Rangers Chairman Promises More Signings Before Transfer Window Closes
Rangers chairman Andrew Cavenagh has promised more reinforcements before the transfer window closes, while openly conceding that the club’s early-season form is falling short of expectations.
Nine new players are already through the door at Ibrox. One point from two Premiership games and a 2-1 deficit to Jagiellonia Bialystok in the Europa League suggest the rebuild is still very much under construction.
“Clunky” business, more signings to come
Speaking at an open forum in Glasgow, Cavenagh described the club’s transfer activity so far as “clunky”, a blunt assessment that mirrors the team’s stuttering start under Derek McInnes.
"There's certainly work to be done," he told shareholders. "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."
The message was clear: the squad that has stumbled through its first three competitive fixtures will not be the finished article by the time the window shuts. It can’t be, not if Rangers are serious about matching the rhetoric of “sustained winning and winning sustainably” that Cavenagh says underpinned the regime’s arrival a year ago.
He accepts they are nowhere near that level yet.
"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."
The results, though, tell their own story. A slow start domestically. A European tie in the balance. An impatient support watching every misstep.
Important games, incomplete squad
Rangers host Jagiellonia in the second leg of their Europa League third qualifying round tie on Thursday, chasing a one-goal deficit with the pressure dialled up early in McInnes’ tenure. The winners will meet either Larne or Iberia Tbilisi in the play-offs.
"It sucks that we have to play a number of important games before the window closes but that's how it works," Cavenagh admitted.
That frustration reflects the awkward reality for a club trying to overhaul a squad while already fighting on multiple fronts. There is no bedding-in period, no soft landing. Every dropped point, every European setback, instantly tests the credibility of the project.
"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," Cavenagh said, pointing to a deeper cultural issue he believes needed ripping out.
"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 managers and boards rarely get at Ibrox.
Why McInnes? Rangers wanted a “Klopp-style” boss
Chief executive Jim Gillespie, sitting alongside Cavenagh and shareholder Paraag Marathe, was pressed on the decision to appoint McInnes, who narrowly missed out on the title with Heart of Midlothian last season.
"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," Gillespie explained.
"Derek has been high on our list for a long time and we think he fits the style and culture of this club."
That line is revealing. Rangers want aggression, intensity, a team that hunts rather than waits. McInnes has been hired to deliver that, not a sterile possession model. Yet the early evidence has been patchy, and the margin for error is shrinking fast.
VAR anger adds to early-season tension
The mood around the club was further soured by Sunday’s 2-1 defeat to Hibernian, a game turned by a VAR intervention that awarded Hibs a penalty. Gillespie confirmed Rangers have 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."
For Gillespie, this is about more than one call.
"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 complaint lands in a familiar place: a club demanding higher standards on the pitch, in the dugout, and now in the officiating booth as well.
Transfers are still to be done. A European tie hangs in the balance. The league campaign is already under scrutiny. If Rangers truly want to drive “second place” out of every corner of the club, they will have to prove it in the only place that counts – on Thursday night, under the lights at Ibrox, with no more room for clunky performances.
