should always have the whip hand.
When the manager chooses the DoF, and not the other way about, who has the run of the place then?
What if they appoint a manager, ask for his input and he says he doesn’t like the people they’re looking at?
That could work as a stalling tactic if the manager simply decides he doesn’t like the idea in the first place.
This whole thing is a recipe for acrimony and disaster, and the arrogance of the club to approach a guy like Wilson when there was no clear strategy in place for this is as breath-taking as it’s irresponsible.
Today there are suggestions that their second choice for the Director of Football role, Paul Mitchell, who has already left Spurs, will turn them down too, because he is already waiting for a better offer from England.
This is a guy who does have admirers; Celtic were said to be looking at him, but didn’t, to the best of my knowledge, submit a formal bid.
We would be able to offer him a place in a system that Ross Wilson of Southampton would have recognised well. Sevco would be asking him to build one out of bottle tops and used fag ends, and to do so working alongside a manager he would know next to nothing about and who he’d probably never met. If you think that’s not important you only have to consider the ill-nature of the fit when we appointed John Collins to work with Ronny, overseen by John Park.
Even with the best will in the world this could be chaotic.
Stewart Robertson spoke to the media three weeks ago, in the wake of the Warburton sacking, to inform the world that there was a “plan” in place. When they lost that weekend’s game the plan was immediately ditched. Letting Murty run things whilst they appointed a Director of Football and then, with him at the helm of the hunt, they conducted a search for a new manager was a piece of joined up thinking I believed had some merit.
That it was so swiftly dumped on the altar of one result and a looming match at Parkhead showed the gulf in leadership at Ibrox and the very real absence of a clue. We are four weeks down the line from their Night of the Long Knives and in place of a plan is a shambles. Even the hunt for their manager has been conducted in a shoddy manner; as of today there is no agreement with the man himself or his club, but the media keeps telling us it’s imminent.
Sevco fans must be very reassured by that.
Even as I write this, Alison Conroy of Radio Clyde has added an incredible twist to the mix; as Mitchell looks likely to turn them down as well, Sevco might not bother with a Director of Football appointment at all now, labelling it a “long term prospect” – which basically means “when it snows it Hell.”
This is an astonishing turn-around.
Is anyone running stuff over there?
Are they really just making it up as they go along?
All of this is to say that the contrast between what’s going on at Celtic right now and the calamitous nature of things at Ibrox contains to paint an astonishing picture of two clubs in the same city and which, if you believe the press, aspire to greatness.
Celtic’s greatness is already manifest in the way our manager and our board are laying foundations for an even brighter future.
Over at Sevco they all have their shovels in hand, but whatever they are doing, they aren’t laying foundations.
One is tempted to suggest that they’re digging graves instead.