Has Ibrox Run Into Difficulties In Negotiating For Their New Manager?

If you assume, as we all do, that the financial state at Ibrox is one of the reasons Gerrard fled Ibrox for Birmingham, you must assume that nothing has changed for the better in the week since he scuttled back to England.

If you’re looking at it rationally, things there are worse than before.

Before this week they had a settled backroom team and a management who knew the players and the club’s financial position. All of them are gone. They got such a modest sum of money for them that they could comfortably blow all of it on assembling the new team. If they try to do it on the cheap then cheap is exactly what they will get.

The countdown clock is still ticking towards the weekend. I am certain they did not want to go into that game without a new boss. I am certain they don’t want to go into the game against Sparta having failed to sort this stuff out. But we’re in Tuesday now and there can’t be much room left for them to get their act together.

They claim to be relaxed about it all. But are they really? How can they be? Would we be? The spin is that they want to “get it right” and don’t want to rush it … but they are down to a final three. They have re-interviewed Van Bronckhorst and the strategic leaking going on everywhere suggests strongly that he’s their number one pick.

So why isn’t it done? What’s the hold-up? Some in the press have already started to speculate that perhaps there are issues in getting it over the line. Issues like the Dutchman having one idea about what he needs and the club having another.

Ibrox’s media strategy is obvious here. “We are not panicking.” But a week ago they were a settled club and now they are promoting guys from the backroom to the coaching department to plug the gaps. They are frantically trying to get a deal done, but in the meantime they have three coaches doing the first team training and haven’t said who is in charge.

This is a cup semi-final at Hampden they have coming up, not a game against a plucky struggler at home. The European match next midweek is critical. And they are content to “take their time.” Who really believes that? Who’s asking the questions?

Van Bronckhorst and his people know they are desperate to get the deal done. This is the moment for using whatever leverage they have. Lennon used his and got consideration for the top job; it is the stupidest thing our club has done in living memory and I can only wonder if they weren’t perhaps stupid enough to put it in writing if certain conditions were met.

If you were in Van Bronckhorst’s shoes, what would you demand? And if you were in the shoes of their directors what could you realistically deliver? Don’t let anybody kid you that things are carrying on over there as normal and that the feeling inside the club is of excitement; a week ago they knew were they were. Now nobody inside or outside of there has a clue.

That’s a crisis, however the press tries to dress it up.

And that crisis deepens with every day they don’t get a deal done.

The media isn’t asking and their fans don’t want to … but is there a delay here because they can’t give convincing answers to the questions their “candidates” are asking?