Rangers Summer Rebuild: Chairman Cavenagh's Insights
Rangers chairman Andrew Cavenagh has admitted the club’s summer rebuild remains a work in progress and warned that more changes are coming before the transfer window closes.
Nine players have already arrived under new manager Derek McInnes, yet Rangers have taken just one point from their opening two Scottish Premiership fixtures and trail Jagiellonia Bialystok 2-1 in their Europa League third qualifying round tie.
In front of shareholders at an open forum in Glasgow, Cavenagh did not try to dress it up.
He described the club’s transfer business to date as “clunky” and accepted that results are not close to where he wants them. The response, he insisted, will be to keep pushing.
“There’s certainly work to be done,” he said. “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.”
Rebuild under pressure
The timeline is unforgiving. Rangers host Jagiellonia at Ibrox on Thursday, needing to overturn that first-leg deficit to keep their European campaign alive. Waiting in the play-off round are either Northern Irish champions Larne or Iberia Tbilisi of Georgia.
“It sucks that we have to play a number of important games before the window closes but that’s how it works,” Cavenagh admitted, summing up the tension between long-term planning and immediate results.
Rangers’ hierarchy arrived just under a year ago with a clear mantra: “sustained winning and winning sustainably”. That remains the target, even as early-season stumbles test patience inside and outside the club.
“I understand we’re not there yet; I’m more optimistic now than I was a year ago,” Cavenagh said. The start under McInnes has been bumpy, but the chairman refused to indulge any sense of self-pity. “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.”
Changing the mentality
For Cavenagh, the challenge is not just about personnel. It is about rewiring the club’s mindset after too many years spent chasing rather than leading.
“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, though, is not something Rangers are often granted. With Europe on the line this week and the league campaign already under scrutiny, the chairman’s promise of three to five more signings is more than a transfer tease. It is a statement that the overhaul is still in full swing, even as the season’s first real judgment night looms at Ibrox.
