As far as the Maritimo game is concerned, you have to remember they were hardly playing a top notch European, or even Portuguese, side: that wasn’t Porto or Boavista. I can’t believe how thin on the ground they are in midfield. You’ve got Alex Rae who’s 34, Stephen Hughes and Gavin Rae, and then who? They paid £1m for Dragan Mladenovic, who hasn’t shown anything to say he’s an international who’s got what it takes to play in the European game.
Mladenovic always wants to do things at his own pace, and you wonder: what are you? He’s not a box-to-box player, but he doesn’t seem much of a passer either. A lot has been made about his lack of match fitness, but you don’t have to be fit to spot your striker and play a 40-yard ball to him. I haven’t seen him put the boot in, or crunch into tackles, so he’s a bit of an enigma.
Look at Stilian Petrov at Celtic: Rangers have got no-one in there in his role. Rae’s not going to get up and down as much. Jorg Albertz used to be a real danger in that role, but these days you’re not going to get that type of player unless you’ve got £5m in your pocket.
Playing Dado Prso out on the left wing is a tactic that’s worked OK, but they’ve bought him as a striker who scored goals in the Champions League. Nacho Novo is wet behind the ears, so those two have to play together to form a partnership. The only other option is Stevie Thompson, and it’s glaringly obvious McLeish doesn’t fancy him. Shota Arveladze teeters on the brink every game. He’s got loads of talent, but when do you ever see him take a game by the scruff of the neck?
Rangers look solid at centre-half, but I’m puzzled as to what’s happened to Zurab Khizanishvili. He’s obviously spoken out at some point down the line and upset his manager. We’ve all done that, no-one more than me, but I don’t think Alex can afford to ignore him. They’re well short on quality, he started the season well, and to leave him on the bench, or not even in the squad, would be McLeish cutting off his nose to spite his face.
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Khizanishvili and Jean-Alain Boumsong were looking good as a partnership. I don’t think Zurab is as good a centre-half as Craig Moore, but he’s too good not to be playing at right-back or even as a holding midfieler.
McLeish can’t buy anybody until January, but could benefit from going to a 4-4-2 system. They need to focus on the wide men. Chris Burke is an excellent outlet on the right, but they need something on the left. Maybe Alex can give Peter Lovenkrands a magic tablet or something to make him believe in himself. Bob Malcolm gets criticism at times, but he could do a better job than some in the sitting midfield role. He’s not going to storm away and get you a goal, but he’s solid and could sort a few people out.
If Rangers don’t go through against Maritimo and Hearts beat Braga over the two legs, there’ll be all sorts of chaos and McLeish’s position would be untenable. They wanted to get into the Champions League group stages, but it might be a blessing in disguise that they didn’t get into the Champions League — they would have got all the TV money, but they can do without going to places like the Nou Camp for now. I think the Uefa Cup is much more their level at the moment.
I think the manager and the players have to take an equal share of the blame for the way things are. In a way, I feel sorry for Alex because he’s been limited in terms of what he’s been able to bring in. But the buck stops with him. The knives are out now, he’s under pressure and that’s going to be looming large in the next few weeks. Alex knows that it’s a results-orientated business.
Things are going to go one of two ways for Rangers. They’ve got quite a while before the next Old Firm game, so they need to go on a right sequence of wins. Or, they could continue to stumble and McLeish’s position is really going to be under question.
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I don’t think they’re near to challenging Celtic. They won’t get away with spilling points because Celtic don’t look like dropping any. I don’t know Alex that well, but I know I wouldn’t like his job. It comes with immense pressure: from players, fans, directors. That takes its toll. You go home and can’t get it out of your head. You can tell he’s disappointed, and that deep down he knows he doesn’t have enough quality.
There’s no doubt a manager’s attitude comes through in the way the players then perform. Jim Smith at Derby was a very positive guy, and the players responded to that. John Gregory seemed to sit there and say: “You guys are all puppets to me,” and the players didn’t perform for him. Players have got to sit there, look at your plans and say: “Yeah, I fancy that,” or “that formation will work”. Managers do lose the dressing room, it ’s something that happens over a period of time. I don’t know if that’s the case at Rangers.
Alex is a million miles from being like John Barnes. He went about it all the wrong way at Celtic when I was there; the players had no respect for him and that showed through in the performances. Managing is a hard job — you’ve got to keep so many people happy. Saying that, though, they get paid well for it and nobody drags you out the door saying: “You’ve got to be the next Rangers manager.”
There’s been a lot of flak flying around, but the question is, could anyone actually do a better job than Alex? Don’t get me wrong, you’d still have a list as long as your arm wanting the position if it came up. I hope things work out for him; he’s a Scottish manager and I’m not a great fan of foreign coaches. Alex must be wondering, though, what the guys upstairs think. Do they believe in him? Is there no money to spend or are they thinking “we might be changing manager soon ”?
Across Glasgow, Martin O’Neill has got a structure to his team, a defined way of playing. Everyone knows their job. Rangers just seem to be toing and froing, there’s no stability to it all. McLeish has been looking for that something, but I think it’s staring him straight in the face with a switch to that 4-4-2.
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Even if they do adopt that approach, Rangers are going to have to box clever in the second leg against Maritimo. Losing in Madeira was a major disappointment, because the home team were there for the taking. Leo Lima, their midfielder, is not short on confidence, and they’ll be quick on the break.
Rangers found a lot of gaps there too, though; especially on the right for Burke. They won’t have that advantage at Ibrox. Maritimo will camp in and look to hit on the break. The Rangers fans can’t start screaming at the players if they’ve not scored inside five minutes. It could take an hour to break this team down.
But if Rangers don’t make it through, it’s time to close the curtains and leave town.