Rangers recruitment team is going to have a busy summer looking to build the sort of team capable of winning the league and qualifying for the Champions League, almost from scratch.
There will be a few survivors in the current squad, but with five senior players released and the possibility of double figures leaving in total, it is going to be a massive overhaul.
What won’t have helped in the preparations is James Bisgrove departing for Saudi Arabia, however, Rangers legend Barry Ferguson is confident that progress won’t be hampered.
James Bisgrove absence won’t make a difference for Rangers
Chairman John Bennett will take a more hands-on approach during the transfer window with Nils Koppen and Philippe Clement also playing key roles.
Between them, they know the list of players that they need and the money that there is to be spent.
Writing in The Daily Record, Ferguson believes that Bisgrove’s absence won’t make much of a difference:
“I’m sure James was made an offer he couldn’t refuse. Good luck to him.
“But I’m not overly worried about what that means to the big summer rebuild at Rangers because I firmly believe he and Bennett were already aligned with Philippe Clement in terms of what is required this summer.
“And now that Bennett is at the helm I expect he will press ahead with a number of the deals that were already well in the pipeline.
“He will know the importance of getting as many of them done as quickly as possible especially with the first team coming back to pre-season training in the last week of June.
“That’s why these next three weeks are so significant to what comes next.”
Rangers transfer plan should already be set in stone
Ferguson should be right.
The Rangers manager has already spoken about being ahead of schedule and of work starting towards this window months ago.
They knew who was going to be leaving at the end of their contracts for a start.
They also knew that they wanted Oscar Cortes to come back and that Jefte, who had been a target in January, was going to be the perfect replacement for Borna Barisic.
Bisgrove’s role would have been keeping track of the numbers and negotiating with clubs in terms of the structure of transfers in liaison with Koppen.
There is a wage budget and a budget for fees which will change if Champions League football is secured, or current squad members are sold.
Koppen has been at Rangers since December and will have drawn up a list of possible targets with Clement.
All Bennett should be doing is writing the cheques for the players like Damian Garcia, Thomas Galdames, Yusuf Kabadayi and Albion Rrahmani.
