Rangers transfer priorities and recruitment team revealed - and club doesn't have to cash in on assets
Ibrox chairman opens up on summer plans
Rangers will target players who can have an immediate impact on the team during the upcoming summer transfer window rather than focus on recruits who can be sold on for profit, according to chairman Andrew Cavenagh.
And the Ibrox chief confirmed that there will not be a pressure to sell some of the club’s top assets, with interest growing in the likes of Nigerian defender Emmanuel Fernandez, Belgian midfielder Nicolas Raskin and Portuguese striker Youssef Chermiti.
Another busy period of recruitment is anticipated at Rangers after finishing third in the Premiership. Cavenagh, who publicly backed head coach Danny Rohl on Sunday, wants to give the German the best tools to succeed and revealed the transfer strategy at Ibrox has shifted to bringing in players with more experience and ability to hit the ground running right away.
“I would say our focus is on building a winning team and we are prepared to commit more resources to achieve that,” explained Cavenagh. “But it is about the nuances now, about finding leaders, about finding the right mentality and it is less about a dollar amount. We will go into this thinking ‘how do we get the best team?’ as opposed to ‘I have X pounds to spend, what do I do with it?’
“Last year was a massive amount of change. I think it was about 27 ins and outs or something like that. I would not expect to see something quite at that magnitude but you guys can do the maths. I think we have four defenders signed, so there are four or five. There will still be a number of signings and we will be active again. It will be a step down in terms of volume from last year but one step up in terms of focus on chemistry, leadership, etc.
“It is not a fail-safe process. We learned that certainly last summer. I will never comment on individual players but you tick through past accomplishments and experiences and look at some and think it will be a fairly straightforward transition and you are wrong.
“We spend a lot of time doing due diligence so we are calling former players that played with them, former coaches, scouts, trying to do everything we can around the person rather than just the raw talent. We will go through an extensive recruitment process but it is not a fail safe. Until you play at Ibrox, you have not played at Ibrox and you can only project so much of that.
“I would also say that you can and we have seen that you can learn it. There are people who have grown significantly in our squad throughout the year and now look ready for it in a way that they didn’t last summer. With the squad last summer, everyone was learning. Now one of the things that we are excited about is that we have a lot of good pieces in place.”
Loan market continues to be of interest to Rangers
Rangers heavily utilised the loan market last season and Cavenagh expects the club to explore those options once more. “We made a decision last summer to bring in a relatively large number of loan players - I think you’re allowed six and we had six,” the American businessman said. “I think there is merit to that thought process because once you sign a player you have them for three or four years.
“You need to be a little careful with it and from the start we said from the start this will take us two or three summer windows to get the right team. So I don’t regret the concept of bringing in some loan players and I think you’ll see that tick town this summer. We will always have loan players because there is good value - whether the sporting value or future flexibility.”
Despite finishing third and missing out on Champions League revenues, Cavenagh insists there is no need to make sales. Rangers knocked back bids for Chermiti in January and don’t feel the need to cash in on assets if more come in. “We go into the summer with no pressure to sell from a financial perspective,” stated Cavenagh. “Sales that we make will be from a sporting perspective.”
The recruitment team at Rangers remains the same as it was in the last window. “Structure for the summer will be the same structure as it was for January,” said Cavenagh, “which is that our technical team, headed by Dan Purdy, do a lot of the research but the decisions overall will be made by a group of us, which includes me, Jim [Gillespie, Paraag [Marathe], Gretar [Steinsson, Dan and Stig [Inge-Bjornebye].
“I think it worked well for us in January. I think you want multiple opinions. It is incredibly important to get recruitment right. Tasking one person with it is difficult, both on them and not likely to get you what you want.”
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