Rangers Board Promises More Signings Amidst ‘Clunky’ Start
Rangers’ new era has barely cleared the runway and already the turbulence has hit.
One point from two Scottish Premiership games. A 2-1 deficit to Jagiellonia Bialystok in the Europa League third qualifying round. Nine new signings through the door, yet a team still searching for its shape, its rhythm, its edge.
Against that backdrop, chairman Andrew Cavenagh faced shareholders at an open forum in Glasgow and did not pretend all was well.
“There’s certainly work to be done,” he admitted, before setting out the scale of what comes next. Rangers, he expects, will add “three to five” more players before the transfer window closes, with others likely to make way.
The message was clear: the rebuild is only halfway done.
‘Clunky’ business and an awkward calendar
Cavenagh did not dress up the club’s summer dealings. He called the business so far “clunky”, a word that fits the football on the pitch as neatly as the movement in the market.
Rangers have stacked up signings, but cohesion has lagged behind. Under new manager Derek McInnes, the side have stumbled out of the blocks domestically and now stand on the brink in Europe, trailing the Polish side ahead of Thursday’s decisive second leg at Ibrox.
“It sucks that we have to play a number of important games before the window closes but that’s how it works,” Cavenagh said, a blunt assessment of a calendar that demands results while squads are still under construction.
He insisted the long-term vision remains intact.
“When we came in around a year ago, our ambition was sustained winning and winning sustainably,” he told shareholders. “I understand we’re not there yet; I’m more optimistic now than I was a year ago.”
The early weeks of this season have tested that optimism. Cavenagh, though, pushed back against any sense of fatalism.
“We could look at how things have gone in the first three games and sit here and sulk, but we’re not going to do that,” he said. When the current board arrived, he added, “we realised finishing second and sometimes worse was seeping into every corner of this club and we had to change that, but it takes time.”
Time is precisely what Rangers rarely get.
McInnes hired to bring ‘Klopp-style’ front-foot football
Alongside Cavenagh sat chief executive Jim Gillespie and shareholder Paraag Marathe. Gillespie fielded questions on the appointment of McInnes, who came within touching distance of the title with Heart of Midlothian last season.
In a modern game obsessed with managerial archetypes, Gillespie was strikingly open about the profile Rangers chased.
“You can go for a Pep [Guardiola] style manager or a [Jurgen] Klopp style manager – we wanted a Klopp-style manager who plays on the front foot,” he explained. “Derek has been high on our list for a long time and we think he fits the style and culture of this club.”
Front-foot football demands aggression, energy and conviction. Right now, it also demands points. Rangers have not found enough of either.
Pressure is already nudging at McInnes’ shoulders after a poor start and a Europa League tie that hangs in the balance. Beat Jagiellonia on Thursday and the path leads to a play-off against either Larne, the Northern Irish champions, or Iberia Tbilisi of Georgia. Fall short, and the questions will grow louder.
VAR anger and a demand for answers
Off the pitch, frustration is not limited to recruitment or results. Refereeing and VAR are firmly in Rangers’ sights after Sunday’s 2-1 defeat to Hibernian, when a VAR intervention led to a Hibs penalty that turned the game.
Gillespie confirmed the club have gone to the SFA seeking clarity on the decision.
“It was my understanding that it has to be a clear and obvious error for the referee to be called over,” he said. “I didn’t see that as either clear or obvious.”
The complaint runs deeper than one call.
“We need a strategy for developing referees and VAR,” Gillespie added. “My question for the SFA would be ‘what is the strategy for improvement?’ – we have to get improvement.”
The words captured a wider unease. Rangers are trying to reshape a club culture they believe had grown too comfortable with second place. They are demanding higher standards from themselves and, pointedly, from those who officiate their games.
For now, though, the only improvement that will truly shift the mood must come on the pitch. New signings are promised, a front-foot identity has been pledged, and Europe is on the line.
The next 90 minutes at Ibrox will show whether this “clunky” start is just early-season noise, or the first warning sign of another campaign that falls short of the standards Rangers insist they are here to restore.
