Ally McCoist Plays The Brits Card

He plays it entirely wrongly though

It can’t be easy settling into a new job with so much expectation around you but Ally McCoist hasn’t quite found his feet in interviews yet. It just goes to show that the years of media practice he has had, in various guises, are no match for the pressure you are under when you are the man with all the responsibility.

This isn’t a surprise though, McCoist will be under a lot of pressure, by himself let alone anyone else, to be a success at Rangers and no doubt one or two slips will come until he starts to feel more comfortable. As a manager you want to defend your players at all times and this is what McCoist was attempting to do after accusations of his team being a bit dirty after 3 red cards already this season.

Ally McCoist

Even though McCoist admitted that Steven Whittaker had been silly in Sweden, McCoist then went on to say:

They don’t play the same way as Brits. I’m not sure you’d get too many Brits going down and doing that but it’s part and parcel of European football

Which is frankly a ludicrous statement and an extremely embarrassing one for any modern manager to make. There is no doubt a culture of British is Best for many within the Ibrox support but this sort of comment is as out-dated as the stand-up routine of Jim Davidson.

After all, would you not think that the following video clip was an example of a player going down far too easily?

It may be part and parcel of European football but it seems that it is also a common sight in the SPL as well, so perhaps Ally McCoist is off the mark when he is accusing foreigners of diving.

Add in the fact that Steven Naismith is developing a reputation for being the most consistent divers in Scottish football and perhaps the Brits are doing pretty well in matching the “antics” of the Europeans.

Rangers will need to be on their guard tonight in Slovenia with a good result against Maribor vital to ensure the Ibrox club can book their place in the Europa League group stages. Rangers have the players to do the damage away from home but they aren’t a million miles away from matching their European counterparts either.

The McCoist comments were told to the Sun: McCoist talks to the Sun