Who is Neil Banfield as new Rangers coach with Bayern Munich endorsement set to bring Arsene Wenger magic to Ibrox

It's fair to say Neil Banfield knows plenty about Rangers, even if fans of the Ibrox club know little about him.

Then again, few of them had heard of Michael Beale when he hitched himself to Steven Gerrard's wagon and headed up the M6 in 2018. Now Banfield has made the same journey as Beale's right hand man, the new Rangers manager having 'inherited' the 60-year-old at Loftus Road, where he had been brought to QPR by ex-Ibrox boss Mark Warburton.

Banfield had been out of work for a year after becoming collateral damage at the end of Arsene Wenger's reign at Arsenal, where had worked closely with the legendary Frenchman on the training ground as part of a 21 year association with The Gunners. Beale might have taken all of Rangers' tactical and technical training ground work under Gerrard but the myriad of managerial duties he will now undertake as the main man, means he will have to rely on the backroom staff of Banfield, Damian Matthew and Harry Watling, all of whom have left QPR for Ibrox.

And in Banfield he has a coach who has seen and done it all with some who have gone on to be the best in the business. One small example is a signed Bayern Munich Champions League shirt that takes pride of place in the London home he will soon vacate.

It arrived on his doorstep just before Christmas 2020 from Serge Gnabry, whom Banfield had taken under his wing when he arrived at Arsenal as a 16-year-old in 2011. Banfield said in a recent interview: “It took my breath away to have someone like that recognise what you did for them. It’s got pride of place in my house.”

He'd started his coaching career in the Gunners' academy under ex-Celtic boss Liam Brady, during which time the likes of Ashley Cole, Jack Wilshere, Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie came under his wing before graduating to become one of Wenger's most trusted first team lieutenants.

And another ex-Ibrox connection, now managing Arsenal, is one Banfield always felt would go right to the top after switching from the dressing room to the dugout. "Mikel Arteta was always interested in the tactical side and we’d speak now and again about where he wanted to go as a coach,” he said. “He had a vision and he knows what he wants. It takes time to put your own imprint on someone else’s team and he’s doing that now. Mikel was the captain, he always set the rules (as a player) and strong managers have to have that, without a doubt. We have non-negotiables here (at QPR) too.”

Undoubtedly, those will be applied at Ibrox. And with a reputation as being a man who tells it like it is, no matter the profile of the player he is dealing with, the Rangers squad won't get away with taking their feet off the gas.

"What is tough? How can you describe tough?” he asked in the interview. “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.

“It’s people like Fabrice Muamba, Sebastian Larsson, Steve Sidwell, Ben Chorley, Luke Ayling. The ones who you’ve helped give a fantastic and life-changing career. I would make it hard on them but there was always a reason behind it.

"It was never just about making them good footballers, it was about giving them good morals and watching them grow as human beings. Every step of my career, I’ve worked with really great people. Sometimes people ask me if I would have wanted to be a manager but I never had that inkling because I always enjoyed what I was doing so much.

"This isn’t a job that starts at half-past seven and finishes at three for me. I can sit here, hand on heart, and say that I’ve tried to do the best for every player I’ve ever worked with. That never goes away."

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