Rangers CEO Patrick Stewart has finalised an interim coaching team with a combined 40 domestic trophies between them. But where does this leave the Ibrox club?
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00:00Hello and welcome to your latest episode of Foot by Talk, a weekly round-up where we discuss
00:07all things Celtic and Rangers related.
00:10This today is a Rangers special episode on the back of the news that we've just had on
00:17Monday afternoon at the time of recording, Martin, that Rangers have appointed an interim
00:23coaching team, an all-star interim coaching team consisting of multiple club legends,
00:29but it's been led by Barry Ferguson, who will succeed Philippe Clement on a short-term
00:35basis until the end of the season.
00:37He'll be joined by current Moroccan coach Issam Chaharari, as well as club legends Neil
00:45McCann, Alan McGregor and Billy Dodds.
00:49Firstly, Martin, what is your initial reaction to this afternoon's news?
00:55Well, I think we knew Ferguson was coming in, but the rest of that coaching team really
01:00took me by surprise.
01:02I find it very curious that they've managed to pull together a team like that in under
01:0912 hours since, or a little over 12 hours maybe, since they confirmed the sacking of
01:15Philippe Clement.
01:17I mean, the Scottish media had the news that he was gone.
01:22That was out about, what, three, four hours before Rangers confirmed it themselves, so
01:27presumably they'd started working on this before they actually officially confirmed.
01:33How long before, we don't know.
01:37And it came out pretty early afterwards that Barry Ferguson was being considered to come
01:41in on an interim basis.
01:46It was more Neil McCann and Billy Dodds and Alan McGregor on top of the coach they already
01:54had in there.
01:56I just found it passing strange, to be honest.
02:00That's two ex-head coaches at Scottish Premiership level, and Barry Ferguson himself, with his
02:08experience as a hedge coach, which we'll have to discuss after this, but those guys plus
02:13McGregor, it would be right to say, I don't want to say big egos, but certainly guys that
02:19are used to, and Dodds and McCann, guys that are used to leading coaching teams more so
02:26than being part.
02:27Well, Billy Dodds has been an assistant manager plenty of times in his career as well.
02:31Neil McCann has been involved in coaching teams too.
02:34So there's a lot of people that are going to have a lot of ideas, but I mean, we don't
02:39need to put a negative spin on it.
02:40There's absolutely a positive way of looking at that, in that you've got two very experienced
02:45coaches who have managed at Scottish Premiership level, and then you've got Barry Ferguson,
02:52a true club legend.
02:54If you're the sort of person that wants a proper Rangers man in charge of the club,
02:59you've now got a coaching team with four proper Rangers men in it that is going to be very
03:05pleasing, led by someone, probably one of the greatest modern day Rangers players.
03:13But you can't not discuss Barry Ferguson's coaching record.
03:20Obviously he did well at Kelty Hearts, but anyone who covered the lower leagues or that
03:27club around that time knows that he was working with a budget well above what he was, the
03:34rest of the clubs in the leagues he was working in.
03:35So to get those back-to-back promotions with Kelty wasn't a surprise.
03:40An achievement, winning a league title or getting a promotion is always an achievement.
03:44Don't take that away from him, but it was certainly a case of meeting expectations.
03:49And then his other coaching experience comes at Clyde in Alloa.
03:55And this is the thing that froze me, where Ferguson would be the lead coach in a team
04:00that also has Billy Dodds and Neil McCann.
04:05Probably just because he would be the most...if they'd announced a coaching team until the
04:08end of the season that was led by McCann or Dodds, I think the reaction would have been
04:14quite negative.
04:18With respect to those two, it suggests a real lack of ambition.
04:23Whereas Ferguson has a bit more of a clean slate, if you like, having never managed in
04:29the Scottish Premiership and being...again, with respect to everything that Neil McCann
04:36and Billy Dodds achieved at Rangers, they wouldn't be on the level of iconic status
04:44that Barry Ferguson has.
