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Gio can give Rangers that VITAL SPARK

Arveladze predicts new boss will help champions find their groove again ... just like McLeish did back in 2001

By Fraser Mackie

SHOTA ARVELADZE recalls how the mood lightened and the performances lifted at Rangers 20 years ago. There was no tearing up of the tactics board, no filleting of formations nor philosophy overloads.

All the talent needed to be successful was already in place in the Ibrox dressing room.

Dick Advocaat decided, as Steven Gerrard did, that his shelf life as Rangers manager had reached a natural conclusion after three and a half years in the job.

Gerrard felt the time and opportunity was right following an approach from Aston Villa. Advocaat moved upstairs in a director of football capacity.

Two decades ago, Alex McLeish was ushered in from Hibernian and took Rangers on a 23-match unbeaten domestic run, of which Arveladze was a happy participant.

As Rangers once more undergo managerial change in mid-season, the Georgian can well imagine a similar spark being lit.

Giovanni van Bronckhorst shouldn’t need to tweak too much, says Arveladze, to keep Rangers

ahead in the title race

When a new coach comes in, a different picture emerges for the players

and improve their recent substandard displays. Sometimes a change of voice and shift in atmosphere is all that’s required when there’s so much quality in the camp.

Arveladze explained: ‘Gio has walked in with a new way of speaking and new people. Who knows what can happen?

‘We went on this long unbeaten run under Alex. It shows that things can happen quickly that no one expected.

‘Dick was a typical old-school Dutch guy who looked at every single point, every single action, every single piece of body language of his players.

‘That’s the way he worked and part of why he had so much success in his career. Sometimes it can be exactly what’s needed.

‘But it had reached the stage we needed someone to trust us to let us express ourselves. Someone who didn’t go so deep into everything. From how we work to what shoes we wear and where we must park our car. Maybe Dick was too long in the job, almost four years of the same. Sometimes it gets too much.

‘And sometimes the answer is quite simple — don’t change so much if the quality is there.

‘Alex didn’t change the system, he just tried to put everyone important in the team. He could talk and joke but, at the same time, keep highlevel training sessions going and ask the maximum from the boys.’

Van Bronckhorst has landed in the curious spot of surveying a squad four points clear at the top of the table but on a domestic downer.

Performances have dipped from last term’s ‘Invincibles’ standard. The League Cup semi-final loss to Hibs last Sunday had been an accident waiting to happen.

The Dutchman’s ultimate remit is to steer Rangers to the title that instantly unlocks Champions League riches in 2022/23.

McLeish’s tenure, meanwhile, began in mid-December 2001 with Rangers 12 points adrift of Celtic in the top flight. There was little hope of reeling in Martin O’Neill’s squad that lost only one league match on the way to a superb 103-point haul.

McLeish beating Celtic en route to winning both cup competitions transformed Rangers’ fortunes and teed up a Treble the following year.

Bert Konterman was a different player, Peter Lovenkrands rediscovered a goal touch. The disaffected were dynamite for a new regime.

Arveladze, who scored in all three of McLeish’s first games, doesn’t know the fringe men who’ll become favourites over the next few months. But he expects a few players who had stalled under Gerrard to start hitting the heights with a new boss.

It looks good for Van Bronckhorst with the erratic Alfredo Morelos bursting back into life against Sparta Prague as Rangers reached the Europa League knockout stage.

Arveladze said: ‘Some guys who don’t get the chance under one manager are always disappointed and maybe not so motivated. Then a new coach coming gives a whole new different possibility to them.

‘I believe everybody will realise this is a different picture now. A new boss, perhaps someone who understands them.

‘With Alex, after the first few games, we liked it. The players thought: “This is why they brought this guy here. It’s a good sign”.’

Livingston was the venue in April 2002 where McLeish’s unbeaten streak ground to a halt after four months. Today the Tony Macaroni Arena hosts Van Bronckhorst’s first Premiership game as Rangers manager. It’s the kind of contest that caught Rangers out for years before last season’s breakthrough.

Yet now Connor Goldson fears the hunger levels have dropped, in an astonishing outburst.

Arveladze, who has managed in Turkey, Israel and Uzbekistan, believes airing grievances at the outset of van Bronckhorst’s reign can put that issue to bed.

He added: ‘It’s good this has come out now, to deal with on the first day for Gio. Players losing hunger? They can find it again quickly with a new manager!

‘In my time there, I never saw anything less than hunger. I cannot imagine how someone can have less. If someone does, then he goes and someone else comes in. That’s how it has to be at Rangers.

‘I believe if you have the best team in the country, which Rangers are and they have shown up in Europe too, then they have the quality still to succeed.

‘Gio will remind them that everything that’s happened in the past remains in the past.

‘He’ll remind them they shouldn’t tolerate anything other than being the best and winning. It’s what you must love about being at Rangers.’

Football

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2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-28T08:00:00.0000000Z

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