An Ibrox insider has made a Rangers claim regarding manager Gio van Bronckhorst...

What's the talk?

Former Gers boss Alex McLeish, who knows exactly what it is like to be inside the club, has claimed that the Dutchman's priorities will be on getting results on the pitch. The Scot believes that the 46-year-old will wait to establish his playing style before delving into the academy and other areas of the side.

He told Football Insider:

“He’s just ticking the boxes at the moment for Rangers.

“Of course, he will say he’s not going to ignore the academy right now, but he’s not going be launching himself into a full-depth study of it.

“At the moment, his priority will be with that first team. The first thing he has to do is get that Rangers side winning again, get those good performance levels in the style he wants to play.

“Once he establishes that he then can ascertain these players’ strengths and weaknesses in the coming weeks.”

Delighted

Rangers fans will surely be delighted with these comments from McLeish, particularly as a man who knows what it takes to manage the club. He understands what makes the club tick as an insider and he appears to believe that van Bronckhorst will make good decisions and focus on the right areas in his first few weeks in the job.

Supporters, first and foremost, will surely want to see results on the pitch and McLeish believes that the Dutchman will focus on that initially. The ex-Feyenoord man may want to nail down his principles and style of play to ensure that the results are ticking over and Rangers continue on their way to a second successive Premiership title, before then focusing on other aspects of the role.

He still has just over a month until the start of the January transfer window and may not need to focus on incoming or outgoing transfers within the senior squad for a couple more weeks. In terms of academy players, however, he could begin to integrate them into the team after he has made sure that the current crop of senior players understand what he wants.

It could be detrimental to throw an academy player in halfway through the transition period as they would be playing catchup in comparison to the first-team performers who are also still learning what van Bronckhorst wants. Whereas, the older heads could nurture the young players and teach them along the way if they are already accustomed to what the manager wants to see in training and in games.

Therefore, fans will be delighted with McLeish's claim that van Bronckhorst will focus on results in the Premiership and Europa League before focusing on other areas at a later date. It certainly seems as if he's got his priorities in order early doors.

AND in other news, Gio must avoid 1st Rangers disaster with £21k-p/w "student" who's a "joy to work with"...