How Frank McParland can take Rangers to the next level

With today’s delightful news that Rangers have at long, long last appointed a Chief Scout in the form of Burnley’s former Sporting Director Frank McParland, Rangers have finally put into place the bedrock of a desperately-needed scouting network.

As yet Rangers do not have a proper system installed, and this appointment will see McParland work in conjunction with Mark Warburton to get the right people both concur on to kick-start Rangers’ scout network.

Warburton’s contacts, on their own, without any assistance, have wielded essentially an entirely new team at Ibrox, with around a dozen summer signings – with all avenues of transaction exploited, from loans, to Bosmans, to development fees, to traditional transfer fees – but this has all been done in an ad-hoc manner, relying on Warbs’ network itself and friends down south.

And look at what that slightly kamikaze system has brought Rangers – 100% record in the league, some absolutely beautiful football, and three matches from Rangers’ first cup silverware in years.

Imagine, now, what a properly regimented and appropriated scouting network can bring, with an experienced pair of hands like McParland in charge of it. Lest we forget, he and Warburton also worked together at Watford then Brentford, so Warbs’ is keeping men around him he knows and trusts.

Rangers’ potential grows by the day, with the right people in charge of the right areas, something which disappeared dramatically post-admin. McParland himself has some extraordinary experience, credited not least with scouting Raheem Sterling from QPR to Liverpool – a player now plying his trade at English giants Manchester City for that princely sum of £49M.

That is the calibre of staff Rangers are now looking at – a man with the kind of knowledge, judgement and experience to find the gems – naturally the budget at Ibrox is not what Liverpool have at their disposal, nor even what Burnley had at theirs, but given the success Warburton has had doing it as a utility, it only begs the question of what a proper Head of Recruitment like McParland can achieve.

We await with interest.