04:45So I understand why he would be the man to lead this team.
04:52Do you think much of it is potentially to keep supporters relatively happy, Martin,
04:59given obviously, we know the kind of state of affairs at this moment in time.
05:04Everyone is very much turned against Philippe Comonte and the writing is on the wall.
05:09Saturday's defeat to Submarine, very much the final straw for his 16-month tenure.
05:16But given there's been a fractured relationship there in place between the fans and the club's
05:24hierarchy for quite a while now, obviously, it has been a calamitous season.
05:31But do you feel Patrick Stewart has kind of assembled this group purely on the basis that
05:37they are well-respected within the kind of Ibrox faithful?
05:43Yeah, I'd agree with that 100%.
05:47It's a safe decision, I think, to make.
05:52It's just that we're always going to do an interim appointment until the end of the season
05:57once Comonte wins, because we've got all this persistent use with a 49ers-backed group.
06:02Sorry, I'm going to butcher his name here, Parag Marath, I hope I got that right, the
06:10chairman of Leeds United coming in.
06:13And you're not going to give someone a two-and-a-half-year contract when there's going to be a change
06:18of ownership potentially six months down the line.
06:20So an interim coaching team was always on the cards once Comonte wins.
06:27And now I think it comes down to whether, because if you're going to put an interim
06:31coach in, there are so many people out there who might not be looking to move to Glasgow
06:42and take on that job on a full-time basis, but would happily do it for the remainder
06:47of the season.
06:49I'm just like really experienced coaches who are perhaps in their 60s, I'm thinking just
06:56off the top of my head, I'm not suggesting any of these specific names, but in the vein
07:01of a Rafa Benitez or a Sam Allardyce or someone like that, if that kind of makes sense.
07:09If you bring someone like that in with that level of reputation to the end of the season,
07:14because the way I see it is the league, you can never say the league's gone, but the league
07:20feels gone.
07:21And they're out of the Scottish Cup.
07:23So domestically, all they're trying to do is consolidate second place.
07:27And let's face it, with respect to the other teams in the league, with the budget that
07:31Rangers have compared to them and the players they have, you or I could consolidate second
07:37place for that team with a decent backroom staff.
07:43And I'm wondering, given that they're still in the Europa League, and we know how far
07:49they can go in that competition, why then you would want to bring in a coaching staff
07:55made up of guys who are so domestically experienced in Scotland, but have, correct me if I'm wrong,
08:05no European coaching experience?
08:09Maybe McCann or Dodds, was Billy Dodds maybe like assistant manager at Inverness or something
08:17when they were in Europe?
08:19If it's something like that, very long ago, if I'm kind of making sense here, and that's
08:25what's thrown me, why go for the domestic appointment when European football's in?
08:32So to me, it just feels, it's safe, it feels almost far too safe to me.
08:39I think if they'd just brought Ferguson in, there would be far too many questions over
08:44what he has done as a manager before to really merit this, because it's nothing beyond being
08:49a Rangers club legend as a player, you know, it would be like a point in Scott Brown, effectively.
08:55Scott Brown has more coaching experience, relevant coaching experience at this stage
09:02with what he's done at Air United and being assistant manager briefly at Aberdeen,
09:07but he still wouldn't be anything close to being ready, for lack of a better term,
09:13to be the Celtic head coach.
09:15I appreciate this is just an interim basis.
09:19So I get, with the reputation Barry Ferguson has as a player, and then bringing in experienced
09:23coaches like Dodds and McCann, it's, yeah, the club are not going to turn on these people,
09:30and especially not Barry Ferguson.
09:31He'll, it just feels like, it just so, to me, feels like all you're doing is just putting,
09:38like, it couldn't, it fits the word caretaker so properly, because all you're saying to
09:46these guys is just don't burn the place down in the next six months, please, just get us
09:50to the end of the season.
