Glasgow Rangers have endured yet another slow start to a season and just like last year, the manager at fault has paid with his job before Christmas.
Giovanni van Bronckhorst failed to spark any meaningful Premiership title challenge during the 2022/23 campaign while losing all six of his Champions League matches in charge of the Gers and was eventually replaced by Michael Beale in November 2022.
Beale failed to win any silverware during the second half of last term, yet he was clearly back by the board and was given the summer to overhaul the playing squad while shipping out some deadwood in the process.
With nine new arrivals and 11 outgoings, he certainly revamped the senior squad, yet it hasn’t quite worked out thus far as the Light Blues have won only eight of their opening 14 matches and Beale has paid with his job before September was out.
The club is in turmoil, and it is up to James Bisgrove to make sure the next managerial appointment is the right one, as three managers since the start of the 2021/22 season isn’t a good look at all.
Who could be the next Rangers manager?
The rumour mill started shortly after Beale was relieved of his duties and names such as Frank Lampard, Steve Bruce and even Billy Davies – who hasn’t managed since 2014 – all threw their name into the ring.
The Ibrox board are clearly looking at someone who is more high profile than the names mentioned and having met with candidates in London since the start of the week, it appears there are a couple of front runners for the vacant role.
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Kevin Muscat and Philippe Clement are the two names that are most likely to be offered the job and considering their previous achievements during their careers, they look like the best options.
Clement has won three Belgian league titles at spells with KRC Genk and Club Brugge, while he last managed AS Monaco for 18 months before being sacked in the summer.
Muscat has also won league titles during his managerial career, leading Melbourne Victory to the A-League title in 2017/18 and securing the J League title with his current side, Yokohama F.Marinos during the 2021/22 campaign and the fact he used to play for the club during his playing career could perhaps give him the edge.
These are the two logical choices who could become the 19th permanent manager of the Light Blues yet their could be a twist in the tale.
Is John Eustace in the running for the Rangers job?
With Beale struggling to win over the supporters at the start of September due to his lack of playing style and tactical identity, along with some woeful results, it was looking like his job was in severe jeopardy.
Indeed, The Daily Mail even claimed that then Birmingham City manager John Eustace was an early front-runner with regard to potential taking over from the 43-year-old should the Gers pull the plug.
Since then, numerous other managers have come forward by either throwing their own name in the hat or being naturally linked with a move and Eustace’s name slipped to the bottom of the pile.
However, according to reporter Mark Critchley, who was speaking on the BBC Football Gossip Daily Podcast recently, Eustace could still be in the race.
He said: “I think given a bit of the noise that was around this morning he is perhaps in the running, but it all changes so quickly. His employment status has changed so quickly over the past three or four days.
“He could wait around and see who is next in the firing line and go in there. I wonder if Sheffield United might take him if there’s a change there, but for someone of his experience, I’m sure Rangers would be a very attractive prospect.”
Maybe Clement and Muscat have some other competition for the managerial role at Rangers, especially considering these comments and the fact he has recently been sacked by Birmingham.
Is John Eustace a good manager?
The 43-year-old had been in charge of Birmingham since the start of the 2022/23 season and had managed them for 63 matches before losing his job recently, with Wayne Rooney coming in to replace him.
On the surface, it looks like an extremely harsh decision. Eustace had led the club to sixth place in the Championship by the time he was relieved of his duties, winning five of their 11 league matches, and it looked as though they could potentially challenge for a playoff spot.
Obviously, the allure of appointing Rooney was too good to turn down, thus leaving the former player out of a job.
Across his 63 games in charge of Birmingham however, he only won 21 of these while his team scored 73 goals and conceded 82, hardly the best statistics. Eustace only averaged 1.24 points per game, indicating that while he may have done a solid job this term, overall, it hasn’t exactly been a productive spell.
Journalist Josh Bunting praised him back in 2022, claiming Eustace was “overachieving” during the early stages of his spell at Birmingham, yet his overall lack of experience is telling, and he would be a worse appointment than Beale.
At least Beale knew the club inside out having worked under former boss Steven Gerrard between 2018 and 2021 as the Gers first team assistant and his coaching clearly worked wonders during their title-winning 2020/21 campaign.
Of course, this doesn’t indicate he was going to be a success at the club, yet his prior knowledge of the players and facilities ensured he had an advantage over most of the names linked last year.
Eustace doesn’t have this and thus would end up being swallowed by the pressures of managing a team in the Old Firm divide, one in where every game is a must-win.
There is no doubting he is a decent coach, but the Rangers job is simply too big a task for Eustace to handle and a name such as Clement or Muscat would be the best person to take the club forward.
Bisgrove knows the next appointment could dictate the future of Rangers and the pressure is on to see whether he makes the right call.