Former Rangers boss Giovanni van Bronckhorst faces the sack at Besiktas after his nightmare season continued with a shock 3-1 to defeat to Maccabi Tel Aviv.
The Dutchman only landed his rule in Istanbul five months ago but reports in Turkey claimed he was facing the axe from the Super Lig side. And the pressure was cranked up after going down to a shock loss to the Israeli side in the Europa League. Besiktas wren’t helped by the fact their ‘home’ game was moved to a neutral venue in Debrecen’s Nagyerdei Stadium in Hungary without any fans.
That came over security fears after fans of Israeli clubs were involved in violence at recent games, most notably in Amsterdam when Maccabi fans fought with Ajax supporters. Besiktas have now won just one of their last six games, losing four during that sequence. Van Bronckhorst was managed of Rangers for just less than a year.
He signed a two-year deal, with an option of a third, to take over at Besiktas but the clock is ticking. Their last Super Lig game saw them take a 2-0 lead over Goztepe early on – before collapsing to dramatic 4-2 defeat in front of their unimpressed fans.
Last month he was given the dreaded vote of confidence by president Hasan Arat who said: “We believe in the team and Giovanni van Bronckhorst. Nobody should expect a change. We have goals. The Besiktas community is upset and sad. This is a newly established team, they should support their team. We have a serious chance in Europe, the league is not over yet. They should not compare us to last year, this team is not the same team.”
But November could be an ominous month for Van Bronckhorst. In 2021 that gave Rangers enough time in the campaign to decide to wield the axe – and it could be the same again in Istanbul.
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