Bringing in Danny Rohl as Rangers manager was an unsightly mess that required Andrew Cavenagh to break cover and offer assurances the club’s hierarchy hadn’t been running around with their hair on fire behind the scenes.
Keeping on the German head coach after everything that has happened in the interim has the potential to be a serious blunder that is going to have the Ibrox chairman fielding questions again on what on earth he and his team are playing at.
And be sure, it will be a far more critical audience paying attention to his answers this time round in the wake of another bad few weeks for a much-lauded takeover consortium that really isn’t showing any signs of coming up with the goods.
You’ll remember how it all played out last October. Rohl, a free agent after leaving Sheffield Wednesday, dropped out of the race to be the new boss. It was commonly accepted the search for Russell Martin’s replacement was down to a two-horse race between Steven Gerrard and Kevin Muscat.
Then, all of a sudden, in the time it takes for Andreas Skov Olsen to nod off and let Stephen Kingsley send a campaign right down the plughole, the 37-year-old pitched up in the suit and tie telling everyone he didn’t care if he was first, second or third choice.
Cavenagh admitted the whole process looked ‘jumbled, lumpy, whatever the right adjective is’, but offered assurances that it was actually a ‘smooth process’ that actually involved five different candidates.
Rangers chairman Andrew Cavenagh faces a big decision over manager Danny Rohl
One thing’s for certain. Things haven’t gone smoothly since. Rohl was forgiven for a Europa League campaign that saw Rangers finish 32nd of 36 teams because he was fighting so many fires on the home front in trying to breathe life into a season put on the respirator by Martin’s chaotic reign.
And, in fairness, he was doing all right for a while. Here’s the problem, though. A 4-2 home win over Hearts in mid-February put Rangers just two points behind the league leaders. Upwards of £10m had been invested in the squad the month before with extra dough coughed up to fund Skov Olsen’s loan deal from VfL Wolfsburg.
It was all there for the taking for Rohl and co, but they’ve folded like a deck of cards. Listening to the head coach reflect on last Monday’s 2-1 surrender to Hearts at Tynecastle during his pre-Old Firm press duties was just infuriating.
For weeks, he has bristled at suggestions there is some kind of mentality problem around his squad. Now, he’s talking about players being ‘too lazy’ in Gorgie, not taking enough responsibility, not taking form in training onto the pitch consistently.
If that’s not a mentality issue, it’s hard to know what is. There was talk about setting new standards as well, but no real meat on the bones when pressed. As usual. Mannerly and polite a bloke as Rohl is, the detail is often quite thin. He has been insistent, though, that he feels the board are ‘fully committed’ to him.
Sure, it must be remembered that Martin was saying similar things before he was emptied out onto the street. There is also speculation over the prospect of Rohl being offered a summer move to Wolfsburg, which would, presumably, be dependent on them avoiding relegation from the Bundesliga.
In truth, that might suit everyone come the summer. It’s not certain to happen, though, and Cavenagh has a really big spell coming up that needs to be handled with clarity and purpose.
Defeat at Tynecastle took Danny Rohl’s Rangers out of contention in the title race
There’s a share issue on the way that is designed to raise £16m to strengthen the first-team squad and a need to be sure about the right set-up for the footballing department before that starts getting spent.
There is also a fanbase that also needs to be given reasons to believe again as well.
The first year of healthcare tycoon Cavenagh’s time at the helm along with 49ers Enterprises has not lived up to expectations. He has fronted up, he’s delivered funding and he gives a strong impression his intentions are good and right, but the direction of travel remains miles off-track.
The decision to stick with Patrick Stewart as CEO after taking over ended with a sacking in November.
Likewise, Kevin Thelwell proved to be the wrong choice as sporting director – with the club still counting the cost of a largely dreadful transfer window last summer.
Former Liverpool player Stig-Inge Bjornebye did arrive as a consultant to work alongside technical director Dan Purdy – an arrangement that has tended to slip under the radar – while new CEO Jim Gillespie has yet to really stamp his mark on the club after moving into his role in March.
Getting his feet under the table is fine, but Gillespie will have to break cover and detail his own vision at some point too. As proven by the modus operandi of his opposite number at Celtic, Michael ‘Mr Invisible’ Nicholson, staying out of the spotlight when the natives are becoming restless can only get you so far.
For some, today’s Old Firm clash at Parkhead represents one last opportunity for Rohl to win people – including those above him in the pecking order – round, by putting a spanner in the works of Celtic’s title bid, showing he can get the better of opposite number Martin O’Neill.
It is surely too far gone for him to stay, though. He’s won just seven of his last 15 games in all competitions. Against teams in the top six of the Premiership, he’s been victorious on just six of 14 occasions.
Danny Rohl was outfoxed by Hearts boss Derek McInnes in a 2-1 defeat at Tynecastle
The team is shipping goals again. By Rohl’s own admission, they can’t string two decent halves of football together. His team selections and use of substitutions are already under serious, serious scrutiny.
Yes, he did inherit a flawed squad and a pretty bad situation, but this was a season that could easily have been salvaged and has ended up falling apart.
Getting a result away to Celtic doesn’t change an awful lot. Although winning the league is not mathematically impossible, the reality is that it would be too little, too late.
Rohl’s future will no doubt be the centre of debate and conjecture again this afternoon, but it’s only part of a far bigger picture.
His reign as boss has all the hallmarks of a busted flush. If Cavenagh really is going to carry on with him, he’d better have some strong reasoning because we’re getting close to a stage where a long-suffering fanbase are going to start questioning whether he’s the right guy for their club too.
Sticking with the status quo – and most probably having to rip up the script again in the autumn – is only going to bring those doubts closer to the surface unless he has an abnormally compelling case to make.
