Andy Newport has totted up Del boy’s ‘bulging in-tray’ at Ibrox – five big obstacles, no less. Shame he forgot the sixth one. The small matter of beating Celtic…

Well, well, well…

The Stenography Corps are at it again.

The Daily Record have done us all a public service this morning.

They’ve sharpened the pencil, rolled up the sleeves, and totted up exactly how big a job Derek McInnes has just signed himself up for over at Ibrox.

A “bulging in-tray”, they’re calling it.

Five big challenges, no less.

And who’s holding the clipboard?

None other than our old friend Andy Newport.

The intrepid stenographer himself.

The very man who, a few short weeks ago, handed the Ibrox side a ready-made list of seven Scotsmen to cure all their ills.

That went well, didn’t it??

Anyway.

Let’s have a wee look inside Del boy’s in-tray, shall we?

Challenge one. “Stiffen the mentality.” You could not make this up.

Top of Newport’s list?

The mentality.

The “soft psyche”.

Both former boss Danny Rohl and chairman Andrew Cavenagh acknowledged that R*****s’ failures last season came down to their soft psyche.

With a title to be won heading into the split, the Ibrox squad wilted under the pressure and saw their hopes of beating Celtic and Hearts crumble.

Their words, by the way.

Wilted. Crumbled. Soft.

So let me get this straight.

The cure for a squad that folds under pressure…

…is a manager who has just delivered the single softest finish in living memory.

A man who led a league from August right up until the 87th minute of the final day.

And then Heartsed it.

That’s the mentality coach.

Jesus wept.

Make a note of it, peepul.

Challenge two. “Ramp up recruitment.” One signing in, and it’s Armitage Shankland.

Newport then informs us, with a straight face, that the squad needs bodies.

Lots of them.

So far this summer the grand total of incomings stands at one.

Armitage Shankland.

The fella who ripped up his Tynecastle deal to go and “win back” a title they’ve never had in the first place.

Four defenders on the books, apparently.

A right-back in Dujon Sterling who, in Newport’s own words, can’t get through a season without “spells on the sidelines”.

Eighteen goals shipped in the final eight games of the campaign.

Eighteen.

I shit you not.

And up front, the dream of Shankland and Chermiti banging them in, fed by wingers who couldn’t cross a road, never mind a ball.

Genius.

Challenge three. “Pick a new skipper.” Captain Disappointed has finally cleared off.

James Tavernier has left the building.

Eleven years of Tav-Pen, gone.

And the armband is up for grabs.

Newport reckons neither Butland nor Souttar showed “proper leadership” last term.

You don’t say.

So the outstanding candidate, we’re told, is… Armitage Shankland.

The same one signing who is also apparently the recruitment drive, the goal threat, and now the spiritual leader.

He’ll be doing the half-time pies next.

I rest my case.

Challenge four. “Clear out the deadwood.” Detonate the bomb squad, in other words.

Ah, the bomb squad.

Cifuentes, Danilo, McCausland, Nsiala – all trooping back from their loans abroad with, and I quote, “no future in a R*****s jersey”.

The priority, says Newport, is to find clubs daft enough to take them off the wage bill.

Good luck with that, peepul.

And then there’s the small matter of Nedim Bajrami’s contract, which Newport admits will be “tougher to shift”.

Of course it will.

It always is, over there.

Amateurs.

Challenge five. “Get them ready.” Three weeks, then straight into the Europa qualifiers.

The fitness.

Del boy meets his new players on Monday.

Then it’s off to Austria for an eight-day boot camp from July 10.

And from there, says Newport, just three weeks until the Premiership kicks off.

After that?

Straight into the Europa League qualifiers.

Two rounds of them, no less, with a slow start liable to dump them out altogether.

Sorted. Done. No problem at all, apparently.

So that’s the in-tray.

Mentality. Recruitment. Armband. Deadwood. Fitness.

Five mountains to climb before a competitive ball is even kicked.

And the sixth. The one Newport somehow forgot to write down.

Five challenges, Andy counted.

Five.

He had the pencil out, the list going, the whole back page to fill.

And somewhere between the bomb squad and the Austrian Alps, he completely forgot the only obstacle on that list that actually matters.

Beating Celtic.

Funny, that??

Because here’s the thing, peepul.

You can stiffen the mentality.

You can sign eleven Scotsmen.

Hell, you can hand the armband to Armitage and detonate the entire bomb squad.

You can run them up and down an Austrian mountain till they’re sick.

And does any of it matter??

Not while St. Martin the Hunskelper is sitting in the home dugout at Celtic Park, it doesn’t.

That’s not in any in-tray.

That’s the locked door at the end of the corridor.

And nobody in the SMSM has the nerve to write that one down.

This was never about football. And it ends the same way every time.

As I said the other day, McInnes isn’t walking into Ibrox to manage a football club.

He’s walking in to settle a score.

A man already wired to crumble.

Handed a personal vendetta to chase.

And a klanbase howling for “the identity” to be “brought back”.

Now add Newport’s five mountains on top of that.

And then, at the very end, the sixth one.

Us.

He’ll be there or thereabouts in August.

He’ll be talking a good game in September.

But by the time the chips are down in February, with the title slipping through his fingers for the second year running?

He’ll fold like a cheap deckchair.

He always does, with him.

So enjoy the in-tray talk, peepul.

Enjoy Andy Newport totting up the mountains.

Just don’t expect the wee stenographer to ever write down the biggest one.

Because deep down, even he knows the answer to that one.

Make no mistake.

Six-in-a-row incoming, peepul.

Mark my words…

Choose Read Celtic as a ‘Preferred Source’ on Google News for quick access to the news you value.