While Barry Ferguson remains in charge of Rangers for now, he’s highly unlikely to keep the job beyond the summer.
Last time out, the Gers were dumped out of the Europa League, battling to a goalless draw with Athletic Club Bilbao at Ibrox, before being beaten 2-0 at San Mamés last Thursday.
So, to conclude the campaign, the Light Blues have very little to play for, but have all five post-split Premiership fixtures to fulfill, starting with Saturday’s trip to St Mirren, all but mathematically guaranteed to finish second, 15 points adrift champions-elect Celtic and 13 points clear of Hibs.
Thus, attention has already started to turn towards plans for the summer, so could “one of the best managers” in football history be occupying the Ibrox dugout by the time their season commences with a Champions League qualifier in late-July?
The latest on Rangers' 49ers takeover
As reported by Sahil Jaidka of Sky Sports News on Wednesday, Rangers have confirmed they are in “productive conversations” with an American-based consortium who are planning to take over the club, thereby “injecting additional capital”.
Back in March, Lawrie Anne Brown and Sahil Jaidka also reported that Paraag Marathe, who is president of the investment arm of 49ers Enterprises, is the person spearheading this takeover, ‘aiming to acquire’ 51% of the shares at a minimum.
Ewan Paton of the National notes that, after posting losses of £17.2m last year, an unsustainably high figure, investment is badly needed.
Meantime, Michael Grant of The Times believes that the fact Kevin Thelwell has recently been appointed as head of football operations, arriving from Everton, suggests the 49ers have already started making behind-the-scenes decisions.
Speaking on the Scottish Football Show, Rangers supporter Findlay Marks expects the new owners will want to make a ‘statement appointment’ when it comes to the manager, so are they going to go after one of the most successful managers of all-time?
Rangers' first choice managerial target
According to a report from TEAMTalk late last week, José Mourinho is amongst the front-runners to become the new Rangers manager, with the piece claiming he ‘would be interested’ in taking over.
Well, last month, ahead of Fenerbahçe’s Europa League tie at Ibrox, Mourinho more than intimated that he’d be open to managing one of Glasgow’s big two in the future, adding the Premiership “is a league of passion. Passion in football is everything”.
His current club Fenerbahçe were dumped out of the Europa League by Rangers on penalties, and are staring down the barrel of a trophyless season, ousted in the Türkiye Kupası quarter-finals while currently second in the Süper Lig, five points adrift of Galatasaray with only six games remaining.
The Yellow Canaries appointed Mourinho in a desperate attempt to win their first title since 2014, but appear set to fall just short once again, having been runners-up six times in the last decade.
Nevertheless, fair to say, the 62-year-old has a pretty impressive CV, as the table below outlines.
Benfica
11
54.55%
Zero
União de Leiria
23
52.17%
Zero
Porto
127
71.65%
6
Chelsea
185
67.03%
6
Internazionale
108
62.04%
5
Real Madrid
178
71.91%
3
Chelsea
136
58.82%
2
Manchester United
144
58.33%
3
Tottenham Hotspur
86
51.16%
Zero
Roma
138
49.28%
1
Fenerbahçe
50
62%
Zero
The trophies speak for themselves: two Champions Leagues, league titles in four different countries and, after getting his hands on the Conference League in charge of Roma, he got a tattoo to commemorate the fact he’d won all three major UEFA competitions.
While he was at Tottenham, Son Heung-min described him as “one of the best managers in the world”, while Oisín Doherty of Breaking the Lines believes he was the ‘most dominant manager in world football’ for over a decade.
Manager Focus
Of course, as outlined by Barney Ronay of the Guardian, some of Mourinho’s tactics are outdated, meaning he is past his best, but he would certainly represent a major coup for Rangers and would be box office for all of us who love Scottish football.
He would represent the perfect upgrade on Ferguson, no doubt about that.
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