Derek Johnstone: Rangers board games with new players are a joke

I was astonished when I heard that caretaker manager Kenny McDowall had been ordered to field the Newcastle United players who arrived on loan this week- a claim denied by chief executive Derek Llambias.

It is all very well bringing fresh faces in - and by all accounts Remie Streete, Kevin Mbabu, Gael Bigirimana, Haris Vuckic and Shane Ferguson are decent players.

But if Llambias and football board chairman Sandy Easdale have insisted that they must start if they are available that is absolute nonsense.

In fact, it is nothing short of outrageous. Whatever's coming next? Is Mike Ashley going to take over the team and be in the home dugout on Sunday?

Kenny has got a job to do - and that is to put the best team on the park to get a result. Nobody from outwith the football side of the club should tell him what to do.

The board have put the manager in a very difficult position with this move. You have to wonder if they are deliberately applying pressure on him.

But if Kenny did chuck it now where would that get the club? First of all, they have a massive Scottish Cup game on Sunday against Raith Rovers at Ibrox.

More important than that is trying to win promotion back into the top flight. So why disrupt the team in this way? I don't understand it.

If they want to get rid of the manager then why not tell him. Pay him off or put him on gardening leave. They have money after receiving the first instalment of the latest Ashley loan.

Whatever the thinking behind this is, I find it absolutely incredible that a manager should be told who he is and is not playing.

Can you imagine the reaction if Scot Symon, Willie Waddell, Jock Wallace, John Greig, Graeme Souness, Walter Smith or Dick Advocaat had been told they had to pick certain players?

To be honest, I don't think any manager at any top club in Scotland, at Aberdeen, Dundee United, Hibs or Hearts, would stand for it. They would leave immediately.

What gives the board the right to tell a manager who to pick and who not to pick? His strength is picking the team. Directors' strengths are looking after the business side and finances.

It is akin to Kenny walking into a board meeting and saying: "This is how you should spend this money Mike Ashley has loaned Rangers." They would kick him out if he tried that!

As I say, I am in no doubt these five lads who have come in are good players.

The reason some players have been getting a game week in, week out, at Rangers is because there hasn't been anybody to take their place. So a bit of freshness will do the side the world of good.

Kenny didn't need to be told anything. The very fact that a chief executive and the football board chairman have done so is the staggering thing here.

It has to be Kenny who picks them. He lives and dies by the results that he gets on the park. You can't blame him if he is being forced to play certain players.

Maybe Mike Ashley has said: "I am not going to send these lads up there to sit in the stands or on the bench."

But you just don't know.

Well done to Kenny for going public with this. He could have kept it quiet. But I am sure he would have wanted to let people know the pressure he is working under.

Kenny has already handed in his notice. If they pay him off and get rid of him early he isn't bothered. Maybe that is what he is after. I am not sure that he wants to be there, to be perfectly honest.

It doesn't look like it. He has now left it in the board's hands. He has come out and exposed them. I am afraid it is just par for the course at Rangers the way the Ibrox club has gone these last few years.

Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here