Where we’re going we don’t need roads.
Look out your hoverboards, self-tieing laces and keep an eye on the weather report for lightning hitting the clock tower, were about to go on an adventure.
Step into my Delorean and let’s hit 88mph, the flux capacitor will do the rest, in this series I take you to an alternative world, I pick out an event in Rangers history and surmise what would have happened in an alternative reality.
DATE: 1998.
EVENT: Rangers appoint George Graham instead of Dick Advocaat.
Let’s head back to the summer of 1998, Rangers are on the lookout for a new manager a disciplinarian who can shape the squad into shape, instead of the little general they turn to ex-Arsenal boss George Graham.
George Graham is a huge reason Arsene Wenger was so successful at Arsenal, he built the defensive structure that Wenger managed to add flair and his eye for talent too. Combining the two for devastating effects. By the summer of 98, Graham was in charge of Leeds and looking for a way out, what if he took charge at his boyhood team Rangers ?.
Many of the squad including the likes of McCoist and Goram would still have departed, by that stage they were quite simply shadows of their former selves, something George would not have stood for, I do feel Ian Durrant may have stayed going on to play a deeper role and displaying the type of form he did late on in his career at Kilmarnock.
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Summer transfers would have included Shaka Hislop, Tim Sherwood, Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock, Gary Pallister and Ian Wright (I know), we would have still regained our title back, however there would be no sexy football, instead the chat would become 2-0 to the Rangers, based around a solid back 4 trained almost army like to push up as one.
I’d like to think we would have won the 98 UEFA Cup, beating Marseille in the final, gaining some much-needed revenge for the 93 EURO campaign.
The team would have played winning but unspectacular football, however, it would not have ended in the disaster Advocaat’s reign did, Jorg Albertz would have stayed another season and Martin O’Neill’s Celtic side would have never had been so dominant.
For all Graham’s faults he could coach and command respect, no player would dare have crossed him. I always felt Ibrox would have been the perfect fit for the former Arsenal and Millwall boss, all Rangers fans care about is winning, and he knew how to achieve that, both in domestic and in European competition, something we sadly lacked in the 9 in a row era despite domestic dominance.
George Graham would retire a Rangers legend helping the team back to the summit of the Scottish and European game before handing the team over to his assistant John Brown, a man he had taken under his wing when he first took over.
Join us next week for part 3.
To be continued….