A FORMER Premier League manager with over 300 games’ worth of top flight experience is interested in becoming the Rangers manager.
SunSport broke the news yesterday that Philippe Clement‘s time at Ibrox was up.
Alan Pardew won two manager of the year gongs whilst at Newcastle United[/caption]
The Belgian, 50, was sacked after 16 tumultuous months as Gers boss in the wake of a 2-0 loss to St Mirren at Ibrox.
In the immediate aftermath, the focus is on who will be the caretaker manager while the club search for a long-term replacement.
That search is somewhat complicated by the potential takeover by an American investment group, led by San Francisco 49ers supremo Paraag Marathe.
Appointing a new permanent manger before the new ownership group comes in could lead to another dismissal in a few months’ time.
But that hasn’t stopped people speculating on who it could be, especially after former boss Steven Gerrard was listed as the bookies’ favourite.
SunSport understands former Rangers and Scotland defender Russell Martin is also in the frame.
And one man who has put his own name forward is Alan Pardew.
The 63-year-old has a wealth of experience with 859 games in the dugout under his belt across England, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Greece.
Those include over 300 games in the English top flight with West Ham, Charlton Athletic, Newcastle United, Crystal Palace and West Bromwich Albion.
Pardew’s most recent role was with Aris Thessaloniki in the Greek Super League, for whom he was in charge of for five months, winning nine of his 22 games in charge with three draws and ten defeats.
The former midfielder has a win percentage of 40.9 per cent over the course of his managerial career.
He won promotion to the Premier League via the play-offs with West Ham in 2005 and led them to the FA Cup final a year later.
With Southampton he won the Football League Trophy in 2010 and was a losing finalist in cup competitions with Palace and CSKA Sofia.
During his time at Newcastle he won the Premier League’s Manager of the Season award and the LMA Manager of the Year award after a stellar 2011-2012 campaign.
Pardew was one of the first people Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers worked with in coaching.
Way back when Pardew was manager at Reading, Rodgers was recruited as a youth coach and worked his way up to becoming the director of the club’s academy under Pardew before he was poached by Jose Mourinho at Chelsea.
Pardew has been doing punditry since leaving Aris in 2023 but admitted he would love to return to management with the Glasgow giants (indeed, he was briefly linked with the job before).
When directly asked if he would be interested in the role should it be offered to him, Pardew told talkSPORT: “Rangers? Yeah, of course I would!
“With Brendan Rodgers across the way at Celtic, my old youth team coach.
“When I was at Newcastle, both clubs had Mike Ashley running things and I was hearing about how it was a mess with the financial situation, so I know a bit about Rangers.
“In terms of the results this year, I’ve just been staggered.
“It’s a big job and you’d like to think it’s a job where you’ve got a good chance of winning trophies and you’ve got that fan base that demands success.”
Pardew spoke further on the gap between Rangers and rivals Celtic, and insisted that hearing they were beaten by St Mirren at the weekend at home that it just didn’t sound right.
He said: “Let’s see how that all falls out up there, Rangers aren’t having a great season and they are miles behind Celtic at the moment.
“I watched Celtic’s performance during the week and I thought they were absolutely brilliant. That’s the best Celtic performance [in Europe] I’ve seen for a long time, maybe since they played Barcelona under Neil Lennon.
“But for Rangers, a home defeat by St Mirren doesn’t even sound right.”
Keep up to date with ALL the latest news and transfers at the Scottish Sun football page
