Last month, I did a piece on generals fighting the last war. That rings far truer now. The Ibrox operation has geared itself up to build a certain team to play a certain way against a certain Celtic manager. The thing is, that manager is no longer in the job and they have no idea – none of us do yet – who is going to take the reins next at our club.
But it will be different. The next guy will have his own ideas and his own tactics and his own little surprises in store. A good tactical manager will eat The Mooch for dinner. He is supremely confident that his team will have our number next season, based on a series of performances he seemed indecently pleased with in spite of losing all but one, and that single win in particular. That was a performance and a result that looked bad enough at the time … knowing what we do now about a manager who probably had at least one foot out the door it becomes worse.
But all his confidence was based on games against a manager who is no longer in the equation and it is hard to imagine anyone who watched the games between the two sides who will not conclude that our midfield perhaps needs at least one iron man in it; The Mooch has never taken into account the idea that we might yet marry our flair with players who are as hard as nails … and that will negate whatever ideas he has in his stupid head. This is the stuff of his worst nightmares.
This is why I laughed yesterday at screaming headlines about how he would not fear anyone and how their team would be “a different animal.” The stupidity of that boast lies in its plain refusal to recognise what is blindingly obvious; by virtue of the circumstances in which we’ve unexpectedly found ourselves we are going to be a different animal too.
One of the things we talked about in relation to the summer was that as good as this squad is that there is not a position in it where we could not, if the will and the finances were there, go out and find a better footballer. Even Kyogo has his equal, or better, out there somewhere within our price range and especially if he goes for some monster fee.
The thing with any manager is that he will have his favourites; a new manager will evaluate everything with a fresh, and critical, eye and whilst I don’t expect a whole bunch of changes I think the ones we get could come in surprising areas and pop a few eyeballs.
As I said previously, I get excited whenever a new manager comes to our club because it shakes up the place and leaves opposition managers – who might have figured things out – completely stunned and back at square one again. This is a crucial advantage we have here and whilst we wouldn’t have sought it deliberately it is the one that we have to press home.
The Ibrox war machine, that creaking thing that is being assembled by a manager who must already feel whiplashed, was designed and is being built to fight the last war, the one against the Celtic of Ange Postecoglou.
With no idea who is about to arrive at Celtic, he cannot be anywhere near as confident as his toadies in the media think … unless he’s also stupider than we thought.
I genuinely reckon he is stupider than we thought. His recruitment of duds and donkeys from the EFL Championship strongly indicates extremely limited horizons, and while every manager loves to think himself capable of giving some fallen idol or unfulfilled starlet the chance to revive a flagging career and being richly rewarded with dazzling performances, only a complete moron would think you could sign a whole clutch of players like that and expect to revive all their careers simultaneously. Step forward Ian Beale. He should have stuck with the chip shop in The Square…..
fuck the mooch , my interest is in what celtic do to out perform the huns , hart will not be no one any longer . no fucking about with the ball tippy tapping in the box , ange ball , suicide in europe style , keep the team and add muscle to the midfield
Never write these bastards off. Remember 1975,1987, 1999, 2003, 2005, 2008 and 2020. We had both entities dead each time and then had to eat shit.
We know what theyre like, every single pre-season and that’s exactly why we need tae have a good replacement put in charge, or the ibrox club and their media will be entitled tae be confident. We’ll see how ambitious PL and DD want tae be.
I think he might be more stupid than you thought.
sevco has regressed to 2012: when they were scrabbling for players to play Brechin,
and its famous hedge!
Beale has to cobble together a squad with negligible funds,
AND somehow, challenge a Treble winning squad, (regardless of who is the next manager.)
Worse than that, Beale will still be talking a good game, when he should really do a runner…
Get Rodger’s back, Ultimate professional and keep Lawell away from picking signings
Next year The Rangers will be ” a different animal ” but the only thing is, ” We don’t care what the animals say.”
Why waste time even thinking about ANYTHING the rats at govan sewage plant are doing ,they,LL still finish in their usual place in LGE bellow us looking up with those sad and envious eyes.HAIL HAIL
reckon rodgers will agree we need an ironman , hard but clean no nonsense player in the middle to dominate and give assurance to hatate and mcgregor who have been getting lumps kicked out of them , we’v been lacking there ever since brown left
Your disrespecting all the other teams muppet