With Alex McLeish denying that there have been talks between himself and managerless Rangers, it’s time for the Glasgow giants to look elsewhere.
It would be easy for Rangers to aim for a middling manager. Someone who has a proven ability to manage in the UK and keep things ticking over.
Or maybe they’ll aim for Ronald Koeman, joining rivals Celtic in trying to rehabilitate a young manager whose reputation was mangled by Merseyside.
Either would be fine choices, but Rangers are still a club on the rise. Though they’ve been back in the Premiership since last season, they’re still not quite back where they were: level with Celtic.
The way for them to close that gap? Excellent, elite-level coaching.
Which is why they should forego candidates like McLeish or even Koeman and instead go for Thomas Tuchel, the young German coach who was most recently boss of a brilliant Borussia Dortmund side.
Tuchel is 44 years-old and has been out of work since leaving the club at the end of last season. Now, ordinarily you’d think this was because he had failed, but far from it. In fact the week he was sacked, Tuchel led Dortmund to a German Cup win, their first major trophy since the Jurgen Klopp era was at its peak.
Tuchel left Dortmund because he was unhappy that his team had been forced by the club to play a Champions League quarter-final against Monaco just 24 hours after their team bus was targeted by a terrorist attack.
This dissatisfaction with the board forcing them to play before they were mentally ready (Dortmund predictably lost the game) upset to Tuchel and only added to the resentment he was already feeling about the summer 2016 transfer departures, where top talents like Mats Hummels and Henrikh Mkhitaryan left the club.
Tuchel leaving was not a matter of quality, merely support. At Rangers he would find a club in desperate need of some excellent coaching to mould the side into a recognisable team shape and give them direction.
Rangers have chopped and changed their bosses lately, but Brendan Rodgers has already shown how well a tactically adventurous manager can do in the SPL. And Tuchel’s football is sublime to watch; he would harness the natural talent in the Rangers squad and have them excelling.
How do you convince an elite coach like Tuchel to “slum it” in the SPL? Well, to be frank, there aren’t any elite jobs available at the moment and the SPL, if done right, is a route back into the Champions League next season.
Moreover it’s a chance to manage a historic side, and maybe prove himself capable of handling the rigours of British football. Doing that that he could be at the forefront of elite Premier League clubs’ minds when José Mourinho and Antonio Conte inevitably implode leading to Manchester United and Chelsea needing a new manager.
It would be a risk, sure, but returning Rangers to the footballing elite could be just the comeback quest Thomas Tuchel needs.
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