Dave King has admitted Rangers' lack of investment has come as a 'big surprise' to him.
Back in the 2020/21 season, Steven Gerrard ended Celtic's bid to create history with ten-in-a-row as he delivered the first Premiership title for the club in a decade by a whopping 25-point margin and with that, an unbeaten domestic league campaign. Fast forward a year and the Ibrox side find themselves trailing in the wake of the Hoops and Ange Postecoglou.
The Aussie boss and his troops - who won back the league crown last term - put down an early season marker as they hammered Giovanni van Bronckhorst and Co 4-0 at Parkhead in the first derby showdown of the season to make it six wins from six for the current champions as they continued their relentless scoring form on the domestic stage. Former chairman King says with Rangers there was always a Plan A, B and C when it came to investment and after qualifying for the Champions League group stages, following a stunning play-off win over PSV, the tycoon has admitted his surprise that Douglas Park hasn't handed a significant war chest to Van Bronckhorst, Ross Wilson and his team to reinvest.
READ MORE: Celtic blitz Rangers as rampant Hoops storm to four-goal derby victory
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He said: “(The lack of investment) was a big surprise to me.
“With Rangers, you always had a plan ‘A’,’B’ and ‘C’. Plan A is how you do in Scotland if you don’t get into the group stages of the Europa League.
“Plan B is what happens if you do get in and Plan C is what happens if you reach the group stages of the Champions League. Clearly, the club is not going to win the Champions League. You are not going to spend the kind of money needed to win it.
“But you can take away the bonuses gained from reaching the Champions League to strengthen your team so you can win the Scottish Premier League. Given where we’ve come from, and given we’ve now got the Champions League money, I am extremely surprised that Douglas hasn’t made that available to Ross to significantly strengthen the team.
“I am surprised the surplus resources the club now has hasn’t found its way back into the team.”
On the coefficient, he added: "Was there ever a point where I doubted if Rangers might not reach the Champions League again?
"I was asked before about winning the league and I said at the time I did think it was possible to win a title again.
"To then kick on from there and into the Champions League group stage, it wasn't just what Rangers were doing - it was where the Scottish league would be positioned in terms of the Champions League.
"I certainly wouldn't have thought, with my most rose-tinted glasses, we could possibly ever have seen Rangers on its own, from where we were, carry Scotland forward into this position where we could get into the groups.
"But we must recognise that Rangers did this. This is not a Scottish coefficient, this is about Rangers dragging Scottish football up and itself up at the same time.
"It is not as if we were equipped to do what we did. We, as a club, have significantly over-achieved in Europe over the past couple of years."
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