Ibrox’s Indiscipline Rears Its Head Again As Their Assistant Wails About Celtic Boss.

Neil Banfield, Ibrox’s assistant manager, went kamikaze at the weekend when he ranted about Ange and compared his boss to some of the greatest managerial names in European football.

This, of course, was before a rookie who is holding down the Aberdeen job on a temporary basis turned out his lights with the guts of a squad that lost in the Scottish Cup to Darvel.

What can you say about these Peepul that hasn’t already been said? Several tabloids have already combed through Ange’s post-match comments from the League Cup Final to see what this blubbering baby is moaning about, and they’ve come up short. Ibrox’s leadership has always been pretty thin skinned; these people are pathetic.

Ange has never uttered a bad word about this lot, and he is more than entitled to.

Because they have done nothing but denigrate his achievements from the minute they walked through the door, starting with The Mooch’s ludicrous assertion that he would never have let the league get away from them last season.

His own mouth is going to land him the sack. Nothing is surer.

But even if he got a grip on his own runaway gob it would, in all likelihood, not help him.

Because too many people at his club do this on a regular basis now.

They seem to be unable to help themselves.

They are embittered, permanently angry and stone stupid with it. They cannot seem to act with any sort of discipline. They are facing the most dangerous Celtic team many of us can ever remember watching and they keep poking us with a sharp stick.

Message discipline is not difficult to impose. You don’t need an entire PR department to advise you on it either. Companies much smaller than the one at Ibrox know that it’s all about having a settled communications strategy, where everyone knows what he or she is supposed to say and they stick to the script like clockwork.

At Celtic, big Ange will not allow anyone to talk about anything other than the next game on the schedule. That is not just about keeping focus on the here and now, it’s about not offering any hostages to fortune. Big talk today can come back to haunt you tomorrow, and the whole club is brilliant at avoiding those pitfalls and elephant traps.

At Ibrox, they don’t blunder into them as much as leap in with reckless abandon. It is incredible to me that the top people over there permit this. They have to know it is damaging.

They have seen enough evidence of that to last a lifetime.

Banfield’s comments already look ridiculous in light of yesterday’s game. If we end their season next weekend he will look like a complete fool, and will be wholly deserving of any scorn that is sent his way.

I know this; Celtic will not indulge in any of it.

Ange will be asked about these comments, and I already know he will express his bafflement and give them the gentle slapping down of a pro. He can see that this is a weak attempt to create a siege mentality at the club over there, and he also knows when a management team is resorting to that they’re out of better ideas.

He, and our team, will do the talking where it matters; on the park.