They've been accused of talking a good game for a long time now.
But even though they have developed a nasty habit of saying too much and delivering too little over these past few years, the noises coming out of Ibrox lately do suggest Rangers might finally be about to emerge from a prolonged period of paranoia and self delusion. Sunday's 3-1 win on the pitch at Easter Road helped the numbers stack up for manager Michael Beale who has totted up a total of 22 victories from his first 27 games at the helm.
That’s a win rate of more than 81 per cent which ought to be more than enough to convince the club’s supporters that the man in charge has a decent grasp on what’s required to go the distance when his first full campaign gets up and running after the summer. Beale is full of bright ideas and contemporary thinking and the attacking nature of his managerial approach ought to ensure that Celtic are given a more substantial run for their money when Ange Postecoglou goes chasing a third successive league crown. But, while the Londoner will have to oversee a major rebuild in the transfer market, the changes which are being made off the park could prove every bit as important in terms of the direction the club is moving in now they have a new and credible chairman sitting at the top of the table.
John Bennett might not have been in the job for long since replacing Douglas Park but the new man has certainly not been hanging about. If truth be told, many of the changes he has sanctioned inside the inner sanctum have been long overdue but it’s most certainly to Bennett’s credit they’ve been carried out so swiftly and decisively during his first few weeks as decision maker in chief.
Sporting director Ross Wilson was the first out of the door and even though he was lured into a similar role at Nottingham Forest it seems fair to assume that Bennett wasn’t exactly standing in his way, far less persuading him to think twice before closing the door behind him. Wilson was one of those who indulged in a great deal of talking, particularly during the better times, but the more he spoke about ‘player trading models’ the less sense his plan seemed to make.
Yes, Wilson will point to the money that was raised from the sales of Nathan Patterson, Calvin Bassey and Joe Aribo. But selling good players for big money was the easy part of Wilson’s brief. Replacing them seamlessly with cut price upgrades was always going to be the tricky bit - and that’s where the whole strategy came unstuck. Given that Postecoglou had been doing exactly this with such prolific success across the city, Wilson’s time was up long before he eventually found an escape tunnel to the City Ground.
Managing director Stewart Robertson will also soon be on his way and that’s almost an act of mercy. Robertson is a pleasant, cheery fellow but he’s been forced so far out of his depth he ought to have been wearing water-wings to his work over these past eight years.
That wasn’t entirely all his own fault. Robertson was over promoted into the position because Dave King had no wish to be challenged by any dissenting voices when he was busy calling the shots as chairman.
Rather, it was Robertson’s job to do exactly as he was told. Whether he actually agreed with it or not was neither here nor there. And the remit remained the same when King was ousted from the big chair and replaced by Park, who may have been even more paranoid and insular than the man he succeeded. Both of them will be remembered fondly over time for the part they played - and the money they ploughed in – to drag Rangers out of the doldrums of their financial collapse.
But, ultimately, their ultra combative, inward looking approach to running the club’s affairs projected an image of distrust against a curious backdrop of perma-rage. That neither of them questioned far less examined the value for money they were receiving from the likes of Andrew Dickson, the director of finance and football administration, or academy director Craig Mulholland, also reflects poorly on their judgement. Dickson and Mulholland have proven themselves to be exceptionally talented at holding onto their highly paid positions but what’s been in their own best interests over the years could also said to have been to the detriment of the club.
Dickson, let’s not forget, sidled up to the likes of Craig Whyte, Duff and Phelps and Charles Green while Rangers were being pillaged in full view. Mulholland, meanwhile, was shoehorned into his role at a time when Green was going through the motions of pretending to run a football club. His appointment was nothing more than a box ticking exercise to give the impression the Yorkshireman gave a damn about anything other than stuffing his pockets with blue pounds.
It’s actually remarkable that this pair have bomb proofed themselves for all this time but Bennett has brought a new broom into the Blue Room and their time too is now up accordingly. Bennett has also moved quickly to promote James Bisgrove to a newly created chief executive’s post and while the former marketing director will have to prove himself to be ‘best in class’ the very fact the role has been designated also points to some clear strategic thinking behind the scenes.
For all the time Robertson spent as little more than a trumped up facilitator for the whims of his bosses up the stairs, Rangers have been crying out for someone to grab the bull by the horns and provide it with genuine leadership. Bennett has given Bisgrove both the opportunity and the authority to do exactly that and it’s now a matter of whether or not he is competent enough to deliver.
Bisgrove certainly said all the right things last week when he fronted up for the first time and spoke about his desire to re-establish Rangers as the dominant force in Scottish football and to reconnect with a support which has been splintered and disenfranchised by the previous two dictatorships. But talk is cheap. The challenge now is to prove that years of hollow promises and empty rhetoric are indeed a thing of the past.
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