Perfect for Tavernier: Rangers looking to hire one of Klopp's "best friends"

The Glasgow Rangers board opted to make the decision to part ways with Philippe Clement after more than a year in charge at Ibrox for the Belgian tactician.

A 2-0 defeat to St Mirren at the weekend was the final straw for the Ibrox bosses and the ex-Monaco and Club Brugge chief was removed from his position in the dugout.

Clement made a perfect start to life in Glasgow when he replaced Michael Beale during the 2023/24 campaign, as his side beat Aberdeen to win the League Cup.

However, the Belgian tactician went through the rest of his career with Rangers without winning any trophies as he failed to get the better of Celtic in the Scottish Premiership.

The Light Blues were embarrassingly dropped out of the SFA Cup by second-tier outfit Queen’s Park and the loss to St. Mirren shortly after left Clement with a win percentage outside of the top ten in the club’s history.

Barry Ferguson has been confirmed as the interim manager until the end of the 2025/26 campaign, so it still remains to be seen who will take charge of the club next season.

Rangers already eyeing Ferguson’s replacement

Rangers already know that the former central midfielder and Scotland international will not be in the dugout in July and that means that work will be underway to identify a long-term replacement for Clement.

According to journalist Ben Jacobs, the Light Blues are ‘likely’ to be under new ownership, as a takeover involving the San Francisco 49ers’ investment wing is expected to be completed by June.

Jacobs claims that current Aberdeen head coach Derek McInnes is one of the names on the club’s radar, despite the fact his team have lost 12 of their 27 matches in the Premiership this season.

The 53-year-old manager has never won a top-flight title in his career and may not be a particularly inspiring appointment, given his lack of tangible success managing a top team.

Jacobs, however, also claims that David Wagner, who is currently out of work, is another name under consideration by the Rangers board with a view to him potentially replacing Ferguson in the summer.

Said to be one of Jurgen Klopp’s “best friends” by the former Liverpool boss, the German tactician was sacked by English Championship side Norwich City at the end of last season after his side were beaten 4-0 by Leeds United in the play-offs.

This means that he could be a cheap option for the Gers as they would not have to negotiate a compensation fee with another club.

David Wagner’s managerial career so far

The 53-year-old boss, who favours a 4-2-3-1 formation, is best known in the United Kingdom for leading Huddersfield Town to an unlikely promotion to the Premier League via the play-offs in the 2016/17 campaign.

Wagner then led them to survival with a 16th-placed finish in the top-flight the following season, only to move on from the Yorkshire-based outfit in the 2018/19 campaign after a dismal run of 15 defeats in 22 Premier League games.

As you can see in the table above, he has had an inconsistent coaching career, and he has yet to manage a team that wins consistently, never averaging more than two points per game at any point.

Wagner, who has not won any major trophies in his career, has also not been one to shy away from controversy with his supporters in his career.

Last season, he told some Norwich supporters to “stay at home” after a negative reaction, that he deemed “unacceptable”, to him substituting Onel Hernandez and Josh Sargent in a match his side went on to win 4-2 against Watford.

Wagner is a fiery character who is not afraid to speak his mind, as shown by that incident, and his record may not be exceptional, but his style of play could make him perfect for club captain James Tavernier.

Why Wagner would be perfect for Tavernier

As aforementioned, 4-2-3-1 is his favoured formation and that is the system that he started with in matches at Norwich but it looked very different at times in possession.

The holding midfielder, ex-Rangers target Kenny McLean or Marcelino Nunez, would drop between the two centre-backs and operate as a quarterback, always looking for runs from deep from the full-backs or the centre-forward.

Wagner would task his wingers, often Borja Sainz and Jonathan Rowe, with dragging opposition full-backs infield to create space for his own defenders to make runs beyond the last line to create chances in the final third.

As you can hear in the clip above, former Norwich forward Christian Fassnacht explained to TalkNorwichCity that he, as a right winger, felt like a holding midfielder at times because of the right-back – Jack Stacey – being ahead of him most of the time.

Stacey ended the 2023/24 campaign with nine ‘big chances’ created and six assists, compared to Rowe’s return of one ‘big chance’ created and two assists, and this shows how productive the manager’s full-backs can be.

This could mean that Wagner would be a dream for Tavernier, who has racked up 139 assists for Rangers, because the English veteran would be in a system that is designed to create openings for him at the top end of the pitch.

The Gers skipper, who has 268 goal contributions in his Rangers career, could, then, utilise his quality on the ball to be an outstanding attacking force for the German tactician.

Wagner’s Norwich side also ranked third in the Championship for set-piece goals (18) and this suggests that he and his coaches could draw up enough plays to help Tavernier add even more assists to his name from his free-kicks and corners.

Overall, the out-of-work head coach could be perfect for the right-back, due to his system, but his overall record as a manager suggests that it would be a gamble by Rangers to appoint him as Clement and Ferguson’s long-term successor in the summer.