Former Rangers star Andrei Kanchelskis has reflected on his time in Glasgow as Dick Advocaat’s side wowed fans – but had a warning for current Ibrox boss Steven Gerrard not to make the same mistake the Dutchman did.
Kanchelskis was a £5million signing from Fiorentina and holds the distinction of having played for three countries in recognised internationals – Soviet Union, CIS and Russia – and scored the final goal for the Soviet Union before its disssolution.
The former Manchester United and Everton star enjoyed the first two years of his time at Ibrox but admits things started going downhill when Advocaat added the likes of Bert Konterman, Fernando Ricksen and Ronald De Boer to a squad already containing Dutch trio Arthur Numan, Gio van Bronckhorst and Michael Mols.
“I thought Glasgow Rangers was a really good team and their supporters were great. I had a great time in Glasgow,” Kanchelskis told the Glasgow Times.
“It was an excellent time in my career. I thought Scotland was a beautiful country and the people were very nice to me. We also had an excellent team.
“The first season was really good – we won the treble. The second season was also good – we won the doubles and reached the Champions League group stage. In the third season we had problems.
“Dick Advocaat brought many Dutch players with him. Before that we only had Giovanni, Arthur and Michael. But then he bought more Dutch players and there were many. ”
“There were three groups – the Dutch players, the other foreign players and the Scottish boys. The atmosphere was not great. There were problems. There were problems.”
“It would be a problem to have many players of any nationality in a club. If you have a lot of Brazilian players in a club, that would be a problem. It doesn’t help the team. Steven Gerrard has performed very well, but he must be careful not to do the same mistake”.
In other news, Rangers reportedly want ambitious move for Dutch star who’s been backed to ‘reach the top’
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