BORN WINNERS
New recruits have been picked as the right type to thrive at Ibrox under Gerrard, insists Allen
WHEN Mark Allen was building his identikit Rangers manager, he drew up three essential characteristics. Steven Gerrard hit the bullseye on the counts of leadership, experience of winning and coping with adversity.
Ticking those boxes without hesitation to frank the credentials of signing targets is a much more painstaking process. But the Ibrox director of football is confident enough in his methods to suggest the recruits he nets for the club will be very much suited to serving the standards of a Gerrard-led Rangers.
Last week’s work saw central defenders Nikola Katic and Connor Goldson take the number of summer signings to six, following Scott Arfield and Allan McGregor’s arrivals back in Scotland on free transfers, the formality of Jamie Murphy staying on a permanent basis and 20-year-old midfielder Ovie Ejaria joining on loan from Liverpool.
Allen said: ‘We’re very happy with the acquisitions we’ve made. They’re great individuals as well as great players. They’ve got great characters. There are players we all believe — Steven believes, I believe — have got those key characteristics, which are leadership, winning and can cope.
‘All the players that we’re bringing in have had good, bad and indifferent times and we know that they can handle this. We are quietly confident that the guys will be able to take on board playing for Rangers, will want to embrace it, have the desire to be successful.
‘I think it’s always a good measure — how do they cope when things are not going so well? That’s a huge judgment to be made. Because we know it’s not all smooth. There are peaks and troughs. You have to be able to cope in those environments.’
The £5million spent in recent days on 21-year-old Croatian cap Katic and Goldson saw Allen and Gerrard address the weakest link. There was no settled combination at the heart of defence throughout a three-manager season.
Rangers burned through combinations of Fabio Cardoso, Bruno Alves, Danny Wilson, David Bates, Russell Martin and Ross McCrorie. Conceding five on the last day at Easter Road was a fitting conclusion to the chaos. McCrorie will be the last man standing from that group — and he probably will not even feature in the position, as sitting midfield looked the best bet for his deployment.
Allen’s staff ensured that Katic, from small-town, mid-table club Slaven Belupo, and Goldson were priority early captures in the transfer window. After signing four-year contracts, the pair fly to Spain today for the start of a ten-day training camp under Gerrard’s watch.
‘Connor Goldson is a Premier League centre-back, who found himself unluckily out of favour at Brighton, with Lewis Dunk and Shane Duffy having outstanding seasons,’ explained Allen. ‘I think all the attributes that we are looking for in terms of leadership, physical stature, strength are there. ‘He is quite quick. He moves with the ball well. All of those tick the box in terms of the type of footballer we want to bring to the club. He was keen to come, so it was just a case of negotiation and away we went. He’s a Liverpool fan. I don’t think you can ignore Steven’s pull. It is immense. He gives that extra credence to what we are trying to do. ‘I’m very conscious of the Croatian market where there are some excellent players and Nikola was on a target list for some time. Very good technically, robust and strong. It was a case of making sure all the information we had on him added up, making sure there was a meeting of minds. ‘You try to make the spine as strong as you can and we’ve strengthened in those positions.’ Allen’s sense of satisfaction at closeseason recruitment so far and anticipation at seeing his staff’s studious work blossoming for Gerrard is a very different picture to the one the Rangers hierarchy got so wrong when dreaming up the idea of utilizing a director of football.
In came Manchester City academy director Allen to formally start work on July 7 last year — only after Pedro Caixinha had already persuaded the Ibrox board to fund deals for Alves, Cardoso, Dalcio, Carlos Pena, Eduardo Herrera — and been knocked out of Europe by Progres Niederkorn.
The damaging lack of strategy at the club can be summed up by getting those appointments the wrong way round. After relying on loans to give Rangers a mid-season lift under interim manager Graeme Murty in the last window, Allen expresses his pleasure at being able to scheme a meaningful summer of squad building.
‘I came in last year at the tail-end of the transfer window, it was pretty much done,’ said the Welshman. ‘So I’ve had a better run at it this year. I think I’m in a significantly better place than where I probably was when I came in.’
Allen added that Gerrard has not settled on a set figure of further arrivals. This week’s camp will assist the new manager and his staff with their assessments on who he needs with him.
‘In fairness to Steven, we want to give him the first part of pre-season to evaluate everybody,’ said Allen. ‘We can then sit down. It’s a long window. It’s not a rush job.
‘Whenever there was an obvious one to try to get over the line, we’ve done that. We did that with Connor and Nikola. Allan and Scott were clear targets early doors.’
Allen expressed his delight at Murty returning to his role with the development squad. Twice forced into managing Rangers by the departures of Mark Warburton then Caixinha, Murty was fired from first-team duty following back-toback thrashings by Celtic in April.
‘I think it’s great as Graeme is an excellent coach,’ said Allen. ‘It gives us continuity in the set-up. Nothing needs to change.’