McLeish happy to face up to home truths to aid Rangers' cause

Just 11 months ago, Alex McLeish gazed down upon a surreal sight. His team were running the show at Ibrox. The only problem on that occasion was that the side in question were not Rangers.

The ironic twist to McLeish's departure from Hibernian on 11 December last year was that the visitors in the city of Glasgow 24 hours later were the club he had just left. McLeish sat in the stand that night, as Dick Advocaat made his bow from the dug-out. Yet even that distance could not disguise the conflict of interest for a man who was watching the side he was inheriting face the players he had taken for training in Edinburgh only the previous morning.

Hibernian are back at Ibrox today, though time has been a lot kinder to their former manager than to them. The point gained in the 1-1 draw last December is the only time they have not fallen victim to McLeish, who these days is looking down on a scene that would also have been branded surreal when he took over – Rangers perched at the summit of the Scottish Premier League.

With just a point separating them from Celtic, who travel to Dundee United today, it would be unfortunate if Hibernian were to put a spoke in the wheel of the man who contributed to their progress over a five-year period. Bobby Williamson's side came remarkably close three weeks ago in the Scottish League Cup, before a late Peter Lovenkrands goal snatched a 3-2 win for Rangers.

The taunts of "Judas" rang round Easter Road for McLeish that night. "I would have hoped that the achievements I had at Hibernian would not have counted for nothing," McLeish stated a few months ago, before adding, "but I have been in football long enough to know that players and managers get stick for changing clubs."

The discord was not helped by McLeish's claim that several of his former players had intentionally set out to goad Rangers' volatile midfielder Fernando Ricksen into retaliation. "People were trying to get him to react," McLeish said in the Easter Road press room, where he used to defend such tactics as a show of resistance to the Old Firm.

"If Fernando had perpetrated such fouls, he would have been booked or sent off." Ricksen, though, has been the perfect role model under McLeish. The red cards which blighted the Dutch international's past – two of which came in Old Firm derbies – have not been allowed to surface. "Fernando has matured," said McLeish on Friday of the man who who was voted the SPL Player of the Month for October. "He now has controlled aggression. I didn't want to take away the edge he has to his game, but he had to be more sensible."

"Alex has been great to me," said Ricksen. "He keeps telling me not to get involved. So did Dick Advocaat, though I had too many other problems to realise what he meant. It costs you in games, if you are suspended. I found out the hard way. Now, I seem to be involved in more things, because that is the way midfield is, and if two players are committed when they go for the ball, mistimed challenges can happen. However, I cannot believe other teams set out to get one player."

McLeish, though, has shown he is not afraid of dealing out harsh truths, or denting egos. On Thursday night Rangers profited from Claudio Caniggia's intervention eight minutes after coming off the bench at East End Park; he scored the winner against Dunfermline to book a place in the semi-finals of the CIS Insurance Cup.

Just a fortnight earlier, the Argentina veteran had been visibly piqued at being withdrawn in the League win over Motherwell, stomping off the pitch and ignoring his manager's outstretched hand of thanks. "We kissed and made up," smiled McLeish. "There was noting personal in it. Claudio has been magnificent for us recently, but this campaign is not about Claudio, or me, it's about what's best for the club."