Neil Banfield might want to believe that the outgoing Michael Beale coaching staff laid the seeds of Philippe Clement’s Ibrox resurgence.
But for anyone with a pair of eyes, Rangers’ form under the now Sunderland manager was going one way as fan sentiment turned and the ex-QPR coach gave way to the Belgian.
Having just been named January’s Manager of the Month, Philippe Clement has earned recognition for cutting that Premiership gap to within 0 points and setting Rangers up for an almighty campaign.
However, almost like clockwork, along has come one of the men before to claim credit for steering the good ship Rangers from the rocks of Scottish footballing despair.
Neil Banfield: We planted seeds of Philippe Clement progress
Whilst Michael Beale and co overseen an almighty overhaul in the summer, to suggest that the club was on track for anything but disappointment this season is extremely bold.
Since Philippe Clement has come into the building, Rangers have lifted a League Cup, qualified for the Europa League knockouts as group winners, and cut an eight-point gap to three with a game in hand.
And yet – in these comments from Neil Banfield – we’re supposed to believe that the heavy lifting and the hard work was done before the Belgian came in.
“The work the manager’s doing now, I’m not saying he’s not done some good work, but it was done by the work we’d previously done,” Banfield told Football Scotland.
“You look at (Roberto) de Zerbi at Brighton, he’s doing good stuff but a lot of that was implemented by (Graham) Potter beforehand, the work and foundations, and that takes time.
“Sometimes it’s how you land at a club. But good luck to Clement, he took the reins on and he’s tweaked it differently, so who knows what we’d have achieved, but the foundations were definitely being laid by Michael.
“It’s maybe a frustration that fans forget that but you can understand it because it’s not just about football, that’s what drives the fans on, you know that when you come in, you live with it. The results and keeping the role is dictated by results of both clubs, I think.”
A disservice to Rangers manager’s success?
To suggest that the season was heading for anything but disaster under Michael Beale, Neil Banfield, Harry Watling, and Damien Matthew is an insult to the intelligence of fans.
Rangers had blown Champions League qualification, were blowing their Europa League group, had already lost to Kilmarnock, Celtic, and Aberdeen, and every player was a shell of themselves of the park.
The lack of connection between the players, management, and fans stunk the place out and the suggestion that Rangers would’ve turned things around under Beale is verging on ludicrous.
It’s a total rewriting of the reality of the situation with Clement transforming the feeling at Rangers in a matter of months.
He also lifted silverware within weeks after Beale & Co failed to do so in 12 months. Given the 3-1 Ibrox defeat to the Dons that got Beale sacked, there’s no guarantee he’d have overcome them at Hampden either.
Throw in the very public criticisms of the club’s medical department and Europa League selection and you begin to see that if anything, these were hurdles the incoming Rangers manager had to clear rather than inherited assistance.
Yes, Beale steered us through a summer of turnover but his appointment unravelled the moment he began to lose the patience of a frustrated Ibrox crowd.
Neil Banfield can argue otherwise, but the only person who deserves credit for Philippe Clement’s role in the Ibrox turnaround is Philippe Clement.
