Graeme Murty has been handed the reigns at Scottish Premiership giants Rangers until the end of 2017/18 – though Chris Sutton is distinctly unimpressed.
While the appointment of Graeme Murty as manager until the end of this season looks a sound decision by Rangers, you can’t ignore the feeling that they had little other option.
It was the worst kept secret in football that Rangers were hoping to hire Aberdeen manager Derek McInnes but, after a lengthy will-they-won’t-they saga more suited to an infuriating E4 comedy series, the 46-year-old decided he was happy enough with life at Pittodrie.
Plenty more names came and went, including Tony Pulis and Michael O’Neill while Gus Poyet, Michel Preud’homme and former Gers defender Henning Berg all are said to have thrown their hats into the ring at one time or another.
But Chris Sutton believes there was one stand-out candidate Rangers should have considered.
“Tommy Wright would (have been) a really positive appointment,” he told BT Sport after Murty’s appointment was confirmed.
“He’s taken St Johnstone as far as he can on extremely limited resources and got so much out of his players. He’s done an extraordinary job.
“(Rangers) want someone who knows the league and knows all the players up there. So he would (have been) a pretty logical appointment.”
St Johnstone have never finished outside the top half in any of Wright’s four years in charge at McDiarmid Park, posting three straight fourth place finishes between 2014 and 2017, and qualifying for Europe each year in the process.
But despite the Rangers board wanting a British manager who knows the league, per the Daily Record, the 54-year-old Northern Irishman never appears to have been seriously considered for the role. And this is not the first time that Sutton has championed Wright, whose St Johnstone side deservedly won 3-1 at Ibrox last weekend, for Rangers.
Though time will tell whether Murty is in fact the right man to lead Rangers forward.
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