By t_gg
There’s no getting away from it, Ray Davies had a way with words and who didn’t love that droll delivery? And now that, thankfully, Michael Beale has been sent into his own managerial sunset after meeting his Waterloo on Saturday. I’ll give you the address for prospective candidates for his recently vacated berth; Dead End Street, G 51.
The reality is, what transpired and unfolded at Ibrox on Saturday was merely biding its time, waiting for the right moment to makes its move. And move it did and in less than mysterious ways. Three absolute sitters by Beale signings, (four if we add Sima) aided and abetted by abysmal defending by one of the previously mentioned culprits for the opener, all conspired to put the ludicrous summer spending spree by the manager and sanctioned by a benevolent, and ultimately negligent board to be viewed in the cold light of day. And it would appear on Sunday morning it was viewed by the board through a pretty awful prism of mediocrity and lack of thinking. Any forward thinking whatsoever. And that’s on them.It’s not as if the warning signs weren’t there.We can’t defend. We have three quarters of an outfield defence that has been the mainstay for the last five years. In that time, we have won just two trophies. What did Beale think after being in charge, watching these players from November last year? Well, his retail therapy in the summer said it all. Those players he had in defence are good enough.Nine points lost in the league, six at Ibrox, in seven games thus far and humped out of the CL qualifiers tells us otherwise. Not that it is solely down to the defence to be fair, as I have already mentioned in reference to Saturday’s latest instalment of woe and the sheer lack of professionalism by Cifuentes at the opener.We’ll skip the midfield for now and get to the attack. This summer we signed players with no known record of being prolific in that department. I hate the word stats, but will probably use it when is suits my argument. Just call me Joe Pesky.There was nothing, absolutely nothing in what these players had done beforehand at other clubs that made you think they were going to be the next Robert Fleck, far less an Ally McCoist. And wee Flecky at least scored his share of goals.Sima, to give him his due thus far, has scored a couple of thumpingly awesome goals, but we can only hope he’ll kick on. This must sound stupid, but the goals apart, it’s not as if we’ve seen enough to demand he’s an automatic start. But hey, he likes to get the fans going. I mean only the hardest of hearts can’t be moved by those big arms up in the air trying to rouse you?Dessers? You want to see it, you are willing to see it, the penalty goal under pressure at home to Livi, the weight of the pass for that wonderful goal by Matondo v PSV at Ibrox. Yet for all you want to believe there is so much more to come, the sitters on Saturday are enought to make you doubt it ever will. The delusions that you find, in the windmills of your mind.As for a midfield that still involves Jack and/or Lundstram? They haven’t invented the emoji yet to describe how I feel about the notion this pair should still be in the squad, never mind first team picks? And it has all happened under Beale’s watch. He had the best part of a year to see how these previous bunch of perennial losers operated and decided to pretty much keep the faith with a fair percentage of them. He put his head on the chopping block for these players. The chopping block won. And it only took seven rounds.Of course, when it comes to mentioning the stuttering starts of the newbies, Butland excepted, the absolutely ludicrous way each and every, single one of the summer draft were hailed, is still worth mentioning. I get, truly get that our punters are so starved for success, they’ll latch onto the newest, great, white hope. But surely that hope and expectations need to be founded on something tangible? Again, Butland, excepted, how many of the new players came to the club with anything remotely looking like a promising track record?As for those up the Marble Staircase? The Directors of Rangers Football club. Where do they go from here? Because I don’t want to be on the bus they’re driving. The Aberdeen result on its own won’t signal the end of them personally but I do believe, and this is the most important bit; The honeymoon period, and it has been a ludicrously long one, from March 2015 until now has officially finished. Last Saturday was the watershed.The harsh reality is, back then we were saved by the good guys from the Abyss. In reality, what we have had to live through since then has saw us scramble our way up from the depths to the merely abysmal.Since then, we’ve had to live through a succession of managers, Gerrard apart, who shouldn’t have been allowed access to the reserves let alone the first team. The newly be-gonned, Beale, being the latest public face of a board that appears hopelessly out of its depth in football matters. Once again, there was nothing, absolutely nothing in his time as manager at QPR, that even whispered potential, far less screamed it out.The following is without doubt the most difficult thing, I’ve ever said in my time at FF. I grew up amidst their real ‘niar’, immediately after the Baxter era which was not only my old man’s favourite time as a Rangers fan but probably thousands upon thousands of other Rangers fans following the club. .He used to regale me with tales of how he humiliated them, of how 3 must have been his lucky number. Of how he treated them with the contempt they deserve. Reality is, the Baxter era lasted just four and a half years. From when he signed until his leg break in Vienna.Well, since the club was wrestled back from the spivs, we’ve basically went eight years of humiliation upon humiliation. I now officially realise how it must have felt being a yahoo sixty years ago. However, that’s twice as long a period we’ve been suffering and is not a pleasant thing to admit.Now Beale has went and deservedly so. But how can we trust the current bunch in charge to go about their business diligently and bring in someone with fresh ideas, someone professional, someone with gravitas and a proven track record? Now I realise full well it is going to be the silly season with the names being tossed around, but if the likes of Lampard, Wilder and especially McInnes are truly on their radar, I don’t want sharks outside Ibrox, I want Orcas.Personally, I do not care what a Director of our club does in his professional life to warrant his stint at Ibrox. All I demand, is that in his time at Ibrox he can justify being there and help in bettering the club. This present bunch cannot even get the timescale of the ‘Barcelona strip’ in the new Museum correct. We are truly a joke at all levels.I started with a mention of The Kinks and I’ll end with a wee nod to The Who.I’ll get on my knees and pray; we don’t get fooled again.Well, a boy can dream.