Today Dave King sat in front of the nations press to outline his vision for the future of Rangers Football Club. He did so as he announced that season tickets for next terms tilt at the Championship title would be going up by 5%.

Now when you look at Mr King’s press conference as a whole, can the fans and media really say that King’s PR rhetoric was any different from Charles Green’s or Sandy Easdale’s?

King has previously stated that he would plough more than £20m into the Rangers coffers and that would make the club strong again.

Yet today he stated:

“I don’t have a figure in mind as that is dependant on a lot of factors outside our control.”

“It would depend on whether we can renegotiate the commercial arrangements, it will depend on the level of season ticket uptake, it will depend on whether we repay the £5 million loan.”

Unlike in previous press conferences, King has been reluctant to talk about his own investment. He continually said others needed to invest, fans needed to co-invest, season tickets had to be sold and a deal with Sports Direct/Mike Ashley had to be made.

Those things could take some time, especially the commercial deals and the £5m loan. When thinking about next season’s budget, Rangers are running out of time fast!

King was making the hard sell when trying to persuade the Rangers followers to purchase their season books early this summer. But when the previous regime asked the Gers fans to do the same last summer, King was the first to tell the support to hold back.

Now he is the chairman he seems to have changed his tune as it’s now his board in charge:

“They can trust (the) board, and I’m hoping they can be co-investors in the club.”

But surely the proof is in the pudding for the fans. They need to see that Dave and Paul Murray, along with the rest of the board, are serious about their plans.

For instance, why are they delaying a managerial appointment? Surely they have a preferred candidate and should have that man in place already. But now we are told it will probably take another week before an announcement is made.

Thankfully the board have culled the eleven out of contract players from their books but these players need to be replaced and fast. That won’t happen until after the new boss gets his feet under his desk at Murray Park.

When discussing new recruits King said:

“We need players to be competitive in the Premiership, so there will be substantial investment in next months. It may be necessary to over-invest.”

“The mandate is to get players who could perform in the Premiership and that would greatly reduce the risk for next season.”

So they will probably need to ‘over-invest’ and bring in quite a few players of Premiership standard.

But as of yet they don’t have a manager or a budget in place. Everything seems to be on delay. Again we have no idea what King means by ‘substantial investment’ and whether he will put in the aforementioned £20m plus from his own wallet.

Now he states he wants players that are competitive in the Scottish Premiership. Well lets look at the eleven who have just departed:

Lee McCulloch: The Gers captain who won SPL titles with the club and also had experience in the English Premier League. Won eighteen caps for Scotland.

Kris Boyd: Another former Scottish international who won top titles with Rangers pre 2012. Was the all-time top SPL goal scorer and scored twenty-two Premiership goals for Kilmarnock during the 2013-14 season.

Bilel Mohsni: No top flight experience but has made four appearances for the Tunisian national team.

Ian Black: Spent most of his career in Scotland’s top flight playing with Hearts and Inverness Caley Thistle. Won the Scottish Cup with the Jambos in 2012.

Stevie Smith: The full-back won the SPL title with Rangers back in 2010. Also played for Aberdeen in Scotland’s top league.

Jon Daly: Experienced Irish striker scored fifty-eight league goals in Scotland’s top flight during his five year stint at Dundee United.

Richard Foster: Made over 200 top flight appearances for Aberdeen. Also had a year on loan at Rangers during the 2010-11 season where he represented the Gers in the Champions League.

Kyle Hutton: Started his career with the Ibrox club, when they were in the highest tier.

Steve Simonsen: An experienced goalkeeper, who played in the EPL with both Everton and Stoke.

Lee Robinson and Seb Faure didn’t have much experience in a top league.

Basically this list shows you that Rangers have always tried and bring in ‘competitive Premiership’ players. But that model failed last season and spectacularly so!

You need to be cuter than just snapping up a player that has played in the Premiership!

That why the Glasgow club need to invest in a proper scouting network. Without that in place, then they will keep making the same mistakes.

I was disappointed to see Dave King dismiss the idea of bringing in a new Director of Football. I think it would be great for the long term plan to bring in an experienced football administrator and have him look after the football side of business and allow the new gaffer to get the best from his squad.

King says that it doesn’t make much sense at this stage of his plan but just look what Hearts have done with that managerial structure in place at Tynecastle. The capital side are miles ahead of Rangers, both on and off the park, at the moment.

Basically Dave King came into the ‘Blue Room’ at Ibrox today with a message that with the fans, he could make Rangers great again!

But it is a tune that has been played many a time before by the likes of Craig Whyte, Charles Green, Sandy Easdale and Derek Llambias.

The Rangers fans cannot afford to trust this regime blindly and pay 5% more for a season ticket based on non guarantees.

It really would be better if Dave King and Co put their money where their mouth is and make a significant investment in the club. That along with an exciting new management team, a proper scouting network and some new players would then show the Gers faithful that this board are indeed Rangers men and are ready to put the club first.

At the moment there is too much talk at Ibrox and not enough substance!

 

Posted on June 8th, 2015 by scott
Filed under: Article