Steven Davis this week thanked the board for the opportunity they’d given him as interim Rangers boss. Ninety minutes in and he might be wishing they hadn’t bothered.
Frankly, being asked to manage this plodding, one-paced, rag-tag shadow of a team is a task as thankless as they come. Davis deserves credit for even agreeing to take it on knowing it might well kill off his managerial ambitions before they’ve even begun. Against a team named after the Greek god of war, Rangers weren’t just outfought but out though, out run and ultimately outplayed by Aris Limassol.
And getting them back into any kind of competitive shape now looks a job bordering on the Herculean. The whispers from the top of the marble staircase on Sunday night as the beleaguered Beale was finally given his jotters was that the Rangers board were happy to leave Davis and right-hand man Alex Rae in place as they take their time finding the new man. Well Davis can be forgiven for wishing they’d get a shift on and allow some other poor chump to sort out this mess.
Right from the off Gers were ragged. Beale’s £13million frontline have taken the brunt of the stick this season but it was old stagers like James Tavernier, Connor Goldson, Borna Barisic and Ben Davies who were posted missing as goals from Alex Moucketou-Moussounda and Shavy Babicka consigned them to a fifth defeat of the season already.
You can’t point the finger at Davis, what else was he supposed to do with a squad that’s been shorn of quality and confidence since Beale’s disastrous rebuild? But the same can’t be said of those taking to the pitch.
Apart from Jack Butland and Abdallah Sima - whose goal 20 minutes of time at least offered some chink of home on another dismal night - it was a
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