Philippe Clement has never worked without one. Kevin Muscat served his coaching apprenticeship under a man who showed at Celtic he didn’t need one. And former Rangers ace Neil Murray simply can’t believe his old side still don’t have one.
When it comes to directors of football, Rangers have had mixed luck down the years. But Murray – a former chief scout and head of recruitment at Ibrox as well as a four-time league champion under Walter Smith – fears his old side are in danger of putting the cart before the horse if they plough ahead with plans to replace Michael Beale without first finding someone to take over Ross Wilson’s duties.
It’s now six months since the Ibrox board allowed sporting director Wilson to escape the growing fan fury that was being focused in his direction as another title chase got away from the Light Blues on the back of a failed recruitment drive. The decision left Michael Beale holding the keys to the coffers but without anyone above him to keep an eye on how he was spending the club’s cash, it proved to be another disastrous misstep for both the club and the Londoner.
Now less than 10 weeks into the new season, Rangers are on the lookout for their third boss in the space of two years with Celtic yet again out in front. But Murray reckons the hunt for Beale’s replacement on the ground floor should only have started once they had first installed someone upstairs.
The 50-year-old hero of Gers’ nine-in-a-row era – who now splits his time working as an agent and for a sports data analysis firm – told Record Sport: “I’ve got to be honest, I’m amazed that Ross Wilson wasn’t replaced. I find it strange.
“If you give a manager the keys to the castle and carte blanche to bring in players then it’s often a high-risk strategy. In Michael Beale’s case, it hasn’t paid off and the club are now two months into a season and expecting a new manager to come in and work with players he might not necessarily want.
I know that can happen in a system where you have a director of football but at least in that way the players signed is down to a club decision rather than one individual manager’s. The new manager may or may not want to work with a director of football and that’s what this interview process will allow Rangers to find out.”
Belgian journalist Ludo Vandewalle warned on this week’s edition of the Record Rangers Podcast that if the Ibrox board do decide to put their trust in former Genk, Club Brugge and Monaco coach Clement, they will be trusting a man who has never had to worry too much about recruitment given he always had someone else to do the hard yards when it came to sniffing out fresh faces.
