Exit Le Guen, re-enter Smith - but who's REALLY to blame for the turmoil at Ibrox?

When, in March of last year, Rangers confirmed that they had recruited Paul Le Guen to replace Alex McLeish as manager at the season's end, it seemed a genuine coup. Le Guen's capture of three successive French titles during his time at Lyon had made him a much sought-after man, who could, it was thought, take his pick from many of Europe's top clubs. That he ultimately chose Rangers seemed an exciting confirmation of Ibrox chairman Sir David Murray's ambition: here, surely, was the man to restore the Glasgow giants to their once unquestioned pre-eminence within the Scottish game, and make long-overdue inroads in continental combat too.

This observer, certainly, assumed the highly-regarded Frenchman would, given time, gradually turn the Gers' flagging fortunes around. Yet, as so many Old Firm managers have discovered in the past, time is a rare commodity where either Rangers or Celtic are concerned. John Barnes actually made the best start in statistical terms of any Parkhead boss in history: but as the Bhoys' great rivals disappeared into the distance early in the New Year, it was his unhappy fate to discover how quickly boardroom and fan support can turn into opprobrium - with the infamous Scottish Cup elimination by Inverness Caledonian Thistle proving the straw which broke the camel's back. Le Guen did not even last as long as his club's entry into the Cup: exiting by mutual consent last week, with Murray's lack of backing for the manager's stance in his much-publicised standoff with captain Barry Ferguson apparently proving decisive.

Given all that has been written, not least on this very blog, about the ongoing culture clash at Hearts under Vladimir Romanov, one is immediately drawn to the stark contrast between Murray's refusal to accept the ostracisation of Ferguson and the Jambos' decision to strip Steven Pressley of the club captaincy and release him. The Rangers chairman plainly felt extremely uncomfortable about publicly humiliating a highly popular, talismanic player, whereas Romanov's message was that no individual, however popular, however much service he might have given, was to be considered indispensable: especially not if he was thought to be an obstruction to the changes which the Tynecastle supremo wishes to bring forth. And it must be acknowledged that, however controversial Pressley's parting of the ways with the Edinburgh club was, and however angry many Hearts supporters were at the time, events since have, so far at least, largely vindicated the club's decision: with a hitherto troubled season at last beginning to flatline, the squad seeming more at ease with itself than in many months, and ten points from a possible twelve having been accrued, not to mention a smooth passage past Stranraer as the defence of the Scottish Cup began on Saturday.

Yet one also cannot help but wonder whether the decision to dispense with Le Guen's services hadn't already been taken before Ferguson was apparently stripped of the armband. Certainly, reports confidently (and, as will be confirmed within the next 48 hours, correctly) predicting Walter Smith's return to Ibrox appeared within hours of the Frenchman's departure: indeed, rumours had been circulating precisely to that effect during the previous week. Smith was a remarkably short-priced favourite for the job with the bookmakers as soon as Le Guen's exit was announced: and the almost immediate signing of Andy Webster - never someone who particularly interested Le Guen - would surely not have been made without the consent of any new manager. The evidence, in other words, strongly suggests that Le Guen's battle of wills with his captain was not so much an attempt to at last instill his ideas and values upon the club, as merely the final, valedictory throw of the dice of a man who already knew his time was up.

Moreover, as a number of reports confirmed in the broadsheet press over the weekend, Le Guen had in fact been struggling to overcome the resistance to his methods of players like Ferguson and Kris Boyd ever since his arrival: indeed, just as the Hearts dressing-room had developed into a number of debilitating cliques - one featuring Lithuanian players, another, senior Scottish professionals - so the Ibrox squad had rapidly polarised into one pitting Scottish players against Le Guen's mainly continental signings such as Filip Sebo, Karl Svensson and Lionel Letizi. Le Guen wanted a vastly more rigorous training regime, and the end to what he clearly perceived to be a drinking culture at the club: but the likes of Ferguson and Boyd plainly felt differently. Of course, had the Frenchman delivered rapid results on the pitch, he would have had a far better chance of taking the squad with him: but when these failed to materialise, the relationship between him and a number of players became ever more strained.

