We need to win 56 as soon as possible- the promises coming back to bite Micky Beale

As he suffers in silence Micky Beale will want to avoid many of the claims that he made when he was introduced as Giovanni van Bronckhorst’s successor last November.

After a lifetime of neglect the former Charlton starlet found the Scottish media hanging on his every word as if he was the second coming of Mark Warburton.

Every utterance had a reverential quality, reporters hung on to every word while bears nodded knowingly now that they had the Brains Behind Gerrard back in town to put Ange Postecoglou and Celtic back in their place.

That was the theory but nine months of soundbites have been met with four defeats from Celtic with Kyogo Furuhashi trashing all of the plans that Beale promised to put in place- even wearing suits on matchday has been ditched despite the high approval rating from fans.

After Sunday’s spineless capitulation Beale is unlikely to surface until next Friday when he has to preview the match at St Johnstone.

Winning the 56 ticked lots of boxes last year but is staring him in the face every day alongside a team with no shape, pattern or style with none of his outfield summer signings making any sort of positive impact on the serial losers.

🔵”We need to win 56 as soon as possible…”

New Rangers manager Michael Beale is setting out his targets at his first media conference⬇️ pic.twitter.com/RvAZ113snb

— Sky Sports Scotland (@ScotlandSky) December 1, 2022

Rangers Review lovingly reported:

When you sat down with Ross and the board to agree to become manager, what long-term targets were set for you?

We need to win 56 as soon as possible. We need to improve our cup record which we slightly improved last year by winning the Scottish Cup and we need to improve our identity on the pitch. That’s what I feel and that’s what the group of players feel as well. I think at the moment one or two players’ value is not the reality what it was six or eight months ago. That’s damaging to the players, the football club and the staff so we have to improve that.

The players in the building have got a lot of responsibility as well towards their own careers. It’s my job to uphold them to that and my job to try and get the best out of them. Getting the best out of the individual will make a strong team and a strong Rangers and I’m excited to get working with the boys.

Do you think it’s realistic to stage a title challenge this season?

I think the first thing to do is to get the identity on the pitch where we want it. The energy on the pitch and the right players on the pitch and start winning football games. This Christmas period will have a big part in whether we can do that or not. The most important thing now is to win the next game which is always the job here as the manager of Rangers.

Win the next game and see where it takes us. I think the goalposts will move if we keep winning games then obviously something will happen. This time last year, not too late after this I believe there was a seven-point gap in our favour so it can be turned around but the most important thing right now is not to talk too big, it’s to win the next game.

There’s a criticism this season that the team don’t look as fit, is there anything a manager can do or does that need to wait until pre-season?

I think we can work strongly on cohesion in my ideas which will be slightly different from the previous manager. We move around together in a certain way and that can look very collective in terms of the energy on the pitch and that’s something we’re working at. It’s fair to say we’ve got some key injuries at the moment, we need to get them back fit because they’ll certainly make us stronger.

We don’t want to use that as an excuse right now but it will certainly make us stronger over time when they get back and then we’ll look at that. Gio and his staff did what they thought was best in their time at the club and now I’ve got to take it on with myself and do what I think’s right for this group of players now.