Pedro Caixinha: Rangers' problems with Carlos Pena, the bush incident and signing Alfredo Morelos

Alfredo

Caixinha’s tumultuous reign did offer the occasional shaft of bright light, including a 3-0 away win at Pittodrie but the acquirement of Alfredo Morelos remains the most obviously luminous.

Taking expert advice from his “local coach” Jonatan Johansson, he sanctioned a deal of £1m for the Colombian striker that brought him from the relative obscurity of Finnish football.

The livewire was to make a huge impact, quickly usurping Eduardo Herrera who had been brought in as the senior striker and making the number nine position his own.

From his debut season he has been outstanding, especially in Europe and attracted significant transfer attention from the continent’s top five leagues.

With the player now conservatively valued at north of £15m, he looks the best signing in the Ibrox club’s recent history and one that played an instrumental part in their 55th title under Gerrard.

Caixinha recalls him fondly.

“With Morelos the first thing was to put him on the right weight,” he smiled.

“Something that he was doing was trying to shoot from everywhere. He was receiving and shooting, receiving and shooting.

“That is something you need in a striker but we tried to work with him on details and definition – not only shooting power but shooting with precision. Those things.

“The rest he had. You don’t need him to pressure the keeper or place the centre-backs in trouble when they are building up.

“We identified in him the desire and passion, the will to improve.

“Of course, you need to educate him in a lot of situations to let him know where he was exactly in this moment in time. To establish with him a timetable to establish his own goals.

“How many goals he wants to score next season? Where are his goals regarding the league he wants to play in? We placed these goals on him and he was one guy who was looking to achieve it on a daily basis. “The other thing we had to control was his anger. For example, how many times did he clash with Scott Brown?

“You have to remember, in those days Scott was doing whatever he wanted in on the pitch and I had to face him down at half-time in one game and Morelos, just by arriving, after six months he was doing that, he was playing, knowing what an Old Firm match represented. “With an Old Firm, the first thing you need to understand is they can’t beat us in attitude. Never.

“They can beat us - but not in attitude. And Morelos was the guy that was representing that and facing Celtic’s captain.”

Carlos

The arrival of Mexican international Carlos Pena for a reported £2.5m was, on the face of it, the most exciting transfer move in the summer of 2017.

Nicknamed ‘Gullit’ due to his similarities to Holland and AC Milan phenom Ruud, the 27-year-old had once been a star performer in his native country and widely tipped for bigger things.

But at its apex, his career quickly imploded. Drinking problems were whispered about in hushed tones.

Caixinha openly admits he was aware of the player’s alcohol issues and the gamble he was taking with the signing.

He said: “When I arrived in Mexico at the end of 2012, Carlos was the most incredible midfielder. He was a goalscorer, up and down, defending and attacking.

“He was a massive player with a lot of technique and physicality.

“After that he passed through some problems. He couldn’t deal with what he achieved.

“He passed through one stage where he was having drinking problems. It was totally known.

Carlos Pena

“And when we contacted the previous teams and coaches in Mexico they told us he still had a little bit of the problem but it’s much better and he has a will to change everything.

“I’m not going to lie to you that he came totally clean. No, he didn’t arrive totally clean for us, but we cleaned him.

“If you remember one of the last games we played against St Johnstone, which we won 3-0, he scored twice.

“That was the Carlos, the real Carlos we were looking for.”

Pena was the subject of criticism for his performances with some pundits feeling he looked laboured and slack, but he was also showing an impressive habit of being in the right place at the right time, scoring a respectable five times in 14 appearances.

Knowing the extent of his fitness battle, Caixinha had devised a system where his star man could have the impact of his glory days without the graft.

He said: “When I first met Carlos playing as an opponent, they were playing in a 4-4-2.

“Carlos was playing as a number 8 because, in those days, he was a box-to-box player.

“Because of these problems, what we tried to do with Carlos was to create a short range.

“So let’s place him in a position he can make the runs up and down but he’s near the box where he can solve games and give us his very best.”

