How Will Ibrox Attract Its Next Manager? Easy. They Will Lie To Him.

If you believe the media, the Ibrox club is gearing up to appoint its new manager soon.

They have even kitted out the Blue Room for the announcement.

It is expected to be Van Bronckhorst, but they have left themselves enough wiggle room in case he doesn’t commit by saying that they have a shortlist of three including names “not in the public domain.”

Phil Mac Giolla Bhain and I were chatting about this just the other day, and I said that they would have a difficult job convincing a manager to take the job.

You know what he said to me? “Unless they lie.”

Which I admonished him for. I mean, for goodness sake. The board of Ibrox might lie to a prospective manager? Wherever did he get that idea from?

We both laughed. Because of course they might lie. Or at the very least they might do what they have done here in briefing the press and the fans. They might make promises vague enough to wriggle out of.

They might make commitments depending on the big “If.”

If they get to January still in the title race. If they sell players. If they get to the Champions League in the summer. If fans continue to spend money on the myriad commitments the club keeps on insisting they make. The manager may have been told that he would get the resources he required “if.” And if I were him, I’d be wary of signing up for that.

It is easy to say that no professional would ever fall for that kind of approach, but the truth is that most of us don’t lie regularly, most of us would feel terrible about it and as such most of us lack the skill-set (and it is a real skill) to do it convincingly.

There is a great moment in the wonderful TV show Succession, where the patriarch of the family, Logan Roy, is asked a direct question by a key character and he lies. Furthermore, he knows the person who’s asking is well aware of who he is, yet he does it.

The character looks at him in something like wonderment and suggests that the ability to do that is “like a kind of super-power.” Because in some ways it is.

The average person does not have the lack of conscience or lack of shame necessary to brazenly lie to another person’s face without the slightest hint of discomfort.

But the Ibrox board is comprised of just the sort of people who are capable of that sort of behaviour.

Whoever gets that job next will need eyes on the back of his head, and if he doesn’t have certain things in writing he and his agent should get that sorted before he takes the gig.

Even then he’s flying blind. That club just published accounts with a “material uncertainty” caveat in them. It is trying to replace an entire management team on the cheap so that it can bank at least some of the Gerrard monies to pay down debts.

There are no guarantees in taking a job like that.