McLeish leaves Rangers with his pride intact as a £10m budget welcomes Le Guen

Ewan Murray
Saturday May 6, 2006
The Guardian

Amid the intense scrutiny which surrounds every move an Old Firm manager makes, it is to Alex McLeish's credit that he has kept his dignity during his final months at Rangers.

McLeish takes charge of the Ibrox club for the final time in tomorrow's visit of Hearts, after which he says pride will form an overwhelming emotion despite many believing he should be relieved to have left the scrutiny behind. "I'd like to think that I have brought a lot of happiness to the Rangers fans with the success we have had," said McLeish. "I take great pride and pleasure in that; I've lived the dream. I've achieved milestones from the minute I walked up the marble staircase and put pen to paper."

McLeish's 4½-year spell at Ibrox has been conspicuous by its relative lack of investment. Dick Advocaat, his predecessor, had a budget which allowed him to spend £25m during his first summer. In January this year Rangers were unwilling to pay around £400,000 for the Hibernian striker Derek Riordan.

Paul Le Guen, who is expected in Glasgow next week to begin a quiet overhaul, will have an initial budget of up to £10m. McLeish would have reasonable grounds to feel he has been dealt a poor hand.

However, the former Aberdeen and Scotland defender insists he harbours no sense of resentment as he prepares for his equally low-key exit. "I don't have any bitterness," McLeish said, "but I think it would have been interesting if there was huge spending power. But at the time [chairman] David [Murray] needed somebody who would relish the challenge. He needed someone who would realise that there wasn't going to be a lot of money and that cuts would have to be made. I was the right man at the right time."

Rangers will finish the season outside the top two for the first time since 1988, a fact which McLeish believes should be viewed against their progression to the last 16 of the Champions League. "There were suggestions I should go, back in January, but there was no way I was leaving the club in fifth position in the SPL," he explained. "Third is not good enough for Rangers. I know that but it was looking a lot worse in January. We were behind Kilmarnock and Inverness were on our tails; that was hugely embarrassing for me."

Despite winning seven trophies in his first 3½ years and this season's lack of success on the domestic front being offset somewhat by the Champions League run, there remains a section of the support who have never fully embraced McLeish.

The choice of songs among Ibrox fans has come under recent scrutiny from Uefa but closer inspection at home shows that McLeish is the only Rangers manager of recent times who has never had his name celebrated in song. While the reasons remain uncertain, few would deny that, given the resources at his disposal, McLeish did a fine job in keeping up with the big-spending Martin O'Neill, regarded as Celtic's finest since Jock Stein.

"There are jobs in England but there is no way I'm throwing my hat in the ring yet," added McLeish, who flatly denied any interest in the position at Charlton. "In any job I've always given 100% and, if I go to another club in the future, it will be the same. I won't regret anything or wish I was somewhere else; I'll get stuck into it with all the strength in my body."

Taken from the Guardian/Observer