The Mooch Risks Dressing Room Resentment As He Throws His Weight Around Ibrox.

Last week, early on, I wrote an article about Michael Beale in which I compared him to Trump’s short lived communications guy Anthony Scaramucci, otherwise known as The Mooch.

He lasted just ten days.

His brief tenure pissed off so many members of the administration that they resigned.

This included both the press secretary and the chief of staff.

His high-handed attitude and his threatening posture would have led to the resignations of many, many more officials, those he didn’t sacked. And he was threatening to sack a lot of them. From the moment he walked in the door he was intimidating people and throwing his weight around. His reign of terror ended after he called a journalist to accuse a fellow Trump official of being a leaker. He forgot to make sure the call was “off the record.” In it he basically went a bit mad and when the transcript was published the end was nigh.

The outgoing chief of staff was replaced by John Kelly. His first major act in the role was to call Scaramucci in for a meeting and to tell him to clear out his desk.

Beale reminds me of The Original Mooch in many ways. He is a big-head, an egotist, a guy who thinks that because he can do one thing well that he can do anything well. He tries to rule by intimidation and fear. He thinks this is the way to create order.

But any modern manual on leadership would discourage this style. Nobody inside Ibrox understands that, which is why they are letting him run riot. They will regret it soon enough.

Already he’s threatened the contract rebels when he has nothing to threaten them with. He has told others that if they don’t want to be at Ibrox he wants them gone.

Watch as a couple of them, Kamara included, take him up on that without delay. He has re-issued the demand that players wear suits, an affection which suggests he is image obsessed and the master of minor, irrelevant details.

It does not make players better on the pitch, which is the only thing that he’s supposed to deliver on.

Now he’s cancelled Sunday off, and has told the players that after today’s game that they will be in at Auchenhowie tomorrow to work their backsides off.

The old wisdom about never interrupting your enemy when he’s making a mistake comes readily to mind here. The Mooch is making a bunch of them already and they will not breed good habits and success but anger, resentment and dislike.

That’s what kills managerial regimes before they’ve even unpacked their boxes. Beale will last longer than Scaramucci did – it would be hard not to – but this isn’t a management team that is laying foundations to last. The writing is already on the wall.