When a recent poll on Ibroxnoise.co.uk revealed that Rangers fans only truly value a minority of
players, it became abundantly clear that Dave King’s promise of signing at
least seven “Premiership quality” players is one which quite simply has to be
delivered.
The poll, from a number of days
ago, learned that the only players fans truly rate as worthy of a future at the
Club are Callum Gallagher, Lee Wallace, Darren McGregor, Tom Walsh, Ryan Hardie
and Andy Murdoch.
Many are also positive about
returning loanees Barrie McKay & Luca Gasparotto, and Ryan Sinnamon.
Nine players in total, not even a
full first team, never mind a full squad.
Towards the tail end of the
season, it started to become very clear that fans consider a great number of
players simply not good enough for next season; Templeton, Shiels, Clark,
Zaliukas, Law and a number of others were deemed substandard and effectively
surplus.
Bell was equally derided, and supporters
clearly believe a drastic clearout on top of the one which has already taken
place is required.
With King promising at least
seven high-quality players, the question remains of who exactly retains/gains a
place in the first team, if we assume all new signings will start by default.
It is a hard one to call. There
is no one player who really dominated the aforementioned poll, with Murdoch
coming out on top but only by one percent. Rangers supporters have lost faith
in pretty much all the players at Ibrox now, with only Murdoch appearing to
have any credibility at all to play in the first team next season. And even
then that may be a stretch.
Rangers’ board has a real dilemma
– they really do need to bring in a borderline new team, and hope a massive
influx of talent manages to raise the remaining players to a level they rarely
approached up till now. And it has to be the right manager to bring the best
out of everyone.
If we assume two good players for
each position; a first choice and a decent reserve, then Rangers really need to
bring in around 12 players this summer, not seven.
Fans just do not trust this squad
– it has let them down too many times, and it is viewed as expendable.
If the board want to really win
supporters over, they will double seven new players to 14 and really gut the
squad, inside and out. Strengthen the bench by having the likes of Law,
Templeton, Zaliukas etc there, while the first team is a much stronger
proposition with only a rare selection of existing squad members managing to
start.
Winning the Championship at a
canter is absolutely imperative. But we need the players to do it.