It is important to underscore here just what a massively difficult task Le Guen undertook when agreeing to become McLeish's successor: for the Rangers of 2007 are anything but the often hugely impressive side of the 1990s. This is a club which at different times in the not-too-distant past boasted individuals such as Paul Gascoigne, Brian Laudrup, Ally McCoist, Andy Goram, Ian Durrant, Terry Butcher and Trevor Steven: yet as it subsided to a miserable third-place finish last season, had suddenly become reliant on the likes of Thomas Buffel, Marvin Andrews and Charlie Adam. How had such a state of affairs come to pass?

The answer lies partly in the lack of resources - and especially of television revenue - which continues to undermine all Scottish clubs; but more in a catastrophic period of overstretch embarked upon by Murray and Dick Advocaat in the late 1990s and early this decade. Advocaat joined Rangers at a time when the breakaway Scottish Premier League had just been formed, complete with a four-year television deal with SKY, football as a whole continued to enjoy a boom which had begun in the aftermath of Italia 90, and many clubs believed the future lay in selling their own rights to telecommunications companies. Cable organisation NTL became the sponsors of both Celtic and Rangers, and the Scottish Media Group made an £8m investment (over half of which was made up of convertible loan stock) in Hearts.

Against this backdrop, Murray believed the time was right to attempt to gatecrash Europe's true elite: but in the continued absence of anything like the revenue enjoyed by clubs in England, Spain, Italy or Germany, there was never the remotest chance that his plans could succeed. At Hearts, chief executive Chris Robinson absurdly believed a mere £8m could bridge the yawning chasm to the Old Firm, even when a Champions League qualification berth wasn't even available yet to the side finishing 2nd. With Celtic and especially Rangers spending far more, third place, and with it a probable early UEFA Cup exit (both of which would have been perfectly attainable on a far lower wage bill), remained the limit of what Hearts could realistically hope to achieve: but by the time this was realised, SMG had entirely predictably decided not to convert their loan, which quickly became a monumental, near-fatal albatross around the club's neck.

And similarly, Rangers - while already Scotland's dominant club - faced an unbridgeable gap to those clubs enjoying bountiful domestic and Champions League riches year-in, year-out. An excellent Gers side featuring players such as Stefan Klos, Jorg Albertz, Andrei Kanchelskis and Rod Wallace swept all before it in the SPL, and gave a good account of itself in Europe too: but there it faced the combined might of Bayern Munich and Valencia, both of whom reached the last four of that season's Champions League, and would contest the final the following year too. Rangers, albeit a little unluckily, were eliminated following the group stage: exactly what would have occurred in any case on a much lower and more sustainable wage bill.

The transfer fees and wages now being paid by the club made sustained European success not just desirable, but entirely necessary: but it was impossible to attain. To make matters considerably worse, Celtic now finally got their act together, and recruited the brilliant Martin O'Neill, who within a matter of weeks had left Advocaat's team trailing in his wake. Now, even Champions League qualification of any description was under serious threat: which explains the disastrous decision to spend a ludicrous £12m in acquiring Tore Andre Flo from Chelsea in November 2000.

But it made little difference: O'Neill's Celtic were suddenly pre-eminent, while Rangers began to implode amid a sea of competing egos and injuries to key players. Only when Advocaat departed midway through the 2001/2 season was the club's spending (which included a bewildering £6.5m on Michael Ball in Summer 2001) at last reined in: but in the meantime, its debts had soared, and would eventually peak at a whopping £90m. So belatedly, over-priced, under-performing players at last began to be sold off: but even though the title was snatched on goal difference in 2002/3, the damage had already been done. Thanks to the disastrous mistakes which had been made, and which had nothing whatsoever to do with him, McLeish could not hope to shop in the same market which, thanks to his board's relative parsimony, O'Neill occasionally enjoyed: yet he still had to deal with the expectations of a fervent support who could not possibly tolerate the prospect of their club playing second fiddle to their great, eternal rivals from across the city.

