Michael Beale is coming to Ibrox and as is increasingly customary in football, he’s bringing members of his backroom staff with him.

Neil Banfield, Damian Matthew and Harry Watling will trade Loftus Road for Ibrox, bringing a range of expertise. Beale reaffirmed the importance of his backroom team in the summer having observed the intentionality with which Steven Gerrard built his own collective in 2018.

“At Rangers, we had a really well-balanced management team,” Beale said reflecting on his previous spell at the club.

“Steven was extremely smart in the way he put his management team together, it’s probably a lesson for other ex-professionals going into the job that need to round themselves off. Steven was very, very smart in that.

“The people I’ve brought in around me [at QPR] are all older, I’ve gone with some old heads with more grey hair that can temper my energy down sometimes. But I’m still going to be at the front on the pitch because that’s what I love.”

Gerrard built a team that was finetuned to complement his strengths and cover areas of inexperience, which is why Beale arrived as first-team coach. However, the new Rangers manager’s comments in the summer that he will still be “at the front on the pitch” shows his building process when stepping into management was slightly different. As a young inexperienced boss who specialises on the training pitch, Beale needed a different contingent of personnel around him, three of which he will take north to Glasgow.

“I like to use specific coaches to work closely with individual players and units in the team,” he said speaking to the QPR website this year.

“I believe strongly that it is a management team that will all work together for the success and progression of the players, team and club as a whole.”

In London, Banfield largely worked with the defenders, Matthew the midfielders and Beale the forwards. Watling, who was appointed the week before the Championship season started, arrived with a remit to focus on set pieces and player development. At 32, he’s the only member of the coaching staff younger than the manager.

Banfield has been at QPR since 2019 having previously spent over two decades at Arsenal, initially in youth development and then as part of Arsene Wenger’s first-team coaching staff. He was brought to the club by Mark Warburton and his services were retained by Beale, who he coached as a 12-year-old.

The 60-year-old has a reputation for being demanding but fair and he will bring a wealth of experience on the training pitch. Like Beale, Banfield has his foundations in youth development.

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“What is tough? How can you describe tough?” he said talking to the Independent this year. “Tough is demanding from your players as much as they can handle. Some might never make it to the first team at Arsenal or QPR, but they still could somewhere else, so you stretch them for as much as they can take."

Matthew also has past links to Beale having brought him to Chelsea’s academy over two decades ago. The 52-year-old left a role with Millwall this summer to join up with his former colleague once more.

“He has worked at all levels of football, overseeing the youngest age groups at Chelsea to being an under-16, under-18 and reserve team head coach as well as a first-team coach and assistant manager,” Beale said when Matthew’s arrival at QPR was announced.

“Similar to Chris Ramsey and Neil, he has seen the full journey that a player must go on through academy to senior football and into the Premier League and international honours.”

The final member arriving at Ibrox is Watling, who also has a connection to the manager. He was one of the three attendees at Beale’s first coaching session in a church hall over two decades ago.

Subsequently opting for a career in coaching, the set-piece specialist worked at Chelsea, West Ham and Millwall before becoming a head coach in America with Hartford Athletic, who play in the division below the MLS. He had a specific focus on set-plays at Loftus Road as well as working more broadly with the first-team squad.

“The importance of set-plays cannot be understated and I believe that having a dedicated coach in this area will be hugely beneficial moving forwards,” Beale said this summer.

“We won’t let the set-plays consume what we are doing, we will make sure they link in to how we train. They are not separate events, we will make sure everything is glued together,” Watling added.

When previously at Ibrox the manager’s colleague Tom Culshaw was handed the responsibility of set-pieces. As the Rangers Review covered recently, the attacking threat from corners this season has dropped considerably from previous heights. It’s an area that Watling should be able to earn some quick wins by introducing greater variety and new routines. 

It's no coincidence that Beale built a coaching team with individuals he knows and trusts. The Englishman has a clear footballing philosophy that his staff understand while appreciating the importance of a management team from his spell with Gerrard.

If his stint in Scotland is to be a success he'll need to lean on those who will arrive at Ibrox with him, just like he did during his last spell with the club.

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