As With The Lennon Appointment, Ibrox Looks Close To Home And A Shortlist Of One.

I’m supposed to be off for the next few days, but I have a feeling that I am going to need to keep close to the PC because the Ibrox operation is about to embark on its latest Road To Nowhere. If all the reports are to be believed, it’s going to be Beale.

I’ll cover it properly when the announcement is made. But there are plenty of reasons for thinking that it will be a disaster before it even starts.

What intrigues me is the whole aura of make believe which surrounds it, and in particular this idea that some list is being whittled down to a shortlist and that it’s from this group of top candidates that a decision will come.

It’s cobblers as any sentient person must surely already know. Sky Sports tonight ran with the story that Ibrox will “seek permission to talk to Beale” tonight; why even bother?

Nobody at QPR will be fooled by an “official approach” at this stage.

What the Ibrox club has done here is as close to tapping a manager as you’ll ever get and the London team should not only get their due compensation but should insist on sanctions as well.

Their “shortlist” is what it says on the tin. A short list. Of one.

It’s like when Lawwell stood outside Celtic Park on the day of Rodgers’ departure and said we were looking at multiple candidates just to give Lennon the gig hours later. That was a similarly short list, as was the one which led to his getting the job in the Hampden shower.

When a club does business this way it has run out of ideas, and heads need to roll. Ibrox isn’t really expecting to fool anyone with this “shortlist” business any more than Lawwell was when he talked the exact same garbage.

The decision to sack Van Bronckhorst was a product of fear, and as I said last night – and this is not the piece I have in mind for the song – You’re A Whole Different Person When You’re Scared, and you don’t make rational decisions.

They, like Celtic, went for a warm body who “knows the club.” Therefore, someone who can come in right away and be familiar with the squad and the basics. But it’s a rare thing, indeed, for that to end in anything but disaster. The old familiar patterns are what got them here. Business as usual isn’t a solution for a club in crisis.

Lennon, at least, inherited a Rolls Royce. It took him 18 months to make it resemble a clapped out Skoda with the doors hanging off.

This will unravel a Hell of a lot quicker than that.