Gio van Bronkhorst in Rangers 'absolute agreement' with John Bennett as he fires firm warning to Rabbi Matondo

John Bennett may be the only person in Britain who watched Liz Truss squirm and stutter her way through this week’s round of toe-curling radio interviews and breathed a sigh of relief.

Not because the dithering Prime Minister had managed to convince the Rangers chief that she and her new chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng aren’t, as we’re all beginning to fear, a ticking time bomb ready to sink the nation’s economy. But rather that her series of excruciating showdowns with a cast of local presenters from the BBC regions has mercifully knocked the Ibrox vice-chairman out of the running for the most ill-advised interview of the year.

If Bennett hoped to reassure the grumbling Light Blues’ legions that all was well when he sat down for the gentlest of grillings from the club’s in-house TV channel last week, he thought wrong. His two-part, 33-minute address only served to rile up a fanbase already frothing over the club’s recent performances on and off the pitch.

Club 1872 branded the puff-piece performance “patronising” and “out of touch”. You’d have been advised to wait until after the 9pm watershed before wading into the replies online after he insisted the club was not “hoarding” their Champions League cash.

But while the majority of punters weren’t buying some of Bennett’s patter, Gio van Bronckhorst was in full agreement with one point the Gers director made. “I learned long ago not to judge a new Rangers player within weeks,” said Bennett as he appealed for calm after his manager opted to start without a single one of his seven summer signings in their recent Napoli clash.

That move by the Dutchman looked at the time like he was sending a message to the club’s recruitment team. But van Bronckhorst instead insists he was