Rangers have chosen to stick rather than twist. The question on supporters' lips at the news of Danny Rohl’s backing was this: are they kicking the can down the road or breaking the cycle?
Only time will tell, but of the many words spoken by chairman Andrew Cavenagh to members of the media over the weekend, the most important were these: “As we look to next year, Danny is our coach. We believe that Danny gives us the best chance to win the league next year.”
Cavenagh would go on to outline why change in the dugout is futile if the club don’t change “culture and leadership” on the pitch. While the American was quick to praise the legacy of James Tavernier, and accepted that the handling of his farewell game at Ibrox last Wednesday could have been better navigated, a subtle message was also delivered: “When you’re asked to put on the Rangers jersey, you put it on.”
Cavenagh and the club’s leadership have their diagnosis right: without the right conditions, no manager here will succeed. Without a pre-season and summer window, they will never have the optimum chance to do so.
It is the easy way out to sack and start again, and, given Rohl is the seventh man in the dugout since 2021, the “all will be fine if we just appoint someone else” theory is relying quite heavily on vibes. That is how this cycle perpetuates: it is constantly in catch-up mode. There is no easy way out. Like Hearts did last season, after an early stumble in the Jamestown era with Neil Critchley, clubs need to pick a vision and stick with it to overcome those ahead of them. They require a clear identity.
There is a simple reason fine margins have so regularly gone against Rangers: squad building. The squad has always been an amalgamation of ideas, a project left unfinished. Clement inherited Beale’s wingerless squad, a Red Bull coach was appointed after a Russell Martin pre-season, which followed a Barry Ferguson interim spell. Cavenagh says club DNA will be less manager-led going forward, which increases the eyes on those who sit above the dugout. Simply, it has to be.
Arriving mid-season, with little training time and an incomplete squad, Rangers feel that if they support Rohl, he can take them to the promised land. “There are two key elements that he needs to succeed, and that would be a revamped squad, which is probably the most important thing, and a pre-season,” Cavenagh added, speaking early on Sunday morning.
The diagnosis is right too in pointing out that without the right “culture and leadership”, changing managers is “futile”. You can’t lament the squad and blame the manager in equal measure. Rohl himself seemed to finally accept, speaking after the 2-1 loss against Hibs last week, that fine margins owed more to the lack of those characters in his squad than he had previously admitted. Speaking to German media in recent days, he reiterated: “We're well aware that the team needs leaders. You can't meet the demands with just young players.”
“One of the club's very famous people, which I won't name, when I first came into the club, said two things to me, which I will never forget. First, the most important thing you can do is get recruitment right. And then the second thing, and you pause a little bit when you first hear it, was that good coaches often have the best teams. And so we need to have the best team, the right culture and the right leaders to have any coach succeed. Changing coaches, if you don't change those things, is futile,” was Cavenagh’s judgement.
Indeed, there is to be an enhanced focus on the Scottish market – Cavenagh says a pro-SPFL and Scottish bias will exist in the summer window (it is, of course, important to remind ourselves that this was started under the previous regime before last summer’s recruitment pivoted away from the domestic market).
Fixing the spine and core of this squad is the priority. “Our focus [in building the squad] will be less about raw talent and more about things like chemistry and leadership, steel, and footballing IQ.” Continuing, Cavenagh admitted: “I’m not trying to degrade those that are there, but we need better leadership, more mentality to achieve our goals.”
The diagnosis is right, but what of the prescription? Will Rangers overcorrect in their squad building or get the balance right? And who is ultimately making it? After a year of learning lessons, this is now Cavenagh and Co’s vision, this is their strategy.
Rangers are right not to search for a coach who can fix everything. Six years ago, the FA’s former performance chief, Dave Reddin, talked about the death of the “unicorn” manager, telling Training Ground Guru it was a “flawed concept” that one person “has all the answers” and is “untouchable” at a club, “a singular person with all of the knowledge and that the organisation lives or dies based on their outcomes.”
The theory is sound. All around world football – whether it is Arteta, Kompany, Alonso or Fabregas – young coaches thrive within the right structure. Unlike the old-school manager, they don’t need to concern themselves with much else than what happens on the pitch.
But can that work at Rangers, or will the head coach always be elevated to the pedestal of a manager, especially when you compare who Rohl lost to, the experienced McInnes and O’Neill? Scotland is hardly the birthplace of modernity when it comes to football. Many sources have explained to the Rangers Review over the years that the Gerrard model of an overarching manager with skilled coaches below him is the best-case scenario in Glasgow.
Does this club simply demand a 'manager' as a figurehead, and does the Tavernier situation expose that? Cavenagh chose not to get involved in a football decision but that shows Rohl is more than a head coach in these moments, where politics matters more than anything else. Or does the young coach inherit a dressing room that, for too long, has lacked the right ingredients? That too is quite possible.
There are viable questions to be asked about the ultimate football authority in decision-making. In not appointing a sporting director, Stig Inge Bjørnebye is expected to remain past his consultancy role. Gretar Steinsson is the 49ers’ football man with significant sway. Dan Purdy heads up the technical team. Cavenagh explained a more collegiate January transfer approach as more effective because of the range of opinion involved.
Jim Gillespie, Cavenagh, Rohl, Paraag Marathe, Purdy, Bjørnebye and Steinsson are the collective decision-makers in place of the previous – and more overarching – sporting director and CEO model. This past year shows that money is no guarantee of success. Is the lack of one ultimate football decision-maker a positive, or does it fail to isolate responsibility?
Marathe, while officially not on the board, is understood to remain in contact with Cavenagh almost daily. 49ers involvement and influence has not been impacted in adherence to UEFA multi-club ownership rules, which would come into focus should Leeds and Rangers make the same European competition.
“The executive team is committed to being smaller, nimbler, and more entrepreneurial,” Cavenagh explained in a March statement. “We want an executive team willing to get its fingernails dirty. If there is a hole to be dug, we want people fighting over shovels. We want fewer consulting firms and less bureaucracy.”
Rohl is clearly a talented coach – you’re not assistant at Bayern and the German national team in your early 30s for nothing – and there is surely no doubt that, tactically, he has the concepts to provide a winning team in Scottish football. Can he communicate those to player and fan, though? Smell blood and sense the occasion of games? Recover from the scar tissue of the split?
Rangers did come so close and it is genuine to believe that, with some revamping, they can cross that line. Rohl managed the early months of his tenure with realism and experience and, in constant catch-up mode, the German is believed to have felt that this impacted the approach of certain matches.
Read more:
- Andrew Cavenagh explains Rangers' summer transfer plans and priorities
- The 11 most glaring problems facing Rangers and Andrew Cavenagh's biggest decision
Scepticism is natural and words are cheap. What else can Cavenagh do but front up – as he has continually – though? His leadership is seen as genuine and authentic; he constantly meets fans and spends so much of his working life now focused on the exploits of a team from Glasgow. He will know privately that, after an array of missteps in year one, year two must signify progress and a title, though.
This, now, is Cavenagh’s vision, ultimately. Rangers have pivoted dramatically from last summer’s failed culture reset on the park and they have resisted the empire-building of Kevin Thelwell. The backing of Rohl ultimately distils down to the structure American ownership have settled on after their learning period. Now, they need to stay the course.
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