Barry Ferguson feels EMPTY after missing out on Rangers job as club insider insists ‘he had a vision'
A return for Steven Gerrard is rumoured as Rangers close in on new manager to replace Ferguson
WHAT NEXT? Barry Ferguson feels EMPTY after missing out on Rangers job as club insider insists 'he had a vision'
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
BARRY FERGUSON won't be the new Rangers manager, the club revealed this week.
The former captain took the Ibrox hot seat after Belgian Phillippe Clement was relieved of his duties in February.
Sign up for the Rangers newsletter
Sign up
2
Ferguson is set to step back into his role as ambassador at Rangers
Credit: SNS
2
With former Rangers boss Gerrard the favourite to take over
Credit: Reuters
He came into the role with ex-Rangers men Neil McCann, Billy Dodds, Allan McGregor, with coach Issame Charaï remaining from Clement's spell.
Ferguson urged the Rangers' hierarchy to 'make a decision soon' earlier in the month, whilst also admitting he was interested in the job.
It was revealed on Sunday that the Rangers hall-of-famer was out of the running for the permanent position at Ibrox.
It was revealed last night on the Go Radio Football Show that since the news, Ferguson has felt empty.
Craig Moore revealed: 'Look, I did manage to get a hold of Barry yesterday once I heard the breaking news. And it's fair to say he was disappointed. He felt very empty.
'Because he felt that he could do a real job. He had a real clear vision of what he could do and what needed to be done. But by all accounts, the decision makers at Rangers want to go down a more experienced path.
'So, it will be interesting to see what that is in terms of who that particular person is. I think the one word that maybe I still don't think that the new people, they still think that Rangers is a project. And Barry was very clear, as I am and I'm sure a lot of Rangers supporters are, Glasgow Rangers is not a project club.
'It's a club about getting a team that can go and win trophies. So, it would be interesting to see who the person is going to be, how well they hit the ground, you must hit the ground running. As great a club as Rangers Football Club are in terms of their support.
'If it doesn't start well next season, that support will fade and fade very quickly in my opinion.'
Ferguson won six of the 15 games he oversaw at Rangers, one of which seen his side win at Celtic Park against the Hoops for the first time since 2020.
Robert Grieve & Bill Leckie have the very latest on the Rangers manager situation as Steven Gerrard & Russell Martin emerge as front-runners
Steven Gerrard is heavily rumoured to take over from Ferguson, with Betfair suspending betting on the former Liverpool captain making a spectacular return to Ibrox.
Russell Martin appeared to be in the running for the job with Gerrard, but now he looks set to join Leicester, taking over from Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Keep up to date with ALL the latest news and transfers at the Scottish Sun football page
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The National
an hour ago
- The National
Rangers full-back 'set' for English Premier League move
The 16-year-old has risen through the academy ranks at the Ibrox club and turned out for the under-18s this season. Read more: He is now said to be on his way to join Newcastle, with a medical in the works for Goodbrand, who will initially join up with the club's academy, claims the Daily Mail's Craig Hope. There is also believed to have been interest from abroad in the teenager. 🚨 EXC: Newcastle are set to sign Oliver Goodbrand from Rangers. Highly rated 16-yr-old left back who had interest from abroad. Due on Tyneside for medical. Will go into the academy next season #nufc — Craig Hope (@CraigHope_DM) June 6, 2025 News of Goodbrand's exit comes as Rangers' interest in Conor Coady emerges. The Rangers Review revealed earlier today that the Ibrox club are considering a move for the England international following Russell Martin's appointment as head coach. Coady has played 10 times for his country and could replace Robin Propper, who is likely to leave amid interest from Dutch outfit FC Twente. "There are a few positions where we'll need to strengthen fairly quickly and fairly early on," new boss Martin recently told Sky Sports. "I'm also willing to be surprised and I'm open to being surprised by some of the players we have here. "I think the way we're going to try and work and play is going to give them the best chance to show us what they've got and to give us the best version of themselves and hopefully one or two surprises. "We'll need some help before that game for sure, but until we get in here and assess everyone, how many we'll need before the game or how realistic that is because football and the business and transfer window can be difficult. "I'm pretty sure by then we'll have one or two people [in], to help us add to the group."
