Michael Beale was far from a shy and retiring character during his spell as a manager in Scottish football, but in truth, the controversial comments on Celtic started before he even took charge of Rangers.
Beale, known for referring to Ange Postecoglou as ‘lucky’ and hyping up his own team without much merit, has been sacked from the Ibrox side and replaced with an interim management team of Steven Davis and Alex Rae.
Departing with him is all the bluster and loudmouth proclamations about what Rangers would have done in the past or what they made do in the future. The reality is his team had to watch Celtic march to a treble and then they fell seven points behind in the early stages of this season.
So it makes his comments about what would have happened had he and Steven Gerrard stayed at Ibrox instead of moved to Aston Villa look even more foolish.
In November 2022, a couple of weeks before replacing Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Beale gave an interview to BT Sport’s Currie Club podcast about his time at Rangers and the position he left the club in as Steven Gerrard’s assistant before moving to England, stating with certainty that Celtic wouldn’t have won the title in 2021/22 had he stayed.
Beale said: “Do I think we could have taken it forward? I definitely think we would have won the league. When we left, we were still four points in front. There is no way they would have come past us.
“We hadn’t lost in eight or nine Old Firms. The next one was maybe in the post because in a two-horse competition, anyone can win in any derby. But the games weren’t particularly close. They might have been in the scoreline but when you were in the stadium, we were very much in control of every game.”
Widely proclaimed as ‘the brains’ and ‘the coach’ behind the Gerrard era at Celtic, I think we can firmly put that myth about Postecoglou’s first title win to bed.
Had he stayed, Ange would have come out on top, just as he did last season. Beale did not have it in him to be a winner in his own right at Rangers. He lost every derby that truly mattered last year.
Perhaps in his next job, he’ll show a little bit more humility and think twice on talking about others, before ever doing anything to prove his own credentials as a manager.
In other news, Former Lazio and Man City star left impressed by Celtic ahead of Champions League showdown.
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