Every one of the summer signings was welcomed as a game changer, confirmation that Beale was a genius, now even more than the Brains Behind Gerrard.
Kieran Dowell was signed up before last season ended, he had played against Beale’s youth sides for Everton, Dujon Sterling was next, part of Chelsea’s u-12 Academy for London North when Beale laid out the bibs and cones. A pattern was emerging.
Alfredo Morelos, Ryan Kent, Scott Arfield, Filip Helander and Allan McGregor left as free agents, Malik Tillman refused to consider a return.
Replacing those goals were Cyriel Dessers and Sam Lammers, players with dreadful scoring records but handed four year contracts.
Abdallah Sima came in on loan from Brighton after impressing for Sparta Prague against Beale’s side during the Lockdown season and doing hee haw in front of fans in the following two seasons.
Quickly Beale disassociated himself with the summer signings. Rabbi Matondo came in from nowhere, Kemar Roofe became the best striker at the club with Ryan Jack and John Lundstram restored to the midfield.
After losing to PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League Play Off the levels of abuse reached new heights of toxicity when Celtic won at Ibrox in front of bears only.
The clueless Ibrox board sat it out after those results but there was a noted change in attitude among the media messengers, criticism of Beale’s Revolution! started to surface.
Four wins and four clean sheets fooled no-one, yesterday’s result was inevitable but on Sunday morning John Bennett and James Bisgrove still haven’t found the funds to pay off Beale to launch an exciting new chapter of The Banter Years.