Barry Ferguson headlines all-star Rangers interim coaching team after Philippe Clement sacking

GlasgowWorld

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?

Transcript

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.

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