The Rangers supporters may be putting more pressure on Philippe Clement, but according to one analyst, their “biggest mistake” was firing a manager from years ago.
After losing to Aberdeen at Pittodrie and dropping nine points behind rivals Celtic and the Granite City team at the top of the Scottish Premiership table, the Belgian manager addressed the media prior to his team’s matchup with Motherwell in the Premier Sports Cup semi-final. Fans in Govan are dissatisfied with the football on display and the outcomes and are demanding change. But Clement is “very confident” that he has the board’s support and hasn’t asked for discussions about his future. He is committed to making a change, beginning on Sunday with a victory in the semi-final at the National Stadium.
However, Celtic hero Peter Grant believes the team is still regretting the choice to fire Giovanni van Bronckhorst two years ago after just one year in the hot seat. Prior to a devastating penalty shootout defeat to Bundesliga team Frankfurt, he won the Scottish Cup and led the team on an amazing Europa League run that ended in the final in Seville. Although things didn’t go as planned in Europe’s top competition, he also managed to secure a spot in the Champions League group stage.
However, during his discussion of Clement on Go Radio, host Paul Cooney brought up the fact that Van Bronckhorst and Michael Beale had both lost their positions at the same time during the campaign. Before he could finish, Grant yelled over him, saying, “Biggest mistake.” “Worst error,” referring to the choice to fire Van Bronckhorst.
Barry Ferguson responded, “If you look at it, there was a couple of tough results,” when asked what he thought. It seemed cruel to me. At the time, I did say that. There is no question in my mind that Gio is an excellent manager; he demonstrated this at Feyenoord before moving to Besiktas, where he is performing admirably.
“I did believe that Gio was being treated a little harshly at the time. He was a teammate in the past, and I am not merely saying it because I know him. You can’t simply keep switching managers, though. Suppose a manager says, ‘I don’t fancy 10, 12, or 14 of these players.’ What should you do? Do you need to go and recreate everything from scratch again?