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
New Rangers boss Russell Martin already looking to English leagues for defensive reinforcements with two centre-backs targeted and another on the way out of Ibrox
Rangers are weighing up moves for defensive duo Harry Darling and Conor Coady, with Robin Propper set to depart Ibrox after just one season. New boss Russell Martin is keen to revamp the squad and make some additions ahead of the Rangers players reporting back for pre-season in just over a fortnight. A 25-year-old centre-back who is being chased by a host of clubs in the English Championship, Darling looks likely to leave Swansea City on a free transfer after turning down a new contract. Martin has signed Darling twice previously, firstly at MK Dons and then again at Swansea, and could now look to make it a third time at Rangers. While facing competition from the likes of Norwich City and Sheffield United among several others, Rangers are hopeful that Martin's personal relationship with the player could yet swing things in their favour. Rangers are also tracking the availability of Leicester City 's Coady, a 32-year-old centre-back who won 10 caps for England earlier in his career. A product of the Liverpool youth academy, Coady played the bulk of his football at Wolves and was a key figure in helping to establish them in the Premier League. He has since gone on to have a spell at Everton, where he was signed by Rangers sporting director Kevin Thelwell, and latterly at Leicester. Coady still has another year to run on his contract, but Leicester are expected to revamp their squad following relegation to the Championship. Rangers are tracking his progress and it's believed that Martin is a big admirer of Coady's leadership qualities. The push for more defensive reinforcements comes as Propper is closing in on a return to Holland after just one season in Glasgow. The 31-year-old Dutchman endured a poor season and never convinced following his £2.5million move from Twente last summer. Rangers will inevitably have to take a hit on that investment and are unlikely to recoup the fee, with a return to Twente the most likely destination for Propper at this point. Martin is reluctant to close the door on any player before he's had a chance to assess them in pre-season and Ben Davies is likely to be offered a chance to resurrect his Rangers career.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
HUGH MacDONALD: Russell Martin's survival relies on just one thing ... winning. Even the great Walter Smith told me he always felt just one match away from a crisis
There are glimpses that reveal the brutal reality. Every Old Firm manager arrives with the loud message that he feeds on the pressure, welcomes the expectation, embraces the turmoil. Quieter conversations reveal the truth, desperate moments indicate the strain. A cup of coffee with the late, great Walter Smith on this subject was routinely illuminating. He humorously alluded to a change of toilet habits on Old Firm days but was more sombre when discussing the daily reality of his spells in charge of Rangers. He famously said that even in the heady days of nine-in-a-row he was two days away from a crisis. He later conceded that this period of grace had been reduced to one match. In his first week as Celtic manager, Gordon Strachan walked upstairs to a press conference. He told reporters this was going to be his fifth of the day. 'It's crazy,' he said. It is all of that and a little bit more. It is impossible to convey the pressures on a manager of Rangers or Celtic. Strachan had successfully dodged relegation with Coventry, enduring that awful strain, and had taken Southampton to an FA Cup final. He had also been a wonderful player in Scotland, attuned to the demands presented at Ibrox and Parkhead. Smith's career included spells as assistant to Jim McLean at Dundee United — one suspects a role with particular demands — four years as a manager of Everton and a brief spell as No 2 to Alex Ferguson at Manchester United. Yet he would dismiss briskly any notion that these jobs held the nerve-jangling jeopardy of the post at Ibrox. He was sacked — 'very nicely', he conceded — in the wake of the failure to win ten consecutive titles. Strachan resigned after failing to win a fourth consecutive title. The cases of Smith and Strachan illustrate both the strain and the imperatives. The simple advice to any Old Firm manager is to win. It is the execution of this at Rangers that has been the problem since the financial meltdown at the club. Since 2012, Rangers have won one domestic title. Russell Martin steps into the job with a personal strategy of how to revive the club. He will quickly be apprised by outside sources at how quickly he must achieve this. Mark Warburton and Davie Weir were assured that consolidation in the top flight and a second-placed finish was a reasonable expectation in July 2016. They subsequently walked on to Ibrox in the shadow of banners declaring the team was 'Going for 55'. They did not survive that season. This is a job that has the perennial caretaker, Graeme Murty, spinning on his head, Pedro Caixinha talking from a bush, Gio Van Bronckhorst finding that reaching a Europa League final is no job protection scheme, Michael Beale descending from sound bites to gibberish and Philippe Clement doing the can-can in the wake of a penalty controversy. It can take its toll on the other side of the city, too. Tony Mowbray was doomed from the moment he started talking about projects. Neil Lennon was consumed by circumstance. Covid and a cadre of players who wanted to move were more than enough to send him packing. Success, though, is no guarantee of longevity. Ronny Deila won the title in both of the seasons he was in charge at Celtic. A semi-final defeat to Rangers in the Scottish Cup was