AS things stand, Graeme Murty will still be the manager of Rangers when they head across Glasgow to face the most dominant Celtic side in a generation. What a lucky guy.
In football terms, this is what is known as a hospital pass; certainly the promoted youth coach would be forgiven if he elected to spend some time in a ward for those with a frazzled mind when the club do eventually bring someone in and relieve him of his duties.
It’s difficult not to feel a degree of sympathy with Murty. He comes across as a decent man. He speaks well, which doesn’t win you any games, but at least the supporters can believe what comes out of his mouth.
But he is out of his depth and, please, do not think this is a criticism because it’s not. Far more experienced people have found the Rangers job too much after a while, never mind someone who has never managed at all.
Working with the youth teams at Southampton and Norwich City was enough to win him the job at Rangers. Good on him. But this is not the CV of even a caretaker manager of Rangers.
Murty will know how a dressing room works. Some guy from the youths nobody really knows is not going to command the respect of every player. There are going to be a few who won’t rate anything he says. It’s always the way.
All the former Scotland international would have wanted is to get some sort of a reaction from a group of players who owe the club. What he has received so far is an unconvincing win over Morton and that defeat against Dundee.
The first-half on Sunday in particular was dreadful. At least the guy on the sidelines showed he cared, once always doing a somersault after a near miss. It was more than some of the players gave in terms of effort.
But it was hard to make out what the tactics were. Dundee’s backline were hardly bothered, the midfield ran rings around their opponents.
Murty and Rangers head to Inverness on Friday night, next up is St Johnstone at home and then ti’s Celtic Park. How many points are this team going get over this trio of fixtures? Even taking on the team from the bottom of the Premiership is no guarantee of a win these days.
And perhaps this is the reason why Murty will have to carry on until after the Old Firm match because if a new guy does come in, even on a temporary basis, losing heavily to Celtic is hardly a great start. Would he be able to recover from that?
If Rangers do stumble in the two matches before the derby, and Aberdeen continue to win, then they won’t finish as runners-up. “I would say this year we should at least come second,” was what Dave King said back in august. Things have changed a lot since then.
After the debacle at Dens Park, most Rangers supporters called for someone else to be appointed or this season – that’s second place, the Scottish Cup, trying to beat Celtic - would be a complete write off.
If it is Murty’s hand on the tiller, and not an Alex McLeish type, then, yes, things might be worse. But would it be the end of the world? Is there such a big difference between second and third, which does bring back European football, and while the Scottish Cup is important focussing hugely on a trophy which you probably won’t win is not much of a strategy.
So better to show patience and get in the right man, or men in terms of this much-talked about Director of Football, instead of another knee-jerk botched job, and if that means no trophy, which is probably going to happen anyway, and third place then so be it.
But poor Murty. What was he supposed to say when Mark Warburton left? “Aye, you’re okay. I’ll stick with teaching the kids. That chalice is so poisoned, North Korean use it to bump off estranged brothers.”
He had to say yes to his employers who clearly don’t have much foresight.
Murty as a coach has not one single first-team game to his name. He was asked to improve a bunch of players who had lost confidence, self-belief and far too many games for the second most expensive squad in the league.
And it seems as if he’s going to have to carry on for a few weeks at least.
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