DERBY LESSONS

If we had 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 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 tested the players and we saw an evolution in his player plan. 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.

“It’s probably fair to say now we are now in the high 90s, percentage wise, in terms of getting in the exact players he wanted this summer. Okay, we’ve had to invest more money, but that’s a commitment we made to the club.

“We are all happy with the players he got. 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.”

Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson has worked closely with Caixinha over the close season and has no doubt the standard of the squad has been significantly improved by the recruitment so far of Bruno Alves, Ryan Jack, Fabio Cardoso, Daniel Candeias, Dalcio and Alfredo Morelos. The Mexican pair of Eduardo Herrera and Carlos Pena are now training with Rangers while they await formal confirmation of their work permits, while Caixinha is still pursuing deals for Norwich midfielder Graham Dorrans and Hearts winger Jamie Walker.

“I think you can see the level of player Pedro has brought in this year,” said Robertson. “They either have international experience of have been touted for international recognition. There is a step up

0 Pedro Caixinha insisted his players continue to play his way in their heavy home defeat by Celtic and

DAVE KING in class. He has laid down the way he wants to play and identified players who can play in those positions with aggression and strength of character. Four or five of the guys we have brought in have been international captains at various levels and that’s important because it’s strength of character we needed to add.”

Robertson also outlined the structure of Caixinha’s relationship with Mark Allen who is leaving his role as academy director at Manchester City to become Rangers director of football next month.

“Pedro is here to get the first team playing as well as they can,” he added. “It’s all about putting structures in place and processes in place that will stand us in good stead for the future. Mark will be about scouting and recruitment and the succession planning of the team. We also need to recognise who we are in the food chain in terms of selling players on. We want to create that revenue chain but to do that we obviously have to bring the players through and then replace the players that you have sold. That’s where Mark’s experience from Manchester City will come in, albeit with different resources. He has effectively been a director of football for everything from 23 and below at City. His business background is great and he has a lot of good contacts. We want Pedro absolutely focused on the first team and telling Mark what he needs or where he is short.”

“If he had gone against what he was trying to achieve, and instead tried to shore it up andgeta1-1drawor whatever, he wouldn’t have learned about the players” “We are in the high 90s, percentage wise, in terms of the players he wanted this summer”