Indeed, it is to the highly underrated McLeish's immense credit that he was somehow able to match his far more celebrated rival's haul of seven trophies despite a slightly shorter period in charge: but this statistic, however impressive, papers over more than a few cracks. In reality, but for a couple of bounces of the ball here or there, Celtic would now be well on their way to securing seven titles in a row: and have become every bit as dominant as Rangers were over the previous decade.

Football fans often forget how much success on the pitch owes to financial stability being achieved off it: and while Rangers' achievement of nine championships in a row between 1988 and 1997 was undoubtedly remarkable, it was thanks both to their own sensible economic strategy, as well as their great rivals being in a state of continual chaos, with the gates to an almost-derelict Parkhead very nearly locked for good in early 1994. Similarly, Celtic's pre-eminence now owes a huge amount to the foundations laid in place by former chairman Fergus McCann, who attracted an unfathomable degree of fury amongst Bhoys supporters while modernising the club, transforming the stadium, and building a team which recaptured the title in 1998, and then began its period of dominance under O'Neill two years later; while it has been their rivals' turn to suffer the consequences of economic folly.

That is the background against which Le Guen became manager: and although Rangers' debts have been reduced considerably, they are still playing catch-up to a Celtic whose board remember all too well their near-death experience of thirteen years ago, and have carefully followed a strategy which, while often infuriating their supporters, and even at times O'Neill, is likely to provide for both stability and success for many years to come. Only because Celtic's finances are relatively healthy was Gordon Strachan's board prepared to at last loosen the purse strings in order to sign Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Thomas Gravesen: but this was not a luxury available to Le Guen, who focused instead on signing cheap, young foreign imports with an emphasis on building for the long term.

In light of all this, it is astonishing that Murray was not prepared to offer Le Guen his full, unwavering support for the sweeping changes which the manager correctly deemed to be absolutely necessary. Last season demonstrated with abundant clarity that Rangers were off the pace, and required a radical change of approach: such change is often painful and demands patience, both from the supporters and especially from the board. It should also be remembered that, however much Le Guen's acquisitions struggled to adapt to the peculiar demands of the Scottish game, his side was still very much on course to achieve 2nd spot and Champions League qualification, and had demonstrated surprising levels of progress in the UEFA Cup.

Arsenal's board displayed qualities of patience and vision when Arsene Wenger's first fifteen months in charge proved difficult; and Liverpool's directors maintained their faith in Rafael Benitez while his side struggled badly to gain a foothold in the Premiership during his initial season at the helm. Both were rewarded, and there is no reason to believe those in charge at Ibrox would not have been as well, had they provided the backing which a coach of Le Guen's repute surely warranted. If the manager deemed individuals such as Ferguson and Boyd to be a bar to his ideas bearing fruit, his board should have supported him: instead, in turning tail only midway through an inevitably problematic first season, they took the easy way out.

Smith's imminent return surely suggests that those players most opposed to Le Guen's way of doing things have very much won the day: but without real change, how can Rangers hope to close the gap on their rivals? The club are still paying heavily for colossal errors of judgement made seven or even eight years ago, and it is absurd to expect an immediate transformation against such a grim backdrop. If Rangers supporters are looking to find the individual or individuals responsible for their proud club's current state, they should look not at Le Guen or McLeish, or even at Ferguson or Boyd, but to the very top: to their chairman.

Sir David Murray may be the man who together with Graeme Souness transformed the club in the late 1980s; he may be the owner who oversaw nine-in-a-row; he may even be the man who returned in order to help reduce the Gers' enormous debts over recent years. But he was also responsible for the monumental blunders which landed the club in such a mess in the first place: and in failing to back a manager who was sensibly attempting to build for the long term and gradually sort that mess out, he has been guilty of diverting the fans' attention towards an all-too-easy scapegoat. It is now Smith's remit to revive the club and restore past glories; but with a chairman like Murray still in place, it must be doubted whether such a task can be accomplished: whoever the manager might be.