After Fergie - The Rangers Example …
First Charlton and now Rangers. The crisis at the Scottish giant is yet another foretaste of all that could go wrong at United in the post-Ferguson era.
Manager Paul Le Guen has resigned, butchered by player power, fan discontent and indifferent results. Meanwhile, Celtic’s progress towards another Scottish title continues serenely.
The Rangers situation should strike fear in every Red with an eye on the future. Like United, Rangers are a big club with a huge fan base and a great tradition. The Scottish giant is geared to winning trophies. Failure is unacceptable and the pressure to succeed in the Glasgow fishbowl is carnivorous. Paul Le Guen, tipped within these pages as a possible Ferguson replacement, had the CV of a sure-fire winner. That he should resign just seven months into the job is astonishing. The circumstances of his decision are all the more revealing as they could be replicated anywhere, not least at Old Trafford.
Le Guen miscalculated grievously in allowing himself to become embroiled in a public dispute with club captain Barry Ferguson, whom he stripped of the captaincy and dropped from the first team on New Year’s Day. As Ruud Gullit found out to his cost when tangling with Newcastle’s Alan Shearer, public spats with a club captain rarely end in the manager’s favour. Le Guen made it clear that he would only continue without the player. Ferguson made it known that he had no intentions of quitting the club. Le Guen’s resignation or dismissal was always likely once fans sided with the Rangers stalwart.
The official line from Ibrox is that Le Guen left by “mutual” consent. “Having met with Paul, it was clear that in the interests of the club and all concerned we agreed jointly to him stepping down as manager,” said the Rangers chairman. “We are all clearly disappointed with our current circumstances and will now focus on securing a suitable replacement. I would like to wish Paul and his management team well in the future.”
The dispute between manager and star player might not have attained such rancour had Le Guen made a winning start to his Rangers tenure but results did not go his way. Languishing 17 points behind the champions was hardly the ideal position from which to take on a club icon and win over a suspicious fan base.
Le Guen leaves behind a club in disarray and his reputation tarnished by the realisation that the job was too big even for a successful coach with an impressive track record. If Rangers was too big a task even for someone with the credentials of Le Guen, the short list of proven candidates capable of filling Sir Alex’s shoes will now be reduced still further. Le Guen arrived with glowing references. A hatrick of league titles had placed him among the front rank of European coaches and it was thought that the 42 year old would soon have the measure of the job. It was not to be.
The lessons for United’s power-brokers are clear. The dream scenario of selecting someone like Le Guen or a 1990’s Arsene Wenger, a European tyro with a good contacts book and a winning résumé and then quietly retiring to the background to await glory, might now come with a whole new set of pre-conditions attached. Hindsight will point to Le Guen’s lack of charisma and his tightly-wound personality and recognise the seeds of disappointment. The new United boss should have no such failings.
If Rangers are to be any guide, then United must proceed with extreme caution when Fergie steps down, because a winner today could just as easily be a wounded whiner tomorrow. The next manager will need to be successful from the very beginning and keep the crowd and media on his side. More importantly, under no circumstances should he lose the dressing room. A row with Rooney or Ronaldo would be fatal.
In taking stock of the fall-out from Rangers, United’s power brokers might look with renewed favour upon Carlos Queiroz. Earlier this week, the assistant manager made a thinly-veiled request for reassurance that he would have a role in the post-Ferguson future. In the wake of the events at Rangers, his value as the inside man must surely have risen.
Of course, Queiroz or another candidate, could win and manage to keep the dressing room and press on side but still be drowned eventually by the sheer weight of expectation, the impossible burden of Sir Alex’s legacy and the stifling embrace of nostalgia. More than ever, as Charlton’s Iain Dowie and no doubt United’s own Wilf McGuinness would testify, it is surely better to be the man after the man after the man. AU
READ: The Succession and Future Wreck
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