Glasgow Rangers boss Pedro Caixinha signed a three-year deal at Ibrox when he arrived towards the end of last season.
Pedro Caixinha may have lost three Old Firm games since arriving at Rangers earlier this year, but this week has arguably seen the Portuguese publicly face more questions about his future than at any other time during his Ibrox tenure – apart from the Europa League defeat to Progres in July perhaps.
The Gers appeared to have a golden chance to put themselves within one match of securing silverware at the weekend as they faced Motherwell in the Scottish League Cup semi-final at Hampden Park.
In truth, Rangers were extremely poor on the day and two goals from Louis Moult allowed Well to set up a final with Celtic for next month, leaving Caixinha to face plenty of questions about what his future looks like.
Caixinha’s position may be precarious. At Rangers, it always should be. Few were expecting the Gers to genuinely challenge Celtic in the Scottish Premiership this term, but the fact that they are already six points behind the Hoops and Aberdeen after nine games should be worrying, especially now that they cannot win any silverware until the season approaches its conclusion.
So is the length of Caixinha’s contract the key factor that is allowing the Rangers boss to avoid the kind of pressure that leads to reports – factual or not – that a manager is just a handful of games away from receiving the boot if the form does not change?
Sky Sports reported when he was appointed at Ibrox that he signed a three-year deal, and with Caixinha less than a year into that contract, it would certainly be no surprise if letting him go would cost the club a significant amount of money that the board would rather spend in other areas.
Given the number of signings made in the summer and some of the performances that have been seen this season, it is arguably premature to suggest that Caixinha should go even after the semi-final defeat.
But there is no question that he should be coming under serious pressure right now. And with their league form now set to come under the microscope like never before since he arrived, letting the pace-setters create even more daylight to the chasing pack is something he simply cannot allow to happen.
But with such a long time left to run on his contract, perhaps it would not be a surprise to see the board give him much longer than some of the fans would be willing to.
He now needs to take full advantage of the length of his contract and prove that the Motherwell defeat was the sign of a team still in transition rather than one that has reached its ceiling.
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