On Tuesday Graeme Souness talked about something that I have felt strongly about when it comes to Rangers for a long time. Rangers don’t have a good recruitment process. They have made good strides to sort the club out commercially however it has failed where it matters, on the pitch.
The former Rangers player/manager spoke about Rangers at a Premier Sports promotional event for the start of the new season.
He said: “You’ve got to get it right on the pitch and that’s where in their recent history they’ve got it wrong.”
After he was asked how to fix it he said: “You get football people in to make football decisions, it’s not rocket science.”
This is an obvious dig at Robbie Thelwell, the son of former sporting director Kevin Thelwell, who is the head of recruitment at Rangers.
Take the Rangers recruitment this summer, they’ve signed eight players at a time where they’re extremely short at the centre back position and with players who have struggled in the wide areas.
They signed Ben Godfrey who despite already being injured hasn’t exactly looked like he’s going to be that stalwart defender to partner Emmanuel Fernandez, a guy who I think could be a top class centre back if he has an older experience head beside him.
Their only other centre back signing is a 22-year-old Olwethu Makhanya, who may be a good player in his own right, I won’t lie and say I’ve seen him play yet however he doesn’t strike me as that player who is going to anchor the Rangers defence, which looks shaky at best.
Then you look at the Rangers centre midfield already full with Nico Raskin, Mohammed Diomande, Tochi Chukwuani, Thelo Aasgaard, Connor Barron and Lyall Cameron. They have added Cammy Devlin, Dan Neil and Vanja Dragojevic without moving on any of the aforementioned players that were already there.
Then you can look at the right back situation, for 11 years James Tavernier held that position and really never once did Rangers sign an alternative, now Tavernier is no longer there and Rangers still haven’t signed a right back.
Dujon Sterling has and probably will cover a multitude of positions including right back and Ross McCrorie who you could argue is a right back and will probably just be deployed there, he looked better at centre midfield.
I think there’s a problem at Rangers where they struggle to properly identify what parts of their squad that are the weakest and the recruitment team have poor judgment skills when it come to identifying players.
If you look at some of the players Rangers have signed and wasted a lot of money on, Jose Cifuentes, Oscar Cortes, Ben Davies, Rabbi Matondo, Danilo, Sam Lammers.
So many of these players sign for big money, prove they’re not worth the price then Rangers struggle to get rid of them, take Ben Davies for example for two years Rangers were loaning him out and the other club had an ‘option to buy’ which at the end of the loan they did not exercise.
The only reason he isn’t a Rangers player today is because his Rangers contract ran out, a complete shambles of a player trading model.
Danilo is currently back in Brazil again on loan, with an option to buy but I fully expect him to back at Rangers for pre-season training next year.
Cifuentes and Cortes have been away on two loans each with options to buy but both of them are still currently under contract with Rangers as it stands.
For all the flack the Celtic board get for their transfer dealings, they’ve lost Kelechi Ihanacho and replaced him with Kasper Hogh and lost Daizen Maeda and replaced him with Camilo Duran. On paper that’s two clear improvements on what they had.
Of course football isn’t played on paper and we have to wait and see what they do with their time at Celtic, however this has happened without a head of recruitment at Parkhead.
Souness continued to say on Rangers: “If you’re giving that power to someone who’s never played the game, I’ll say that again, If you’re giving that power to someone who’s never played the game. I’ll say it a third time for a reason, if you’re giving that power to someone who’s never played the game you’re asking for trouble.”
Rangers have recently given former Norway international Stig Inge Bjornbye the job of Performance Director, the only other person involved with the football side of Rangers to have a playing background, other than Derek McInnes and current coaching staff of course.
A lack of knowledge of football at the football club I feel has cost them massively over the years and until people like Robbie Thelwell are sent packing like his dad, my fear is Rangers will continue to struggle in the transfer market.