Mourinho for Ibrox? Don’t make me laugh, says GARY KEOWN… faded Jose is the last thing Rangers need in new era

Listen, losing 3-1 going on 5-1 to a Rangers team that badly needs broken up at the end of the season probably did more than anything to bring any loose ruminations about Jose Mourinho managing in Glasgow in the future to a halt.

Aged 62 and stuck in a league that, as he says himself, nobody outwith Turkey watches, The Special One is beginning to look more like The Dwindling One right enough.

Yes, he gave everyone what they wanted when answering a nicely-placed question about potentially moving to Scotland ahead of last Thursday’s Europa League last-16 clash in glorious Istanbul and has dropped more than a few hints over the past seven months that life at Fenerbahce hasn’t been everything he’d hoped.

However, the idea of him pitching up at the Old Firm anywhere in the next wee while is almost as unthinkable as the planned US takeover of Ibrox not going through.

Being outfoxed and having his team taken apart at home by Barry Ferguson, whose sole high spot as a manager until last Thursday night involved getting Kelty Hearts out of the Lowland League, was about as big a pointer that this is a great career now distinctly on the wane as you could imagine.

Credit to Ferguson, too, by the way. Plenty of people — including the author of this page, to be fair — shook their heads in bewilderment over his appointment as Rangers’ interim manager.

The Portuguese boss was a picture of frustration as his side were torn apart by Rangers

Barry Ferguson savours a huge win in Istanbul, but it shouldn’t see him get the job full-time

It still feels completely bonkers. Perhaps the perfect end to an era, mind you, that has brought the same kind of discipline, calm and order in the boardroom as you’d find at a five-year-old’s birthday party involving unlimited sweeties.

However, Ferguson’s unexpected switch to a back three worked a treat and injected fresh life into a season that was very much on life support.

Sure, he still can’t be given the head coach role on a permanent basis, although more results like that victory in the Sukru Saracoglu might give the prospective new owners a headache they could do without.

But the conjecture of recent days about whether a Mourinho-type figure might be the answer to Rangers’ problems has been instructive. Maybe not so much in terms of who the Ibrox club really need in charge, but most certainly in terms of what they don’t need.

The very suggestion of Mourinho somehow ending up at Celtic seems anathema. Their much-loved former manager Martin O’Neill might spontaneously combust, for starters.

He has never forgiven the Portuguese for the timewasting at the end of Porto’s 3-2 win over the Parkhead side in the 2003 UEFA Cup final in Seville. Most of the club’s supporters won’t have forgiven him either.

Mourinho parades the UEFA Cup after upsetting Celtic during Porto’s 2003 win in Seville

When you factor in his style of play, you’d have to put Mourinho behind John ‘Bomber’ Brown, Benjamin Netanyahu and the ghost of King Billy in the market for ‘Next Celtic Manager’.

That only leaves the old Teddy Bears, then, and the truth is that a figurehead of his ilk is pretty much the last thing the Ibrox club need as they prepare for the Great Reset under the US consortium now at the stage of going through the legalities ahead of sweeping into power.

Given all the mistakes made since the Great Meltdown of 2012 at Ibrox, it is clear that this latest bid to rebuild Rangers from the bottom up needs some key foundations.

Rangers need to be a properly joined-up club behind the scenes, with everyone working to clear remits within a cohesive structure that will consign the endless internal reviews of recent years — such as the one going on at the moment — to history. They need someone who will buy in to a well thought-out long-term strategy and adjust himself to fit.

They need to re-establish some kind of powerbase within Scottish football and recruit strong allies. That needs a lot of backstage politicking.

In fairness, a bit of progress has been made on that front since the days of Dave King standing at the front door on Edmiston Drive in his dressing gown and underpants and firing off the blunderbuss in all directions. However, there is still some way to go.

Cyriel Dessers played like a man possessed as Rangers upset the odds and the form book

Rangers need to establish a super-tight transfer policy centred around no waste, high profits and up-and-coming players who will build market value. They also need a head coach who has an interest in creating and utilising a stream of talent from academy level.

On almost all of those counts, Mourinho would appear an unsuitable choice. Throughout his career, he has developed a reputation for constructing intense, paranoid atmospheres within dressing-rooms, based on perceived enemies, perceived slights and an ‘us against the world’ mentality.

That can bring short-term successes, for sure, but has proven ultimately unsustainable. And what Rangers need more than anything after the losses and disasters of the recent past is ongoing sustainability.

Yet, this recurring madness of Mourinho has been particularly evident during his short time at Fenerbahce. He is currently embroiled in a farcical tit-for-tat legal exchange with Galatasaray.

He has branded the Super Lig as ‘the most toxic league I have ever worked in’ and insisted he would never have taken the role had he known how bad the standard of officiating is. Targeting referees — not for the first time, it has to be said — has become a major part of his repertoire.

