It Really Is The Beginning Of A New Age

So Rangers have finally installed a permanent manager, the completely unknown to everyone but Euro-football super-nerds Luigi De Canio. Don't expect me to add much to that - the guy's basically starting with a totally clean slate as far as Rangers fans are concerned. And that's maybe a good thing - if you look at some of the managers who have just taken over Championship gigs, Roeder, Warnock, Megson [1], then certainly the latter two (and possibly Roeder as well) would have had a lot to prove to sceptical fans.

We'll just have to wait and see. We'll never know what would have happened if Mick Harford had stayed in charge ; early signs were very positive but it's by no means uncommon for caretakers to land jobs on the basis of a good first month only for it to all go tits up in the medium term. On the playing side, Akos Buzsaky is a very exciting signing, I saw him drill in a wonderful free kick at Underhill in the League Cup a couple of seasons ago and there's some great YouTube footage of him in action here. We have been desperate for a creative midfielder and as Buzsaky can apparently play anywhere across the midfield that should at least see an end to Stefan Moore trundling up and down the wing. Rowan Vine is also being mooted as a permanent signing and that one would be very well received I'm sure.

Just one more point though, although we're looking forward, comments like this (in the Guardian) :

"Former Napoli and Siena manager Luigi De Canio has been given the laughably easy task of doing a better job at QPR than his predecessor, John Gregory"

are seriously out of order. The club was in a total mess when Gregory took over and he worked his arse off to keep us up in the circumstances. While obviously this season didn't work out for him, I'm sure the majority of fans would speak positively of his overall contribution, and the press, who always had it in for the man, can fuck off.

[1] Championship next season :-)