Michael Beale has a mountain to climb after being appointed as the manager of the Rangers, replacing Giovanni van Bronckhorst in the hot seat. The Ibrox club are currently nine points behind Celtic in the Premiership title race and just 15 league games have been played. As a result, coming out of the World Cup break, the Hoops have to be considered as heavy favourites to retain their title.
Despite the fact that Van Bronckhorst had guided the Rangers to a Scottish Cup triumph and the UEFA Europa League final last season, and helped them qualify for the Champions League group stages this time around, the club decided to show him the exit door and replaced him with Beale.
Beale is not the most experienced of managers though and has only 22 games under his belt from his time at QPR. He won just nine of those, while losing nine as well.
Thus, it is safe to say that the Rangers have taken a risk here with the appointment of Beale. One man who knows the pressure that comes with managing, and playing, in Glasgow is Neil Lennon. As reported by The National, the Northern Irishman said:
"“Michael will feel that the gap isn’t insurmountable and there are other examples apart from that one – down south Kevin Keegan and Alex Ferguson both blew bigger leads than Celtic have to be pipped at the finish line.“You can draw on your own experience as well as other people’s when it comes to gaps like that being overturned and try to use that to your own experience.“The problem he has is that Celtic don’t look as though they’re going to lose too many matches and never mind Celtic – Rangers have been dropping points to Hibs, Livingston, St Johnstone and St Mirren and that has to stop.“Rangers have left themselves with no room for error because, domestically, Celtic have been imperious. They lost at St Mirren but have won every other game and some of the football they’ve been playing has been fantastic.“Ange’s signings have been excellent. You just need to see how well they’ve done at the World Cup – Josip Juranovic was Man of the Match against Brazil and Daizen Maeda, Aaron Mooy and Cameron Carter-Vickers were also terrific.“This Celtic team is great to watch. They have vibrancy and speed and they play with real intensity and there’s a constant ambition to score goals whenever they have the ball and whatever the scoreline may be and that all comes from the manager.“Which is why I don’t think Michael will emulate what we did 11 seasons ago.”"
Lennon sends clear Celtic message to new Rangers boss
Celtic should only be growing in confidence coming out of the World Cup break. The club have signed two new players already, weeks before the January transfer window has even opened, in the form of Alistair Johnston and Yuki Kobayashi.
On the other hand, all four of their representatives at the World Cup were able to make it to the last 16 of the competition. Juranovic even made it to the semis.
The only potential road block that they face on the way is the future of Juranovic and Giorgos Giakoumakis, with both being linked with moves away in January.