Penny dropped for Pedro when King explained he was a buck well spent
WHEN Pedro Caixinha met Dave King for the first time, he had questions. One, in particular, nagged at the new Rangers manager.
‘He said: “Dave, why did you pay the compensation to get me in when you could have waited until the end of May and got me for free?”,’ recalled Ibrox chairman King. It was a fair point.
The coach of Al Gharafa in Qatar, Caixinha had merely weeks left to run on his contract. Rangers — a club where the pennies tend to count — could have saved themselves a few pounds by holding fire, but calculated that short-term savings might cost more in the long run.
‘I told him: “The reason we did that is that we will be in Europe, we have a new manager coming in and we need you to come in and assess the quality of the squad in the way you want to play”,’ explained King.
The outcome of Caixinha’s end-ofseason assessment was eight new signings, with more likely to come.
A third bid is in for Norwich midfielder Graham Dorrans and Hearts winger Jamie Walker is another on the Ibrox wishlist.
Importing players en masse can, of course, be a risky business. And Rangers have had plenty of time since Mark Warburton’s splurge of last summer to reflect on an old truism. Buy in haste, repent at leisure.
The renegotiation of the club’s retail deal with Sports Direct offers the prospect of bringing in more cash for players. Beyond that, a rights issue could take place once Mike Ashley sells his shares in the club. Rangers are trying to build solid foundations. Strengthening the club’s core off and on the field.
‘The importance of doing that was emphasised by the Celtic 5-1 game,’ continued King. ‘I think that was a very important game for Pedro.
‘If he had gone against what he was trying to achieve and trying to shore it up and get a 1-1 draw, he wouldn’t have learned about the players.
‘He knew what he wanted to do. He was testing the players in a competitive environment.
‘If we had only brought him in at the end of May, he would have got the team for pre-season training, got them running around and gone straight into the Europa League qualifiers.
‘But he tested them against Celtic and didn’t abandon them and say: “Let’s lose 2-1 or draw 1-1”.
‘He learned a lot about the ability and character of the players in his squad in those weeks at the end of the season and identified specific players.’
Rangers appointed a director of football earlier this week, bringing in Mark Allen from Manchester City.
Ideally, they would have hired the new man at the same time as Caixinha, a coach forced by the lack of an established scouting structure to return to markets he knows and trusts. There was, in the end, nothing else for it.
Caixinha and Allen don’t know each other and, with any manager and director of football, that brings its own risks. For now, King believes the Rangers board have done all they can to back the manager with resources to finish significantly closer to Celtic than last season.
‘It’s probably fair to say we are now in the high 90s percentage-wise in terms of getting the exact players Pedro wanted,’ added King. ‘Okay, we’ve had to invest money, but that’s a commitment we made to the club.’
The previous manager, Warburton, was given money. Yet the levels of backing shown for Caixinha suggest the Englishman was never trusted fully.
In return for cash and backing, the Rangers chairman will expect a decent return.
‘I will repeat a bit of what I said last year, which didn’t come true,’ said King. ‘That we were going to try to compete with Celtic for the Premiership.
‘I think it was very disappointing the way last season turned out.
‘If I look at the business Pedro has done, his player plan was very different to Mark Warburton’s.
‘It’s not a direct criticism of Mark, although it probably is in a certain sense.
‘The player plan was more positional in that we needed to do this and we needed to do that. It evolved.
‘Pedro has been very firm. We brought him in early for a reason — to come in and assess his squad.
‘What we can say is that we are all happy with the players he got.’
There’s no talk of ‘Going for 55’ this season. Yet recent events have unquestionably buoyed Rangers. The club is in a better place.
The renegotiation of the retail deal with Sports Direct is no silver bullet. Over and above the £4-5million the club make from fans buying jerseys once again, however, the anticipated sale of Ashley’s 8.92-per-cent stake in the club removes the final obstacle to a rights issue which could pay off loans to existing shareholders and leave some funds over for stadium repairs or team building. Criticised last season for the lack of a plan, King cites the appointment of the new director of football as evidence of solid progress. ‘If you go back two years, then I think there was a recognition of Rangers as a football club,’ he continued. ‘But there was still a concern about the turmoil that was going to go on and whether this rebuilding exercise was going to work. ‘I think what we have seen in the last year is a normalisation of that situation. ‘I think people accept the club is on the way back. That the rebuilding programme is working, just commercially behind the scenes. ‘I think there is a greater trust in everything about Rangers.
‘We know the club, but where will it be in two years’ time?
‘Now we have someone like Mark (Allen) who sees Rangers as a bigger opportunity and is not worried about where Rangers will be in two years’ time. He is not worried about our ambition, he can see what we are doing.’
It wouldn’t be Rangers if everything was tranquil. King’s determination to fight a Takeover Panel court action in the Court of Session retains the potential for embarrassment.
One threatened court battle, however, looks less likely to materialise.
‘No, I haven’t heard from Mark Warburton,’ insisted King. ‘I regarded that threat of litigation as nothing more than frivolous.
‘If Mark had continued with his action, I think we would have counter-sued, but he has correctly let it die a natural death.’
We’ve had to invest money but that’s a commitment to the club