AZ Alkmaar coach Pascal Jansen ‘would have failed’ at Ibrox had Rangers opted to hire the Eredivisie boss instead of Philippe Clement, according to Dutch football expert Michael Bell.
The London-born Dutchman might have professed to being more than a little surprised to find himself linked with a move to Scotland following the sacking of Mick Beale – speaking to Sky Sports last week – but his reputation has certainly been on the rise over the last couple of seasons.
Pascal Jansen had big boots to fill when he replaced the talismanic Arne Slot, now an Eredivisie champion with Feyenoord, in the AZ dugout. But, guiding his club to a fourth-place finish and the semi-finals of the Europa Conference League last season, Jansen’s name has been doing the rounds for quite a while in the gossip columns, Celtic and Everton linked before his hat was thrown into the ring for the Rangers job too.
The Glasgow giants would eventually opt for Philippe Clement instead, of course. CEO James Bisgrove labelling the three-time Belgian league winner the ‘outstanding candidate’.
And, speaking on the latest edition of the Football Oranje podcast, Bell cannot shake the feeling that Rangers may have dodged a bullet.
Rangers looked at AZ Alkmaar boss Pascal Jansen
“I’m up and down on AZ. Sometimes I think they are really great, and Pascal Jansen is a really good coach. And then, the loss against Aston Villa and what’s going to be a loss against NEC (AZ were 2-1 down before the game was postponed late on)… you just want to shake Pascal Jansen and say ‘do something different!’,” Bell explains.
You have the players! You have the best young talent in the whole of the Netherlands at your disposal. He seems to play the same starting XI week in, week out.
“I can see all the AZ fans getting frustrated. And, when he was getting linked to Rangers, I saw everyone saying ‘you might do well results-wise but none of your young talents will be getting a game’.”
The likes of Leon King, Zak Lovelace and Ross McCausland, then, may be counting their lucky stars that Rangers decided against a manager who appears to value experience over youthful exuberance.
‘He would have failed’
“He’s a frustrating coach,” Bell adds. “He’s not that next level. He’s not an Arne Slot, or a (Erik) Ten Hag. He seems to be one of those coaches who does well at AZ, he’s going to get a move somewhere and I don’t think he’ll live up to it.
“I think if he went to Rangers, he would have failed.”
Clement has won three out of four games since taking over from Beale at Rangers, Wednesday’s 5-0 hammering of Dundee their most coherent, confident display of the entire campaign, and their biggest domestic win since February 2022.
