Rangers Chairman Promises Reinforcements Amidst Slow Start

Rangers chairman Andrew Cavenagh has promised more reinforcements before the transfer window shuts, but did not sugar-coat the club’s stuttering start under Derek McInnes.

Nine signings are already through the door. One point from two Premiership games. A 2-1 deficit to Jagiellonia Bialystok in Europe. The numbers jar with the rhetoric of “sustained winning” that accompanied the Ibrox regime’s arrival a year ago – and Cavenagh knows it.

“There’s certainly work to be done,” he told shareholders at an open forum in Glasgow, describing the summer’s business as “clunky” and accepting that results are not where he wants them.

More signings – and exits – on the way

Rangers are not finished in the market. Not even close, if Cavenagh gets his way.

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

That is a significant churn for a squad already reshaped heavily in recent months. The club hierarchy believes the rebuild is essential if Rangers are to break a cycle of “finishing second and sometimes worse” that Cavenagh says had seeped into “every corner” of the club when they took over.

Change, though, has collided with a brutal calendar. Competitive games have arrived while McInnes is still learning his squad and the recruitment team is still filling gaps.

“It sucks that we have to play a number of important games before the window closes but that’s how it works,” Cavenagh admitted. “When we came in around a year ago, our ambition was sustained winning and winning sustainably. I understand we’re not there yet; I’m more optimistic now than I was a year ago.

“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.”

McInnes chosen as ‘Klopp-style’ front-foot coach

If the squad is a work in progress, the choice of manager was anything but a punt, according to chief executive Jim Gillespie.

McInnes arrived after taking Heart of Midlothian to the brink of a title last season, and Gillespie revealed the 53-year-old had been on Rangers’ radar for some time.

“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 said.

“Derek has been high on our list for a long time and we think he fits the style and culture of this club.”

The early evidence on the pitch has been uneven, the frustration visible on McInnes’ face as Rangers stumbled out of the blocks domestically and slipped behind in Europe. Yet inside the boardroom, there remains a clear conviction that the manager’s aggressive, pressing approach will eventually align with the recruitment drive.

VAR anger after Easter Road setback

While the long-term plan dominated the forum, the short-term anger centred on one moment at Easter Road.

Rangers’ 2-1 defeat to Hibernian on Sunday was clouded by a VAR intervention that led to a decisive penalty for the hosts. Gillespie confirmed the club has gone to the Scottish Football Association 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.

“We need a strategy for developing referees and VAR. My question for the SFA would be ‘what is the strategy for improvement?’ – we have to get improvement.”

The sense is not just of irritation over one call, but of a club pushing for higher standards in an area that has repeatedly dominated Scottish football’s narrative.

European stakes and a ticking clock

All of this plays out against a high-wire European tie that could shape the mood around Ibrox for weeks.

Rangers host Jagiellonia in Thursday’s second leg of their Europa League third qualifying round, needing to overturn that 2-1 deficit. Progress would set up a play-off against either Larne, the champions of Northern Ireland, or Iberia Tbilisi of Georgia.

Failure would crank up the pressure on a new manager, a new squad and a board that has nailed its colours to the mast of “sustained winning.”

The transfer window clock is ticking. The season has already started at full speed. Now Rangers have to prove their rebuild is more than just words.