YESTERDAY marked the 10th anniversary of David Weir signing for Rangers as a player. He has not forgotten it.
“Of course I remember it,” he says. “I remember walking in to a Rangers team that was second in the league, shipping goals and getting destroyed because they were hopeless, basically, and couldn’t defend. Pretty much the same situation as now!”
There were two noticeable differences, however. Rangers, on the back of their failed managerial experiment with Paul Le Guen, had just a week or so earlier enticed Walter Smith back to the club. Weir, then 36, had been brought in initially to help steady the ship – he ended up staying for four-and-a-half years – but others would arrive for a more significant outlay.
Read more: David Weir: Even spending £100m might not be enough for Rangers to close the gap to Celtic
Kevin Thomson was snared from Hibernian towards the end of the January window for £2m, while 14 senior players would arrive the following summer for a total of around £10m. Rangers, still good back then for a long line of credit with the bank, could spend just about as freely as they wanted. Weir and current-day manager Mark Warburton have no real luxury to do similar, the £1.8m shelled out for Joe Garner in the summer so far an outlier rather than the norm.
The other big change between then and now is that the second-place finish Rangers achieved in 2007 gave them a crack at the Champions League qualifiers. Smith, then, could make a justifiable case for speculating to accumulate. Rangers duly made it through two qualifying rounds to take their place alongside champions Celtic in the group stage, before dropping into the UEFA Cup after Christmas and going on to reach the final. This was an investment in the playing squad that was quickly recouped.
Second is the best Rangers can hope for again this season but the circumstances mean there is little prospect of money being splurged left, right and centre. Firstly, there is no sign of anyone willing to make those sorts of sums readily available to Warburton; not chairman Dave King, any of the other Ibrox directors, or even an external source.
Secondly, there is no Champions League carrot this time for the Scottish Premiership runners-up. Reaching the Europa League this season would be considered a success by many inside Ibrox but the financial rewards for doing so are a relative pittance. It is not the sort of target that would warrant wholesale investment at this stage, even if such funds were available.
Weir, though, has no problem with the slow and steady approach. Part of the side that lost to Zenit St Petersburg in that 2008 UEFA Cup final, he admits it already feels like half a lifetime away. The recovery this time will be somewhat more gradual.
“It’s a different era,” he added. “Five years ago, 10 years ago, whatever it is. The past doesn’t really worry me. It’s gone and you can’t affect it. I just think about how we get back to where we need to be. How do we improve?
Read more: David Weir: Even spending £100m might not be enough for Rangers to close the gap to Celtic
“It’s about us trying to create new memories and new experiences with these players. But it’s not easy, the world has changed since then. England has changed in the last five or six years, the money has gone through the roof. China has now come into the equation as well.
“So the world is continually changing and we’ve just got to try and adjust and make the best we can to try and compete in whatever way we can. We’re bringing in a couple of loan players from England who are not playing in their first teams at this minute, but that’s a way and means of us trying to bridge that gap.”
Rangers rounded off their winter break by taking a team to Germany on Sunday for a friendly with RB Leipzig. While a 4-0 defeat to the side lying in second place in the Bundesliga gives the management team plenty food for thought, Weir hoped the whole experience would serve as a dummy run ahead of a wished-for return to competitive European football in the summer.
“We need to get into Europe next season,” he added. “Rangers as a football club have to back involved in Europe, it’s fundamental to the football club, it always has been.
“Sunday was a tough lesson because they are a good football side. Leipzig are playing at a great level and obviously we’re not there yet but it gives everyone a benchmark. It gives the fans an opportunity to enjoy a European trip - which they obviously did in their numbers - and we, as a group of staff and players, learnt a lot about ourselves.”
- David Weir now has his own brick panel at Ibrox and supporters can snap up bricks with their own personal message for £50 in aid of the Rangers Youth Development Company. Full details at www.rydc.co.uk.
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