Much has been made in the last 24 hours of the ‘Bealeball’ bounce on the Ibrox dressing room. New managers making an instant impact is no new thing.
But Rangers are needing something far greater than a quick jab at this stage of a troublesome season and nobody will know that better than the new man in charge. No matter how invigorating Michael Beale 's sessions at Auchenhowie may be or how refreshing his game plan is there remains a bigger issue in that dressing room.
It’s the question of whether the very people tasked with carrying out those tactics - already dubbed Bealeball by an excited corner of the Light Blues support - still have it in them. Ardent fans have accused some players of taking the Michael this season. Harsh perhaps. But it ultimately cost Beale’s predecessor his job. The new man needs to work out pretty quickly who he can trust in his squad. And who he wants to keep alongside him for the journey.
There’s an overwhelming sense of this still being a team left behind by Beale and Steven Gerrard when they left for Aston Villa over a year ago.Of the starting XI that drew with St Mirren in van Bronckhorst’s last game as manager, six started the first match of the title-winning season two and a half years ago.
Two more, Connor Goldson and Ianis Hagi, would likely have started in Paisley if they’d been fit. The bottom line is it looks stale and Beale faces some massive decisions over how to rectify the problem in the long and the short term.
Between the sticks Allan McGregor, two months shy of his 41st birthday, continues to hold down the number one shirt after van Bronckhorst produced the ultimate show of no faith in Jon McLaughlin after one Old Firm performance to forget. That issue pales when compared to the one surrounding contract rebels Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent. Two players in the eye of the storm for brassed-off fans.
Can Beale work some man-management magic and bring two players capable of rejuvenating a title challenge back to life? Or is it time to cash in should bids arrive in January? Then there’s the loan Rangers. Malik Tillman and James Sands are two other underperformers whose displays have come in for flak.
Are they worth the fee required to make their temporary deals permanent in the summer? Tillman’s position directly leads to another quandary for Beale.
His predecessor’s reluctance to give the prodigious teenage talent of Alex Lowry regular game time even before his injury was a source of serious frustration to Gers fans. Beale has a history of success working in the academy set-up at Liverpool. But how much will he lean on the young blood such as Lowry, Leon King, Charlie McCann and Adam Devine in the nitty gritty of trying to recharge a title tilt?
At the other end of the scale there’s the stalwarts such as Steven Davis and Scott Arfield whose commitment over the last four years has been unquestionable. But how far does sentimentality come into the equation when weighing up whether to keep them on board with their contracts up in the summer?
That’s not to mention the crocks, Filip Helander, John Souttar and Kemar Roofe who, between them, have managed just 93 minutes action this season. On reflection the answer to most of those dilemmas is staring Beale in the face.
It’s a question of how brave he and the Ibrox board want to be to find the solutions in the next couple of transfer windows.
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