09:52And given that they're still alive in Europe, I feel like there might have been an opportunity
09:58here to have brought a coach in with that caret, of adding a Europa League to their
10:05sort of CV towards the end of a illustrious career.
10:09Someone like that would have, could have been on the cards.
10:14So I just, I don't, I don't really, yeah, it just feels a bit unambitious.
10:20I would have to say.
10:21Yeah, and I guess that that's the reason Philippe Clement kind of was in the role as long as
10:27he was, was purely on the basis that Rangers are in the last 16 of the Europa League.
10:31They've obviously got this two-legged tie coming up against Fenerbahce.
10:34And just finally then, Martin, where, where do you kind of feel this leaves Rangers?
10:39Obviously an interim coaching team now in position until this summer, and a lot's going
10:45to depend on whether or not this takeoff, the takeover deal is completed.
10:50In terms of, you know, those kind of American investors potentially being involved and
10:56having a major influence in a long-term successor.
11:00I guess we touched on it earlier.
11:03The writing is very much on the wall for Philippe Clement, but where can you see
11:07Rangers going from here now?
11:11Well, with a caretaker appointment, obviously, if Barry Ferguson does somehow win the league
11:16or the Europa League, or even like potentially get to the Europa League final, or win both
11:22his remaining old firm games, there are going to be opportunities for Barry Ferguson to
11:27get this, to either be in the mix for this job or to get on a full-time basis.
11:31And that isn't always a good thing because sometimes we've seen lots of clubs in the
11:37past where a caretaker manager gets off to a flying start and kind of forces the owners
11:44to give him the job on a full-time basis, and then it doesn't really work out so well
11:49from there on.
11:50But I do think once the new owners are in place, then they'll have a proper thing.
11:56I can't see any realistic way, short of maybe like reaching, even if he reached, say, like
12:05the semi-finals of the Europa League and won both old firm derbies and kind of, you know,
12:11Celtic won the league by, say, seven or eight or nine points.
12:15They didn't run away with it.
12:17The gap didn't get wider.
12:19I could see Barry Ferguson being a serious contender, but in terms of full-time, I don't
12:26know.
12:27I think it's right that they didn't just rush into bringing Steven Gerrard back.
12:31I think that wasn't an option, like you say, given that there's likely to be a change of
12:35ownership.
12:37But I do think he'll be a realistic candidate in the summer.
12:41Providing another club doesn't snap him up in the meantime, I think he will be a realistic
12:46candidate in the summer.
12:48I would be surprised if representatives from the prospective new Rangers owners aren't
12:55already having conversations like this, saying, you know, would you be interested in this
13:03job if once we confirm our takeover and it's all done and right and we are in charge and
13:09then we can formally...
13:10I would expect to see something like that in the summer.
13:12So I think we could see Steven Gerrard back or maybe I wouldn't think we're going to be...
13:22With new owners, I think they're going to want to make that first appointment sort of
13:28blockbuster or at the very least exciting.
13:33So I can't see it being like a Derek McInnes, for example.
13:40Wherein Rangers fans, obviously, given everything he's achieved and being an ex-Rangers player
13:44and being so established at this level, probably would be quite a good Rangers manager.
13:49I would think new owners are going to either want someone like Gerrard bringing back someone
13:55who won a league title to the club because the fans will love that.
13:58Or maybe a sort of more lesser known name from abroad that they view as exciting and
14:10maybe even someone who could improve.
14:12Not that I would suggest Rangers are too big a club to be like a feeder club for Leeds
14:17United, for example, but certainly someone that they would want within their system.
14:22The way I see of our multi-ownership.
14:25Yeah, well, it'll be an interesting one to see how this kind of pans out over the coming
14:30months and certainly no settling in period for Ferguson, an interim charge with a game
14:36against Kilmarnock on Wednesday night.
14:39Stay tuned to Glasgow World for all the latest takeover news as the fallout to Philippe Clamont's
14:45sacking as Rangers manager continues.