Glasgow Times

BROKEN DOWN ON THE A9.. Highlands sting but faults are undertheho­od

- By NEIL CAMERON

WHAT are we going to do about Rangers? Supporters of this club have been asking themselves that during the bad times since the 1872. They are certainly doing so right now.

The problem being that there is no obvious answer, certainly no easy one, which will solve the many issues which are affecting Rangers at the moment.

On the field, they are simply not good enough given what they earn and the transfers paid for them. Forget Celtic, because there is no comparison, but the second biggest budget in Scottish football should not have produced this.

A one-dimensiona­l, boring, third or fourth-placed team who can’t defend cross balls and don’t score goals. At least not enough off them.

When things go badly, the heads drop. One of two do a bit of shouting, a reminder to their team-mates about what is expected of them. They rest say nothing.

Some say this is the worst Rangers team of all time. It’s not as it happens. It is, however, the quietest Rangers team I have ever seen.

At Inverness on Friday, you could sense a second goal for the home side was coming even after they missed a late penalty. You always know Rangers will concede. A chat with a Premiershi­p player last week was enlighteni­ng. He made the point that Rangers never learn their lessons; that they fail to make opposition defences turn and are predictabl­e to play against.

Essentiall­y, even the teams at the bottom such as Inverness, don’t have to reinvent the wheel to work out a way of beating them.

So it doesn’t matter whether it’s Barry Ferguson or Sir Alex Ferguson who takes over for a few months or the next ten years; that squad is not fit for purpose if the purpose is to secure second place, get to cup finals and close the gap at the top.

This is a club still operating at a loss so throwing money at this problem, which is what Walter Smith wants, is a non starter but the funds available need to be spent better.

EVEN a frugal Rangers can do better than buying players from Accrington Stanley. Dave King needs to front up. Not through a statement, but he needs to actually be in Glasgow to tell the supporters what is going to happen next.

You only get away with being a remote owner of a club if you are Sheikh Mansour who has put more than £1bn into Manchester City.

A director of football could work and it does make sense to a large extent. Allow the man- ager and coaches to do their job and he will do the deals. The club needs more football clout, that’s for sure. Tommy Wright has to be a candidate. He might not be a big name but, really, are Rangers in the market for a marquee manager? Why would Frank De Boer turn down the chance to work in England for a club operating on a shoestring?

Wright already does that and does it extremely well. There are other names such as Derek McInnes but whether he would leave Aberdeen is up for debate. This season was always going to be about consolidat­ion after four difficult years in the lower leagues. However, it should be going better than this. Mark Warburton wasn’t cut out for it. The board wanted rid of him for a long time but did not want to pay compensati­on. Whether they will have to do that will be decided in due course. King is genuinely rich and has put money in. It’s not really his fault that the money

Even a frugal Rangers can do better than buying players from Accrington Stanley. Dave King needs to front up. Not through a statement, but actually in Glasgow

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