Michael Beale is searching for an oasis in a desert

To give a little context here, Rangers are on the back of three straight wins and three clean sheets in those games.

Against St Johnstone, it was turgid. In the Europa League, a good win against Real Betis after a poor first half hour gave us some cause for optimism.

On Sunday against an organised and disciplined Motherwell side, yet again, the patience of the Rangers fans was fully tested.

Being booed off the pitch at the end of an utterly inept performance, where Rangers found themselves hanging on for the last ten minutes or so, tells us all where this Rangers team under Michael Beale stands with the rank and file.

However, when it comes to Rangers, I tend to be the eternal optimist. I’ll see the positives in virtually anything when it comes to my team.

Some of us are that way inclined, while some of us are not. It’s what makes the Rangers fanbase such a broad church.

I’ve seen so much written and heard so much said lately from people that obviously care about the club, much of it negative and with an air of deflation.

Some of it is so emotionally charged and obviously comes from the heart, which means it’s spilling over into anger. That’s due to the teams inconsistency and results. There’s a pent-up frustration. We’ve all seen it it, rarely more so than after the defeat at Ibrox to our main rivals.

The season hasn’t started the way we all hoped, clearly. The fast flowing, attacking football we expected to see this season hasn’t materialised as yet.

The handbrake is firmly on

So yes, Michael Beale has to find a team from within his squad that can play the football he obviously wants to produce.

That frustration, borne from Rangers simply being nowhere near our best, is clear as day on match day, on socials, blogs, and podcasts. Even at my work, the Rangers fans I talk to are irritated by the lack of cohesion to Rangers play.

It’s still very early in the season, and yes, it takes time to build a new team. We, as fans, appreciate that, of course we do. However, the lack of progress in constructing a cohesive unit, both on and off the ball, is one of the reasons why there’s been so many voicing concerns.

What we want to see is structure to our game. When Michael Beale was the first team coach, under Steven Gerrard, you could see the incredible impact he had on Rangers.

That team, despite some flaws, played as a unit, moving up and down the pitch, from side to side together.

The patterns of play were obvious. Rangers could dismantle a team with slick one touch passing, capable of playing from their own six yard box to the other with ease. There was a coherent shape to the team and the way they played. 

Off the ball, that Rangers team was even more impressive. Gerrard’s side went into European competition fearing no one. The identity they had, the confidence in each other to produce against some top quality opposition, made every fan supremely confident of getting results at that level.

This being the case, I’m struggling to understand why it’s taking so long for Rangers to produce the goods this season.

We know Michael Beale can set teams up well. We’re also recognise that he has a tactical awareness that seen him being the key man in Gerrard’s backroom set up.

He also deserves credit for the second half of last season, where he steadied the ship and got Rangers moving in the right direction. That is despite a couple of poor results against Celtic, where in my opinion, he set the team up wrongly.

Criticism comes with the territory when you’re the Rangers manager, but for me, some of the overreaction this season has become personal and unjustified.

The only way Beale can gain the confidence of the support is to get results. Injuries are a hindrance to that, of course, and he doesn’t have his troubles to seek in that regard.

From here, Rangers need to put in a strong challenge to the league leaders, stay on their coat tails, and hope for them to falter. They either do that, or it’ll come down to having to go to Parkhead and win to close the four point gap.

The league cup is vital to the manager. He has to win that trophy. If Rangers get their hands on silverware, that will begin to settle fans down a little.

Rangers is built on success.

The fans have been starved of consistently winning trophies for far too long. The standards need to be redefined with failure being unacceptable. That goes for all connected to the club. From the board down, everyone has to be cognisant of that fact.

Fans’ patience is wearing thin.

Watching your nearest rivals catch up on titles won, and being within a hairs breadth of levelling Rangers trophy haul suggests there’s now an intolerance to failure.

Michael Beale is maybe unfortunate in that regard in terms of timing. He’s the manager at a point where that patience has turned to tolerance, but he has to accept that and embrace it.

The board members have to appreciate that the paying customer has put more than money into the club. They are not a cash cow. They have invested much more than their blue pound here.

They have had to endure the ignominy of Celtic winning five trebles in seven years. Add to that the embarrassing statement of fact that our city rivals have won seventeen of the last twenty-one domestic trophies may perhaps furnish them with the truth of where the majority of fans are with the club.

Rangers are at a crossroads. At a fork in the road, so to speak. To think that the fifty thousand who turn up at Ibrox will simply accept being second best to a Celtic team would be incredibly naive of both the Rangers board and management team.

Success is demanded.

If it is not, then our standards are lowered.

The Rangers fanbase won’t accept failure for much longer. The reaction to the start of this season proves that beyond any doubt.

* 4lads launches new podcast – Check it out here https://fourladshadadream.blog/2023/09/25/4lads-launches-regular-bitesize-podcast/ *