IT’S good to talk. Or is it? Twelve months after the full-blown inquest after defeat in the opening Glasgow grudge match of the season at Celtic Park – Joey Barton never played for the club again, his antagonist Andy Halliday didn’t fare too much better, and manager Mark Warburton never really recovered either - once again an early season Old Firm setback has sparked introspection and recrimination in the ranks Rangers.
If Warburton usually tended to play the diplomat, Caixinha is an emotional figure who tackles things head on. And so it was when the Portuguese reportedly called out Graham Dorrans for passing on the captain’s armband to Kenny Miller without his permission.
He is then reported to have castigated senior Scottish players for not embracing the club’s summer arrivals this summer and questioned their attitude to him and his staff.
The only question now is whether such forthright actions will clear the air and get the desired reaction from a Rangers side who already trail Aberdeen in second by six points, or merely hasten Caixinha’s demise in the manner of Paul Le Guen’s decision to strip Barry Ferguson of the captaincy back in January 2007.
If Declan John wasn’t entirely sure what life at Rangers was all about before this week, he certainly is now. A quadricep strain restricted the Welshman to the role of a spectator during Saturday’s Old Firm defeat but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have a front row seat when it came to the inquest.
A dressing room which coalesces into various cliques is rarely a winning one, so John feels that getting everything out in the open can help the club ahead of the visit to New Douglas Park tonight.
“At the end of the day, the manager is going to show his feelings,” he added.
“I thought first half against Celtic the boys did really well. Second half, it was a bit off from our point of view.
“But we have had a look at that and we will take the stuff we have had in the meetings watching the game into Friday.
“In football you have to talk as a team and play as a team,” he added.
“It is always good to give a bit of something on the pitch, whether you are telling people to do this or they have done something wrong. That is only going to be good going forward.
“All the boys are together – it is a good group of lads and they have made me feel really welcome.”
Saturday’s Old Firm match was everything John had hoped it would be, he merely hopes to be available when the teams renew acquaintances at Celtic Park in December.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen an atmosphere at a football match like that before,” he said. “I would have loved to have featured but I couldn’t.
“You just want to please the fans more than anything and all the people watching. Hopefully we can return the favour when we play them again.”
Tonight’s match at Hamilton will be everything last Saturday’s Old Firm meeting wasn’t – a small crowd, a tight stadium, an artificial surface.
Prior to the quirk of back-to-back meetings with Aberdeen in the space of four days in late November/early December, they face Hamilton (twice), St Johnstone, Motherwell, Kilmarnock, Hearts, Dundee and it is of paramount importance to the club’s ambitions this season not to surrender further territory.
“You have got Celtic and Aberdeen at the top but at the end of the day it is still quite early in the season,” he said. “People jump to stuff before the season has really even started.
“There are a lot of games to go and we can definitely get the three points in the games we’ve got.”
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