IN the end, Rangers had no choice but to sack Pedro Caixinha. He had to go.

I think most fans realised after the defeat to Motherwell last Sunday that Pedro’s time was up and the draw with Kilmarnock on Wednesday night proved to be his final match in charge.

There were a lot of fans that had previously wanted to give Pedro more time to turn things around but the manner of the defeat at Hampden proved a turning point for them.

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The ones that were still on his side, I think, switched their stance at the weekend and I was probably one of them as well.

I have given Pedro a chance, I have waited until he brought in his own players and waited to see what he could do in the first few weeks of the season.

But Rangers haven’t hit the ground running and the latest big-game defeat against Motherwell proved to be one too far for Pedro.

Rangers couldn’t afford to keep him on any longer because they are already eight points behind Celtic and five adrift of Aberdeen in the Premiership. That is not good enough.

It is finishing second that is the realistic aim for us this season and if a manager can’t get the best out of the players he has got then he has to go. It is as simple as that.

It is never nice to see a manager leave his job. I didn’t get a chance to speak to Pedro in person, he is the first Rangers manager in 30 years that I haven’t met. So, I don’t really know the man.

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He comes across as a very charismatic person, but the supporters judge you as a manager and at the end of the day the results speak for themselves.

It doesn’t matter if you are a nice guy and you say the right things. When you are at Rangers, winning is the only thing that matters so there is no doubt the board have made the right call here.

He will go with a heavy heart because he clearly felt he could come here and do a good job for Rangers and his time at Ibrox will be a real learning curve for him.

Pedro undertook a huge rebuilding job in the summer and I think the squad that he leaves behind is better than the one that he inherited from Mark Warburton in March.

That didn’t translate into wins, though, and the performances and the results were far too inconsistent. For a Rangers manager not to win three games in succession is ridiculous.

Too many of his players haven’t done it, too many of his signings haven’t worked out. They were his choices, but they haven’t performed for him.

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And now the board have thought ‘enough is enough’ and decided that Pedro’s time is up and that the draw with a side that were bottom of the league is the end of it.

When the fans are not happy, when they are on phone-ins and online and they are upset at the games, then it is very hard to turn the tide.

Pedro had fewer and fewer people backing him and when that is the case then I’m afraid it is time up. That is what has happened.

He talked a good game but we didn’t see the results of that on the park and you have to wonder whether the players bought into him?

You hear all sorts of talk about what goes on in the dressing room and that the training wasn’t good enough.

Did he lose the dressing room? I don’t know. But there are supposedly a few players that feel the training wasn’t intense enough and they didn’t feel fit enough.

Funnily enough, it was Kilmarnock who finished the game on Wednesday quicker and sharper and Rangers seemed to be dead on their feet in the last 20, 25 minutes.

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That was just the latest result to go against Pedro and it was a fairly long list that included the three Old Firm fixtures, the defeats to Aberdeen and Hibs at home and, of course, the European embarrassment against Progres Niederkorn.

A lot of supporters would have sacked him after that night in Luxembourg but he was given a chance to redeem himself. It was an opportunity he couldn’t take.

And now the search has begun for another manager that can come in and make an immediate impact this season and build some momentum for next year.

Whoever comes in has got another big job on his hands in terms of reshaping the squad and improving it so that we can close the gap.

Will the players that came here in the summer want to stay? Can we move on the ones that a new manager doesn’t want to work with? It is another critical time for Rangers.

It is the sensible option to put Graeme Murty in charge whilst the search for the next boss gets off and running.

The board had to get it right when they were searching for Warburton’s replacement and they had to back the man they picked with serious money to improve the squad.

Pedro was the one they hoped would do that and while there was no chance they were going to win the league this season, we had to see signs that the investment was worth it.

That hasn’t been the case and now someone else will be tasked with achieving what Caixinha couldn’t.

Only time will tell who the next manager is. It is a decision the board can’t afford to get wrong, though.