Rangers Chairman Andrew Cavenagh on Summer Rebuild

Rangers chairman Andrew Cavenagh has admitted the club’s summer rebuild is still some way from complete, with three to five more signings expected before the transfer window closes – and performances falling short of his expectations.

Nine new players are already through the door at Ibrox, yet Derek McInnes’ tenure has begun with a stutter rather than a surge. One point from the opening two Scottish Premiership fixtures and a 2-1 deficit to Jagiellonia Bialystok in their Europa League third qualifying round tie have sharpened the mood around the club.

Speaking at an open forum in Glasgow, Cavenagh did not try to dress it up.

Business so far, he said, has been “clunky”. The club is still searching for the right balance, the right blend, the right team.

“There’s certainly work to be done,” he told shareholders, before outlining the scale of the remaining recruitment. He does not like fixing a precise target, but his expectation is clear: “I’d hope three to five more players are coming in and a number will possibly go out.”

The urgency is obvious. Rangers host Jagiellonia on Thursday night in a pivotal second leg at Ibrox, with the prize for the winners a play-off against either Northern Irish champions Larne or Iberia Tbilisi of Georgia. The season is already in a high-stakes phase, even as the squad remains under construction.

“It sucks that we have to play a number of important games before the window closes but that’s how it works,” Cavenagh admitted, acknowledging the awkward collision between recruitment and results.

He framed the current turbulence against the backdrop of the board’s arrival a year ago and the vision they sold then.

“When we came in around a year ago, our ambition was sustained winning and winning sustainably,” he said. That mantra still drives the club, even as early-season setbacks bite. “I understand we’re not there yet; I’m more optimistic now than I was a year ago.”

The numbers on the board – one point in the league, a deficit in Europe – could easily fuel anxiety. Cavenagh chose a different tone.

“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.”

The chairman instead returned to what he regards as a deeper issue: the mentality he and his colleagues found when they walked into the building.

“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 the window ticking down, a European tie hanging in the balance and domestic points already dropped, those promised three to five signings – and the standards Cavenagh demands – will be judged in real time, under the floodlights, not in the boardroom.