by Lewis Nicol

How much can a new manager impact a team’s performance?

Rangers have published their annual report and account and notice for 2023, with the main discussion being the fact that they have turned a profit. But the devil is in the detail. Philippe Clement likes repetition and routine. It is in his Belgian make-up. There is a subtle psychological logic to his thinking. Deep into the body of the report, the robotic messaging crops up, yet again. He’s a winner. He won as a player. He won as a manager. He wants to win, win, win. That fact appears almost invisibly on page seven, paragraph three. Yet, somehow, Clement manages to slip it in. Just as he has managed to not let the game against Sparta Prague slip in the second half. 

Rangers hired Clement on the 15^th of October and since then, Rangers have been unbeaten, winning six of the seven games since he took over the reigns from sacked Ranger’s manager Michael Beale. He has had an instant impact and seems to have revitalised the squad, especially players that were not performing or included in the squad in Beales tenure. The main example of this is Cyriel Dessers, a player signed in the summer transfer window, replacing exiting Alfredo Morelos, Clement has given him the opportunity to impress, and that he has done, as Dessers is now a mainstay in the starting eleven. Another example of Clement’s elite eye for talent is Ross McCausland, the 20-year-old winger that has also been given a chance to show his quality and has played a part in a lot of their recent matches, given his first start in Rangers’ 2-0 win against Livingston. 

Clement has implemented his exciting style of play, and despite adapting small parts of his game against certain opposition, namely Sparta Prague, he sticks to his principles. Call it the dark side. Call it an obsession with the sport of football. But whatever is happening at Ibrox there is a growing feeling that Clement is tapping into a West of Scotland cultural consciousness, appreciated by a growing number of fans.

On the other side of the divide, Ange Postecoglou also once tapped into a Celtic flair, attack, attack, press high, press high, and attack again. Fearless Ange has transported his no nonsense style over to Tottenham, where he has claimed the record for the most points earned by an EPL manager in their first nine games. The stats don’t lie. And neither does growing evidence that the personality of the football manager has a direct impact on the not just the team, but on individual player’s style and even body language. Ange’s electric style of play has instantly impressed fans, who are now fully in support of his management of their club.

The impact of Ange Postecoglou on not only Spurs, but also Celtic should be taken as an important lesson for not only sceptical fans, but also the world of football, that, a manager that has great ambition and a proven style of play can revolutionise not only a team but also the club as a whole. Before Postecoglou, Steven Gerrard’s Rangers had just just won their 55th league title, but Ange’s appointment from Yokohama F. Marinos completely changed the dynamic of the Scottish league as during his time at the club he won two league titles, one Scottish and two Scottish League Cups, reclaiming Celtic’s dominance of Scottish football and winning PFA Scotland Manager of the Year twice on top of that. His step up from Celtic to Tottenham was almost seen as being as big of a step up as his previous swap of Yokohama F. Marinos to Celtic. However, he has proven that it is not always a detriment for a manager of a smaller profile club to take over at a well-known club, as long as their tactics are good enough to adapt to the club ad league they are going to.

While it’s easy to capture Ange’s style of play as attack, attack, attack, press-high, press-high, Clement is more complex in his vision of the game. He opts to let his full backs stay back in defence to prevent his opponent’s counter attacks and allows only one attacker to press the opponent’s back-line. Time will tell whether this nuanced approach will surpass Ange’s Scottish legacy.