Rangers old guard could spare Gio retrograde recriminations as 7 new boys fail to catch fire - Keith Jackson

Dangerous moments these in the managerial lifespan of Giovanni van Bronckhorst. They won’t be chasing him down Edmiston Drive with lit torches and pitchforks should he crash and burn at the first hurdle in the Champions League qualifiers.

No, he has too much credit rolled over from last season to become the second top flight casualty of the summer following Graham Alexander’s dismissal at Motherwell for overseeing a European collapse of similarly toe curling proportions. But, even so, if the Dutchman cannot find a way of overturning a shambolic first leg performance against Union Saint-Gilloise when he gets these Belgian minnows back to Ibrox, then it will leave a major stain against his name nonetheless.

It was only 12 months ago, after all, when Steven Gerrard was staring at the beginning of the end after failing to see off Malmo in the summer eliminators and even though the Scouser was eventually lured into accepting a lucrative ticket back to England’s Premier League, he had the shrewd judgement to jump before he was pushed.

Make no mistake, had Gerrard turned down Aston Villa’s advances and hung around for long enough to be relieved of the league title by Ange Postecoglou then his time at Rangers would have been up in any case. And that’s precisely the way it was all heading before he darted across the border, leaving a trail of dust behind him, to make room for Van Bronckhorst’s arrival.

A horrible start to the campaign had buffeted his team into a tailspin and Gerrard reached for the ejector seat rather than allow his own reputation to go down in flames. This rapid domestic decline ultimately proved to be unrecoverable even with a new man at the controls. But Van Bronckhorst’s running repairs allowed