In a tirade about how no one abroad pays any attention to the Turkish League, he went on about how it ‘smells bad’ and has a ‘system dominancy’ in favour of rivals Galatasaray.

The easy charm Mourinho exhibited in his early days at Chelsea has long since dissipated

Even after the defeat to Rangers, he slaughtered his players, insisted it wasn’t his fault if they took their Scottish opponents lightly and pretended to fall asleep at the post-match press conference during a long-winded question from a Turkish reporter. He’s the type with a history of dividing dressing rooms and calling out those above him in the pecking order too.

He spent around £40million on new players last summer. How you can commit that kind of money and put out a team as horrific as the one that was taken apart by a Rangers side fresh off home losses to Queen’s Park, St Mirren and Motherwell defies belief.

It’s full of ageing guys whose best years are behind them. Edin Dzeko is 38. Dusan Tadic is 36. Filip Kostic is 32. Fred, back from suspension for Thursday’s return leg, is 32.

Above all else, of course, Mourinho has stopped winning. Four points behind Galatasaray in the Super Lig, he hasn’t won a league title since Chelsea in 2015. He did lift the Europa League with Manchester United and Europa Conference League with Roma, but, despite being loved by Giallorossi fans, didn’t really improve the club’s standing in Serie A despite running the third-highest wage bill in the competition for a while.

It is telling that he has been sacked before the end of the season in his previous four jobs. Over and above the level of wages he would no doubt still demand, do Rangers really need a character like him when building a solid base for the future is every bit as important as becoming competitive again at home?

Cerny makes it 3-1 to Rangers to give them a handy cushion ahead of Mourinho’s Ibrox date

Mourinho is still showbiz. He’s still box office. But running into him at close-quarters just makes you realise why so many opinions have been expressed elsewhere about him feeling like a throwback to a bygone era.

And that kind of guy is just not what Rangers require as they get ready for a period of fresh ownership which will require unity, new ideas and the kind of positive energy that has been missing for far too long.

Gray hits right notes… but so do H-E-A-R-T-S

There have been two big discussion points to come out of Hibs over the course of the past week. One of them has been whether David Gray, linked with Swansea City, has really gone from a Dead Man Walking in November to a live contender for Manager of the Year.

Listen, if he can keep his team third in the Premiership, you’d better believe he has. Whether Brendan Rodgers lifts a treble at Celtic or not, he will be deserving of the vote.

It is impossible not to admire the way rookie Gray has battled through adversity, held that team together and got them on the straight and narrow.

He looked finished in November when his side lost 4-1 at Dundee. His players were shooting themselves in the foot almost every week, leaving him without a leg to stand on. It was well established that there were issues behind the scenes between the Gordons and Bill Foley’s Black Knight group. Everything was conspiring against him.

Hibs players line up to sing ‘Sunshine On Leith’ after their latest Edinburgh derby triumph

Yet, the 36-year-old has comported himself admirably throughout and, more importantly, has a team on a 15-game unbeaten run with 7,000 supporters travelling to Celtic Park today for a Scottish Cup quarter-final.

Who knows? Maybe there will be another rendition of Sunshine On Leith following those tremendous scenes after wins over Celtic and Hearts recently.

That’s the other big debating point, of course. The Hibees have been clear on their socials, posting footage of that sing-song after winning the derby, branding it ‘the greatest anthem in football’.

The only problem is that it’s not. It’s not even the best song in Scotland. Yes, it is thrilling and brilliant and it tugs at the heartstrings. It’s great to hear it belted out. However, it isn’t a football song. It doesn’t carry the history to be a classic.

My own choice? H-E-A-R-T-S, of course. Closely followed by Rangers anthem Every Other Saturday, which, for reasons best known to the locals, rarely seems to merit a mention at Ibrox these days in what must be the greatest scandal since the Craig Whyte regime sold those old shares in Arsenal for a few hundred grand.

VAR review is essential viewing

Another edition of the Scottish FA’s ‘VAR review’. Another reason for all sorts of people to watch from behind the couch through the cracks in their fingers.

Listen, let’s not go down the well-trodden path of pointing out that SFA head of refereeing Willie Collum needs to place greater emphasis on discussing solutions as he combs over the latest batch of unfathomable, unacceptable decisions from his officials.

SFA refereeing chief Willie Collum’s weekly breakdown of contentious decisions is welcome

That Collum does this show is a blessing. Remaining committed to transparency is vital.

Of course, it is no surprise that he agreed Dundee United striker Sam Dalby’s goal against Hibs should have stood, Daizen Maeda’s goal at Easter Road should not have been disallowed and that St Mirren should have had a penalty against Celtic.

It does make you wonder, though, if there is some ulterior motive in putting himself forward so fervently for this monthly mea culpa. You might even think that he’s working on the basis that, if he exposes some of these toiling officials often enough, it might make them consider clearing off. Or, at least, getting their act together.