DAVE King will prioritise finding a new manager to rebuild Rangers' football department if he wins power at an upcoming extraordinary general meeting, having said the current players were so poor the club was likely to still be in The Championship next season.
King outlined his vision for Rangers and said it would cost more than £25 million to restore the club as a force which can be Scottish champions and gain entry to the Champions League. But after watching the League Cup semi-final defeat to Celtic at the weekend, when Rangers were comprehensively outplayed in a 2-0 defeat, he was pessimistic about the prospect of Rangers being promoted to the top flight over the next three months. "After watching the game at the weekend I think there's less than a 50 percent chance of us being in the Premiership next season. I didn't recognise that as a Rangers team.
"That squad cannot possibly play top flight Premiership football next season. In the short-term they might find it difficult even to get into the Premiership for next season. If they got there and played they wouldn't be top flight [standard]. The first priority is to get a manager in who can manage players. It's not getting a good manager in and saying 'we have a good team but we're not happy with the manager', be it Alex McLeish or Dick Advocaat. We are going to have to find a manager to find a squad and grow it himself. That is very important. It's not a one-season plan."
Wholesale changes are inevitable given that Kenny McDowall is working his notice as caretaker manager, five players have arrived from Newcastle only for the remainder of this season, and Lee McCulloch, Kenny Miller, Kris Boyd, Darren McGregor, Richard Foster, Jon Daly, Bilel Mohsni, Steve Simonsen, Steven Smith, Kyle Hutton and Ian Black are all out of contract at the end of May, with no sign so far that the club intends to offer new deals.
Stuart McCall, Billy Davies and Terry Butcher have all been linked with managing Rangers but King said no discussions had been held with anyone. "That's premature. From a business plan perspective we're not betting on the club being in the Premiership. The fans wants us to be there and in the Champions League. But the single most important thing for the business plan is to re-connect with the fans and get bums on seats again. If it turns out to be the Championship that will be disappointing - but maybe these five lads from Newcastle will turn out to be so good that we'll surge up the league table! We'll see. But where we are for next season is not the single most important material factor in all of this. The club has to have a board that the fans can trust. If we can get that, that's the game-changer."
King intends to oust the current directors and constitute a new board featuring himself, fellow former Ibrox director Paul Murray and former Tennent's managing director John Gilligan. Murray shared King's view that major investment was needed in the football department. "We need to appoint a first-team manager and build an infrastructure around him," said Murray. "We have to look at other areas that have been decimated. Arguably, a chief scout is the most important person at the club because they identify talent to bring though. It's ridiculous a club of Rangers' size doesn't have one just now."
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