Rangers boss Michael Beale is one to have a little fun with the press and we suspect the Ibrox manager knew exactly what he was doing when he uploaded pictures in Italy earlier today.
The former Chelsea and Liverpool youth coach shared a snaps outside of the Colosseum in Rome, sending the Ibrox transfer rumour mill into overdrive.
Couple this with comments from the manager during the week claiming he was already meeting players ahead of the summer, and we suspect Michael Beale knew fine well his Italy trip would make headlines.
As a result, we suspect that the pictures are likely to be a mile off the scent even if the snaps have pointed Rangers fans to Feyenoord’s visit to AS Roma at the Estadio Olímpico this evening.
Last season’s Europa Conference League Finalists will meet in the Europa League and Rangers fans have been considering previous Michael Beale soundbites in a scouting mission of their own.
Michael Beale in Italy amid scouting mission claims
Michael Beale has previously claimed that the Ibrox side’s transfer targets will be familiar to him and potentially come from the pool of players he’s worked with in his career.
Speaking again this week, Beale would then claim that he’s already meeting with summer transfer targets as Rangers look to firm up their business early and add much-needed quality to the squad.
So we’re pretty sure he’d be expecting this reaction when he shared these pictures to his Instagram story.
Immediately, Rangers fans would then drift to both ex-Chelsea talent Tammy Abraham – whom Beale will have worked with at Stamford Bridge – and ex-Man Utd defender Chris Smalling.
Whilst both are English and likely very familiar with the Rangers boss, their combined £52m price tag (Tammy Abraham – £34m, Chris Smalling – £18m) means any Ibrox switch is, to put it kindly, unlikely.
But we’re relatively sure Michael Beale would’ve known this prior to uploading the pictures in Italy and as Rangers fans scramble to find out why the manager is there, the possibilities really are endless.