While it seemed to be a plan with potential, the rails were to quickly come off after an anonymous performance in the 2-0 defeat to Motherwell in the League Cup semi-final.

“Suddenly, after we worked for two months or two and a half months to reach that level, we had the semi-final and Carlos was down again,” he lamented.

“So this was a problem. We needed to keep him extremely close.

“He’s a very kind guy, too kind, and he needs to have you close to him.

“He made a tremendous effort to get to that level but after that he came down again so you need to track him and follow him on a daily basis.

“He’s definitely a great player, but this is the history of Carlos.”

Bush

Pedro Caixinha likes to communicate, that much is clear.

He talks expansively about most subjects but when it comes to his side’s infamous Europa League defeat by Progres Niederkorn, he is uncharacteristically clipped.

Having lived through the white hot furnace that is being Rangers boss, the Portuguese clearly understands the pressure of the job and is fully aware there is no sugar coating such a cataclysmic loss.

He turns understandably solemn on the mere mention of the game, and even more so when he’s taken back to a picture taken of him debating the result with angry fans while standing in a bush.

It was a question of optics more than anything else, with the bizarre sight of the Rangers manager remonstrating with his own while balancing on a flower bed adding to the farcical nature of the evening.

Caixinha in Luxembourg

For Caixinha, it isn’t about the picture, which was an irrelevance. Rather, as the leader of the team he had to face up to criticism head on.

“What happened was I went to take responsibility and assume it. I understand you are mad about me, that you are angry, and like us you didn’t want that to happen,” he grimaced. “But this is the reality, we need to face up and you need to go. You need to go in front.

“So I went there to show my face. Even in those conditions and in a very difficult moment I think the leader needs to be present and that’s what I did.

“And of course after I arrived there some guys are much more worried or concerned and have different ideas about that and some words might come but it’s natural.

“The main thing was to assume responsibility and say 'Okay, we are going to move forward.'”

The end

Any chance for Caixinha to set things right were doomed by Progres.

A result of such gargantuanly bad proportions would not be easily forgotten and league form did nothing to dispel growing disquiet.

Defeat to Hibs at Ibrox on the second day of the season was a poor start to the league and while Rangers did bounce back with wins, they were often followed by a stutter step.

Rumors of dressing room unrest had grown to become accepted as fact. But while there were factions, not everyone was desperate to see the manger go.

Against Hamilton, a flu-addled Caixinha took the decisive decision to drop Kenny Miller and watched his team win comfortably 4-1.

After the crucial third goal, scorer Daniel Candeias made the point of running to the manager and embracing him as a show of solidarity.

Caixinha recalled: “When you take decisions in your life and you take them because you believe in what you are going to do.

“I was totally believing that we were identifying that moment some of the players were leaking information.

“Choosing or picking the team, it’s my job. And that’s what I did. If I need to die, I will die with my own ideas.

“Because I have no problems to die.

“What I want is that, those guys at least, when I die, if I die, the guys will give me a proper funeral. That’s all."

Any joy in victory was to be short lived.

Defeat in the aforementioned semi-final left Caixinha’s coat hanging on a shoogly peg before a 1-1 draw with Kilmarnock sealed his fate. He was dismissed the following day.

When the axe fell, nobody was really surprised, least of all the Portuguese.

And while his time in Govan won’t be a career highlight on a CV that holds five managerial trophies from his spells in Mexico, Caixinha still feels his contribution helped the Ibrox club on their journey back to the top. He said: “I think that we could raise a little bit the level of Rangers in those days and allowed others who came to receive the club in a totally different way to how we received it.”

And while he is glowing in his praise about the job done in the four years since his departure, the extent to which the tables have turned in Glasgow is something he has clearly found surprising.

“Naturally, I think life is a cycle. Football is also a cycle,” he said wistfully.

“But there remains the question of why Celtic decreased so dramatically. I don’t know … but something happened. Bad management, bad vision...

“If you look to my time in charge and now, everything is reversed. Everything.”

A smiles breaks across his face and he adds: “I’m happy of course, I’m happy for Rangers.”