his death knell. This, again, emphasises the reality of life in Scotland. Winning is necessary, being better than one's rival is essential. This bluntly is what Martin faces as he strides up the marble staircase in his designer trainers. There will be rational talk of overhauling the recruitment process, putting in structures, improving sports science, etc, etc. Most observers would agree that this is the only way for Rangers to progress significantly both on and off the field. The previous policy — if it warrants such a name — has been a shambles since liquidation. There will now be an infrastructure to address this failure. Martin will play his part in this but his priority will be to put a winning team on the park. Correction: his only salvation will be to put a winning team on the park. On a Saturday. In midweek. Then on a Saturday again. There is talk about how the intelligent and articulate Englishman will know this. There is the theory that insists that previously being a player at the club will have apprised him of the true size of the job. This is unlikely. Ally McCoist only realised the scale of the demands when in situ. Mowbray at Celtic, curiously, never seemed to grasp it. Even in the wake of a 4-0 defeat in Paisley on a chilly night in 2010, he was chuntering on about taking it on the chin and moving on. He did. He cleared his locker the next day. I interviewed Martin five years ago. He was open, insightful about success and failure in his life. He spoke about how his father's gambling had led to the loss of the family home, how ulcerative colitis had blighted his career and then how his spell as a player at Rangers had unravelled. 'I didn't do myself justice,' he admitted. 'I am gutted about that.' He was then at MK Dons as manager. He is now at Rangers as manager. The gulf is huge. But he has led a team to promotion from the Championship and has coached Southampton in the Premier League, admittedly a side that was unsurprisingly relegated. He is an intelligent and respected coach. He is an interesting speaker. But his future now rests purely on results. Modern coaches speak about process and performance. Martin has to acknowledge that this will not wash for the majority of supporters. His survival rests on whether he 'gets it'. His teacher in this regard must be Monsieur Clement. He was, it seemed, an astute appointment, given a c.v. that boasted three Belgian titles with two different clubs. But he never 'got it'. One cannot talk of shots on target after a 3-0 defeat by Celtic. One cannot merely talk of 'frustration' after a defeat at home to Queen's Park in the Scottish Cup. And one must resist any temptation to do the can-can. Words, of course, will not save Martin. But they can add to the atmosphere of stress and siege. He needs to be advised in depth about the demands that will be placed on him in terms of interviews and how he should respond. Tony Mowbray never really seemed to grasp what it meant to be Celtic boss until a 4-0 defeat to St MIrren saw him sacked Ultimately, this will be helpful rather than completely protective. Public relations, after all, is superficial. Winning is the core. However, if Martin seeks inspiration he can glance across the Clyde. Martin O'Neill arrived at Celtic in 2000 with the accepted — if unscientifically proven — belief that the Parkhead club was five years behind Rangers. His team blew away Rangers in the first derby and went on to win a treble that season. Ange Postecoglou stepped out of a jet alone in the summer of 2021. He was lampooned by some. There was no need to recruit a gaggle of trumpeters for a fanfare down the Celtic way. He won five out of the six domestic trophies he contested. He quickly introduced a style that was attractive and successful. Martin could, though, look closer to home. The aforementioned Walter Smith came back to Rangers in 2007 after the reign of Paul Le Guen ended in the same manner as a fuel tanker falling off a cliff. Smith then won three successive titles. The immediate turnaround in these cases was down to the clear diktats of the managers and their recruitment. O'Neill, Smith and Postecoglou knew the type of player they wanted and brought them in. They then won games. It all sounds so simple. The only problem is that it must be done with purpose and relentless speed. It is akin to cycling across the Niagara Falls at 60mph on a moped with dodgy steering and shiny tyres. The propensity for failure is immense but the exhilaration of the challenge is attractive for such characters as Martin. That tightrope starts next month with Champions League qualifiers. Yes, next month. Martin spoke about being a Rangers player for a short period but even that experience won't prepare him for what lies ahead as head coach The adrenaline will carry him through initially. He will, of course, need more to triumph. In that interview in 2020, Martin talked about how failure had been his best teacher. 'I believe failure can be the best thing that happens at times. I have learned the most from failure,' he said. This was sincere and was illustrated by examples. But this belief must be refined if not recanted at Ibrox. Failure for Rangers is finishing second. This may be unfair, even unreasonable. But so is my leccy bill. The only thing Martin will learn from failure in Glasgow is how to update his c.v. for his next job interview. Harsh, but true. He will give it his all, aided by new owners and an updated infrastructure. There will be a modern presence at Ibrox and Auchenhowie but the old truths hold sway. Again, he needs to win but he would also welcome another essential. A mate and colleague of Walter Smith was once asked what was essential to success as a manager. 'Luck,' replied Sir Alex Ferguson. This applied to the genius from Govan. It is surely needed by the aspirant from England.
