Michael Beale has been out of management for 20 months but insists he has more to offer as he reflects on his time as Rangers assistant and later head coach

Former Rangers boss Michael Beale claims he is seeking stability in what is often viewed as an unstable industry as he maps out his return to management.

Beale has been out of football management for 20 months following a brief and unsuccessful stint at Sunderland which came almost immediately after a difficult experience in the dugout at Ibrox - but insists that he still has more to give in the world of management and describes himself as ‘football obsessive.’

The 45-year-old, who was lauded for his work as assistant to Steven Gerrard at Ibrox, prides himself on youth development and says he applied much of his work with youngsters at Chelsea and Liverpool to the senior game.

“I went into QPR as a first-time head coach and without spending any money in the transfer window. Within 15 games we were top of the Championship, with a team that had struggled at the back end of the previous season,” explained Beale, via Coaches Voice.

He then went on to reflect on his work alongside Gerrard which he still looks back at with fondness: “I am also very proud of my season as assistant to Steven Gerrard at Rangers, when we went invincible in the Scottish Premiership. And winning 18 and drawing one of my first 20 games in charge when I went back to Ibrox as head coach.”

Michael Beale takes pride in the coaches he has worked alongside

Michael Beale has crossed paths with some of the biggest names in the game, including Pep Lijnders, who has worked with both Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola at Liverpool and Manchester City respectively.

Beale said: “Pep Lijnders is a really close friend who I helped recruit for Liverpool, and he has gone on to do so well – first with Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool, and now at Manchester City with Pep Guardiola.

“More recently I had a young first-team coach at Rangers, Harry Watling, who was attending my soccer schools as a child. He was with me at QPR and is now assistant to Rob Edwards at Middlesbrough. Zeb Jacobs is another that I recruited for Rangers at 27; he is now Feyenoord academy manager. Cameron Campbell joined as an Under-18s coach and is now first-team coach at Tottenham. Working alongside top coaches is something I really enjoy.”

Michael Beale reflects on what he enjoyed when managing Rangers

Beale started brightly at Rangers but after failing to secure silverware in his first few months found himself under pressure as the club began to go backwards at the start of the 2023/24 campaign after a fairly unsuccessful summer window.

He sees this as a learning curb but reflects fondly on some of the aspects that he found satisfying such as the work he did with James Tavernier and Borna Barisic to enhance their all-round game.

Beale said: “I had two fantastic full-backs in Borna Barisic (above) and James Tavernier, who regularly got double figures for assists each season. That allowed us to use them as our width, freeing up players like Ryan Kent, Joe Aribo, Malik Tillman, Todd Cantwell and Ianis Hagi to operate closer to goal and overload the opposition centre-backs.

“Jermain Defoe spoke a little about the tactics I implemented when I worked with him at Rangers, getting two wide players closer to him to overload around the centre-backs. It gives a team the best of both worlds. We can go outside to cross if they block the middle, or we can go straight into those little pockets and get 3v2s and 4v3s around their centre-backs.”

Beale also took the opportunity to praise Steven Gerrard for the way he treated him at Ibrox. He lauds the former Liverpool skipper for delegating in an efficient manner and never making him feel like just an assistant.

“I was very fortunate with Steven Gerrard, in that he never made me feel like an assistant. He allowed me to lead a lot of the training and meetings, which gave me so much that prepared me for management.”

Beale was linked with a shock return to Rangers alongside Gerrard after Russell Martin’s exit. However, it’s thought the timing wasn’t right for the Liverpudlian, with Danny Rohl now taking the managerial position.

It’s not yet clear whether Beale, who last worked as assistant coach at Al-Ettifaq, will return as a manager or as a No.2. But one thing is certain and that’s that he feels the experiences he has had so far stand him in good stead.

He concluded: “As a young head coach, I feel so much stronger for the experiences that I’ve had, dealing with the pressures of first-team management. For me, pressure is a privilege that I welcome.”