Rangers: Guidi claims fans aren’t on board with Van Bronckhorst

Journalist Mark Guidi feels a number of Rangers fans aren’t quite on board with Giovanni van Bronckhorst.

Van Bronckhorst took over as Rangers boss in November last year after Steven Gerrard parted ways with the club, and the Dutch manager won the Scottish Cup and got to the final of the Europa League ahead of his first full season in charge.

However, this season has not entirely gone to plan. While Rangers faced a tricky crunch tie to make the Champions League group stages tonight, their attempt to regain the Scottish title from their arch-rivals had its first setback at the weekend, as they dropped two points late on to Hibernian and ended the game with nine men.

And despite Van Bronckhorst experiencing some highs during his brief stint as Rangers boss thus far, Guidi spoke on the Go Radio Football Show prior to their clash in the Netherlands and claimed that there are a number of fans who are not quite sold on the Dutch manager, as he responded to a disgruntled supporter who phoned in to bemoan the team’s form.

He said: “I think the point that [the caller] makes is symptomatic, unfortunately, of a lot of Rangers supporters, where I just don’t think they are having Giovanni van Bronckhorst, for whatever reason. I think there’s a number of them that are just not having him.”

TIF Thoughts on Guidi’s comments…

It may be deemed as harsh that some of the Rangers fans are not on board with Van Bronckhorst after he led them to a European final last season, albeit they did not win it and let slip a lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership.

Also, he has had just two transfer windows to get his own players through the door, and his predecessor took three seasons to deliver that elusive league title – something Guidi claimed himself, arguing that the pandemic also helped Gerrard’s cause.

Perhaps Van Bronckhorst is a victim of the success the fans enjoyed that came before him, so perhaps achieving something Gerrard never did by making the Champions League group stages will endear him a lot more to his doubters.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the Dutch manager, but it does seem as though he may be under pressure from sections of the Rangers support, so a positive result against Ross County at the weekend may be more important than it seems, even at this early stage of the campaign as they seek to compete on all fronts.