Rangers' New Regime Faces Challenges Ahead of Season

Rangers’ new regime walked into the room knowing the numbers. Nine summer signings. One point from two league games. A 2-1 deficit to Jagiellonia Bialystok in Europe. The mood at the open forum in Glasgow reflected it: restless, expectant, and demanding answers.

Andrew Cavenagh did not try to sugar-coat it.

The Rangers chairman admitted the club’s transfer business has been “clunky” and accepted that results under new manager Derek McInnes are nowhere near where he wants them. Yet he also made one thing clear – the rebuild is far from finished.

“There’s certainly work to be done,” he told shareholders, before lifting the lid on what is still to come in this window. “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.”

Nine in, up to five more to follow, and some departures on top of that. It is a squad still being ripped up and reassembled while the season is already under way. That tension is written all over their early fixtures.

Rangers have stumbled out of the blocks in the Scottish Premiership, taking just a single point from their first two games. In Europe, they trail Jagiellonia 2-1 after the first leg of their Europa League third qualifying round tie. On Thursday, Ibrox hosts a second leg that already feels like a test of nerve as much as quality, with Larne or Iberia Tbilisi waiting in the play-off round.

“It sucks that we have to play a number of important games before the window closes but that’s how it works,” Cavenagh said, acknowledging the awkward reality of trying to build a team on the fly.

He stressed the long view. When the current board arrived around a year ago, he said, the ambition was “sustained winning and winning sustainably” – not just a brief spike in form. That sounds good on a presentation slide. It looks very different when one point from six is staring back at you.

“I understand we’re not there yet; I’m more optimistic now than I was a year ago,” he insisted. The early evidence on the pitch has not backed that optimism, but Cavenagh argued that the club is wrestling with a deeper culture than just a bad week.

“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.”

Patience is always the hardest sell in Glasgow. Especially when your biggest rival has been setting the standard and your own fanbase is being asked, again, to trust another reset.

McInnes as the ‘Klopp-style’ choice

Sitting alongside Cavenagh was chief executive Jim Gillespie, who fielded questions about the man tasked with changing that culture on the touchline.

Derek McInnes arrived at Ibrox on the back of pushing Heart of Midlothian close to the title last season. Close, but not over the line. For a support that has heard a lot of “nearly” in the last decade, that background invites scrutiny.

Gillespie was clear about what Rangers believed they were buying.

“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,” he said. “Derek has been high on our list for a long time and we think he fits the style and culture of this club.”

Front-foot football, intensity, aggression. That is the promise. So far, the reality has been dropped points, frustration, and a Europa League tie hanging in the balance. The board, though, is nailing its colours to McInnes’ mast early and publicly.

The coming weeks will reveal whether the players – and the late-window reinforcements Cavenagh expects – can turn that philosophy into points and progress.

VAR anger and a demand for answers

The forum was not just about transfers and philosophy. The scars from Sunday’s 2-1 defeat to Hibernian were still fresh, and one incident in particular dominated the questioning.

Rangers are seeking clarification from the SFA over the VAR intervention that led to Hibs’ penalty, a call that left the Ibrox hierarchy deeply unimpressed.

“It was my understanding that it has to be a clear and obvious error for the referee to be called over,” Gillespie said. “I didn’t see that as either clear or obvious.”

That is more than just a gripe about a single decision. Gillespie used it to highlight what he sees as a broader problem with officiating and technology in the Scottish game.

“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.”

Rangers want clarity. Their fans want consistency. Right now, they are getting neither on the pitch nor from the officials.

A club in motion, not yet in control

Cavenagh’s appearance carried a blunt message: this project is still in motion, still incomplete, and still vulnerable to the bumps that come with change. The chairman openly admits the club is not where it wants to be, even as he argues that the direction of travel is right.

More signings are coming. Some players will leave. A “Klopp-style” manager is being backed to impose a new identity. At the same time, crucial European nights and early-season league fixtures are piling up before the squad is settled.

For Rangers, the question is no longer whether change is happening. It is whether this version of change finally delivers the one thing Ibrox has been starved of for too long: a team that wins, and keeps on winning, when it matters most.