Rangers: 'New manager in place but Rangers face stick or twist transfer dilemma'

Watch some of Van Bronckhorst's Rangers highlights

By Tom English
BBC Scotland

On the face of it, Giovanni van Bronckhorst has a strong hand. His club is top of the Scottish Premiership with a place in the Europa League knockout stage very much in reach.

He knows the place and its people. As such, he's aware of the expectations. Nothing should surprise him about his new job.

To get them to this point, his predecessor Steven Gerrard was given money and latitude. How much of either Van Bronckhorst gets is the complicated bit. Like Gerrard, he is being allowed to construct his own backroom, which is a healthy beginning, but what else will he be allowed to build?

In his final months Gerrard got frustrated at Rangers' lack of spending power. That landscape has not changed. Close to the full picture was revealed when the club published their latest accounts. Again, operating losses were up. Again, new investment is required just to keep the show on the road.

Their player trading model exists only through words in a statement rather than numbers on a balance sheet. At some point Rangers are going to have to sell players in order to move towards self-sufficiency. It's their stated aim, after all.

How will that play with their new manager as he attempts to win the one trophy that matters more than any other - the league title? Are Rangers going to dig deeper and incur further losses in order to support their man in the transfer market or have they arrived at the juncture where they have to sell in order to buy?

They're approaching decision time. In January they are going to have to decide whether to stick or twist. As they ponder the question, they'll know that Celtic will most definitely be recruiting.

In a sense, the title is probably more than a title as it's likely to bring a guaranteed spot in the Champions League group stage and all the riches that come with it. This is where Rangers have a decision to make.

Stick with what they have - buying nobody but selling nobody - while hoping Van Bronckhorst is good enough to secure the league. Or twist with more signings to keep step with Celtic, a move that would rack up more losses, but could result in them trousering £30-£40m of Champions League loot.

You'd like to know what promises Van Bronckhorst has been made, but he's now about to disappear into the Rangers 'media' vortex where his 'press conferences' around domestic competition will largely exist of one man and his dog and where the level of questioning from fan podcasters and website moderators only occasionally stray away from sycophancy. This is the odd world Rangers have created.

You have to give them credit for acting quickly in getting their new manager, though. The succession planning was in place. They didn't need to read the tea leaves to know Gerrard wasn't going to be there for the long haul and they were ready to move when he departed.

From laughing stock to champions

There's a certain symmetry about the respective career paths of Gerrard and Van Bronckhorst, a similarity that covers their lives on the pitch as players - and off the pitch as managers.

Gerrard was a terrific footballer who won a Champions League with one of Europe's traditional giants, Liverpool, in 2005. Van Bronckhorst did the same with Barcelona in 2006. Gerrard's first step in management was at a huge club that had known horrific financial problems and been trounced and ridiculed by its closest rival. It was the same for Van Bronckhorst at Feyenoord.

Both men walked into a job where a rebuild was required, where the fans desperately needed a league title, where the pressure to deliver was enormous.

In the season Gerrard became Rangers manager the club finished third in the league, a dozen points behind champions Celtic. In the season before Van Bronckhorst became Feyenoord manager, the club finished fourth in the league, a mammoth 29 points behind champions PSV Eindhoven. It's fair to say they had ground to make up.

Both men had chastening experiences in the early days. Gerrard's team were looking good in their first season only to blow up after Christmas. Van Bronckhorst's were doing fine until they lost seven league matches in a row between December and February. The pair of them felt the heat of the supporters - and both of them found a way to come through it.

It might be crude to assess which of them did the better job in hauling their respective clubs from laughing stock status to the mantle of champions, but Van Bronckhorst might shade it. Feyenoord, as we know, had gone without a league title in 18 years.

During the wilderness years Feyenoord racked up debts of 40m euro and at various times during their awful run of failure they finished miles adrift of the top team - 20 points, 22, 23, 25, 35. In Van Bronckhorst's first season in charge they only cut the gap by eight to 21 points. They were way off it - and then they won the title. Nobody saw it coming.

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Van Brockhorst's Feyenord pipped star-packed Ajax to end the club's 18-year title wait in 2017

That was 2016-17. Feyenoord won the league by a point from Ajax who made the Europa League final that season, losing 2-0 to Manchester United. In their starting line-up Ajax had Davinson Sanchez (later sold to Spurs for 42m euros), Matthijs de Ligt (sold to Juventus for 67m euros), Davy Klaasen (sold to Everton for 26m euros), Hakim Ziyech (sold to Chelsea for 33m euros). Denmark's Kasper Dolberg was also in that Ajax side. Frenkie de Jong (sold to Barcelona for 67m euros) and Donny van de Beek (sold to Manchester United for 35m euros) came off the bench.

That was the core of the team that made the Champions League semi-final a couple of seasons later, taking out Real Madrid and Juventus on their way. But Van Bronckhorst's side, without a single marquee player, beat them over the course of a league campaign. He signed well, he improved the players he inherited, his team scored more goals than any other club and kept more clean sheets. From his starting point, it was a stunning achievement. To win two KNVB Cups to boot represented an excellent stint in charge.

Since leaving Feyenoord he hasn't done much apart from bouncing around in China for a brief spell. He's got a serious project on his hands again and everything we know about him suggests he will revel in it.

All the while, though, that great puzzler hangs in the air above Ibrox - stick or twist in January? Can they afford to twist? Can they afford not to given the probable millions on offer to the club that comes up with the right answers?

Van Bronckhorst's decision-making in the coming weeks and months will be fascinating. Come the window, the decision-making of those who have employed him will be just as compelling.

It's not that anything is riding on it - just the destination of the league title, likely automatic entry to the greatest show in club football, glamour matches against the continent's superpowers and tens of millions of pounds. Gio versus Ange will be quite the show.

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