Pedro’s remit for this season was (apparently) to do well in the cups, win a couple of games in Europe, and to challenge Celtic.
We’re now a quarter of the way through the season, we’re lying fourth in the league, out of Europe and out of the League Cup.
It wasn’t good enough.
He sanctioned the mass exodus of players and signing of some dubious guys like Pena. Fair enough some look ok, and an improvement on some of the players we had last season, but getting papped out of Europe meant the plug was pulled on any other signings, leaving us woefully short in certain areas, especially LM.
He has overseen some of the worst results in Rangers history in a very short space of time. And as much as most of us were giving him time to try things out and assess the squad, there has been pretty much no improvement in results. In fact, I’d say we’ve taken a step backwards.
With other players lacking the appropriate discipline we are now left without a central midfield for what looks like a massive game on Saturday. It wasn’t his fault that Dorrans was taken out by yet another terrible tackle which has left him out injured. Another tackle which went unpunished by the referee, who yet again failed to control the match.
However, the buck had to stop with Pedro. It’s his team and the results are achieved (or not in his case) by his players.
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I’m usually probably more pragmatic than a lot of Rangers fans and have given him plenty of time, but It was plain too see it wasn’t working. It was more a case of when, not if Pedro Caixinha was going to get sacked from Rangers.
Who next then?
The pressure is on the Gers board. They can’t afford another left-field appointment as they’re on shaky ground already with many Rangers fans. It’ll probably be McInness as he’s the safe choice, although I personally think Frank De Boer is in with a shout.. out of work and no doubt desperate to prove himself again as a manager after his failures at Palace and Inter. I know his time in charge of Ajax was tumultuous, but it was also very successful and he has some affinity with Rangers having played a season with them at he tail end of his career. I’d imagine it might get some fans buzzing too as he’s a big name.
Rangers more than ever need stability, they don’t need the personal baggage of Billy Davies, they don’t need yesterday’s man McLeish.
McInnes would bring stability to the team. I’m not convinced we would seriously challenge for the title under him, and his record against Celtic with Aberdeen makes for poor reading.
This is one of the most crucial decisions the Rangers board has to make in recent times. They have to get this correct. There is no doubt about it, we can’t afford another Pedro.