[article]The main news channels in Glasgow reckon they may as well build a permanent broadcast studio on the scrap of land they use across from Ibrox Stadium, given how often they are there to film pieces about some new drama or calamity at Rangers.
They were there to report on two senior players being suspended, they were there for another manager being sacked, they were there again for two directors leaving the board. And that was just in the past two weeks. Occasionally, they are there for what Rangers would regard as positive news too, so they rolled out again when it broke that Steven Gerrard had agreed to be the club’s 18th permanent manager.
Rangers are news. Rangers are box office. That will never change in Scotland even if the club has been crippled and reduced throughout its era of gross financial mismanagement, liquidation, internal politics and years spent scrambling back through the lower divisions. Rangers’ support has held firm through thin and thin.
An enormous fanbase has been the cornerstone which has maintained the club’s relevance and broader appeal. Some suggested the move to land Gerrard was a PR stunt to shift season tickets. Hardly. For all the endless problems and crises surrounding Ibrox, selling tickets has never been one of them. They shifted more than 40,000 in seasons when they were in with Cowdenbeath, East Stirlingshire and Annan. In the top flight this season, charging higher prices, they sold 43,000. That is why they were attractive enough for Gerrard to choose them for his first plunge into senior management, even if it amounts to a medium risk for him and an enormous one for Rangers.
Rangers’ fundamentals are so huge in Scottish terms, it is inevitable that in time they will free themselves from struggles against the likes of Aberdeen and Hibernian, with whom they are currently squabbling to finish second in the Premiership. Their average attendances are between two and three times those at Aberdeen, Hibs and Hearts. Their turnover and wage bill are at least double those clubs’. A realistic measure of first-season success, for Gerrard, would be finishing comfortably above Aberdeen and the Edinburgh clubs. Delivering a cup for a Rangers support which has not had a major trophy to celebrate since 2011 would amount to a dramatic first campaign.
But here’s the problem: there is no “realistic” measure of success for Rangers. When it comes to the Old Firm, realism is kicked into the long grass because the desire for league supremacy is all-consuming. That is where the enormous pressure lands on Rangers managers, crushing some of them. The likelihood of Gerrard seeing out his four-year contract will stand or fall on his ability to make consistent progress and claw back and eventually overtake Celtic before 2021, when their city rivals can reach a milestone which is already casting a growing shadow over Glasgow.
Both Celtic in the 1960s/1970s and Rangers in the late 1980s/1990s won nine consecutive league titles but neither managed ten. It is a matter of no consequence to the rest of Scottish football, nor pretty much anyone else on the planet, but to the two tribes it is of enormous significance. Celtic’s current march to ten is now at seven and they are superior in every respect on and off the pitch, not least because regular qualification for the Champions League group stage injects another £30 million into their bank reserves.
In the most recent annual figures, Celtic’s turnover was more than £60 million bigger than Rangers’ (£90.6 million to £29.2 million). The clubs recently posted a £23 million profit and a near £1 million loss respectively: Celtic make money and Rangers lose it. Their wage bills are £52 million and £18 million respectively. The chairman, Dave King, has said the club will continue to make losses until they reach group-stage football in Europe in at least two out of every three years: a highly risky business model. The debt has risen to £17.7 million in soft (no interest) loans from fan investors but that income stream could soon dry up. A share issue was mooted months ago but the club has gone quiet on that.
And that’s just the finances. Every outfield Rangers player is inferior to his opposite number at Celtic (although a case can be made that Allan McGregor, the goalkeeper they have re-signed from Hull City, is better than Craig Gordon). In most cases the difference in quality is huge and Celtic even have many second choices who are better than anyone at Ibrox.
Moussa Dembélé, Leigh Griffiths and Odsonne Edouard amount to three strikers on a different level from any Rangers forward. Rodgers signed only Dembélé and Scott Sinclair in his first transfer window and otherwise drew dramatic improvements from the players already there, but Gerrard has inherited a far, far poorer squad than Rodgers did.
He could easily see more than a dozen players heading out this summer: Bruno Alves, David Bates, Fabio Cardoso, Russell Martin, Lee Wallace, Kenny Miller, Sean Goss, Michael O’Halloran, Eduardo Herrera, Jason Cummings, Jordan Rossiter, Joe Dodoo and Dálcio. The disastrous appointment of Pedro Caixinha brought too little return from £10 million-worth of new signings and drained Rangers’ reserves.
The board has been unimpressive — they are crying out for a strong chief executive — and up until now the South Africa-based King has kept his distance from Rangers’ recent managers in more ways than one. No wonder Gerrard is understood to have been forensic in establishing exactly how much money he will have over his first three transfer windows. There are whispers circulating around Rangers about a wealthy investor being ready to come in, although that begs the question why would they not target an experienced manager rather than a rookie if there is serious money coming.
Gerrard is likely to earn around £1 million a year — Celtic pay Brendan Rodgers £2.4 million — and to have even a fighting chance of applying some pressure on their Old Firm rivals he will have asked for at least £10 million to transform a desperate squad over season one. That’s what Caixinha received and given the challenge facing him, Gerrrard’s first test of management came when he sat with the Rangers directors to chisel out the money he will need.
Now it’s up to him to prove his eye for an affordable player, use his status to bring players who otherwise would not come to Rangers, and improve the best of what he inherited. The risk to his career is relatively low because even if he fails there will be clubs in England who would give him a second chance. The risk to Rangers is enormous: if he fails Celtic will be so close to ten in a row they will seem unstoppable.
Celtic have won 12 major trophies since Rangers’ last one. They are in a winning groove, well-run, domestically powerful and regularly boosted by those Uefa windfalls. They are formidable and Rangers have not beaten them over 90 minutes in six years and 14 attempts (although there was one triumph on penalties). This is what Gerrard is taking on, a colossal task even for even a proven manager. In 15 seasons at Liverpool he never won the Premier League but still became a legend. At Rangers he’ll have to do it in three, or the camera crews will be outside Ibrox again.[/article]
