Rangers Chairman Andrew Cavenagh on Summer Rebuild Progress

Rangers chairman Andrew Cavenagh has admitted the club’s summer rebuild remains a work in progress and warned supporters to expect more upheaval before the transfer window closes.

Nine new players have already arrived under new manager Derek McInnes, yet Rangers sit with a solitary point from their opening two Scottish Premiership fixtures and trail Jagiellonia Bialystok 2-1 after the first leg of their Europa League third qualifying round tie.

At an open forum in Glasgow, Cavenagh did not try to dress it up.

“The business so far has been clunky,” he told shareholders, before stressing that the club are still deep in the market. He expects “three to five” more signings before deadline day, with departures also on the cards.

“I don’t like putting a number on it,” he said, “but certainly I’d hope three to five more players are coming in and a number will possibly go out.”

The admission lands at a delicate moment. McInnes is only two league games into his tenure, yet the early evidence has been scratchy, the performances disjointed, the points column thin. In Europe, Rangers must overturn that first-leg deficit against Jagiellonia at Ibrox on Thursday to keep their continental campaign alive. Waiting in the play-off round are either Larne, the champions of Northern Ireland, or Georgian side Iberia Tbilisi.

The stakes are clear. So is the timing.

“It sucks that we have to play a number of important games before the window closes but that’s how it works,” Cavenagh admitted, acknowledging the awkward overlap between squad surgery and season-defining fixtures.

He returned repeatedly to the idea of culture and standards. When the current board arrived around a year ago, he said, they found a club too ready to accept coming up short.

“When we came in around a year ago, our ambition was sustained winning and winning sustainably,” he explained. “I understand we’re not there yet; I’m more optimistic now than I was a year ago.”

The numbers on the league table and the scoreline from Poland tell one story. Cavenagh insists the internal picture is different, even as he concedes the frustration.

“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.

That line speaks to a deeper irritation. Finishing second, he argued, had become ingrained.

“When we came in, 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 exactly what Rangers rarely get. Another reshaped squad is on the way. The next few weeks will show whether this latest overhaul can finally drag the club away from that mentality Cavenagh is so determined to erase.