So as the dust begins to settle on the shock departure of former Rangers Director of Football Ross Wilson, it’s time to look at some of his performance.
And a big part of that was signings – Ross Wilson might not have scouted every target Rangers secured during his tenure, but he did pick some, and certainly was responsible for all negotiations and contracts.
So Ibrox Noise takes a look at EVERY signing Ross Wilson made and scores them out of 10.
He joined October 2019, so the additions begin the following January:
January 2020:
Ianis Hagi (loan): 7
Florian Kamberi (loan): 6
Now summer 2020:
Ianis Hagi (perm and new deal): 5
Calvin Bassey: 9
Jon McLaughlin: 0
Jermain Defoe: 6
Leon Balogun: 8
Kemar Roofe: 5
Cedric Itten: 3
Bongani Zungu: 0
January 21:
Jack Simpson: 0
Scott Wright: 6
Summer 21:
Nnambi Ofoborh: -10
Fashion Sakala: 6
John Lundstram: 7
Juninhio Bacuna: 0
January 22:
James Sands: 7
Amad Diallo: 4
Mateusz Zukowski: 0
Aaron Ramsey: -30
Summer 22:
Rabbi Matondo: 0
Malik Tillman: 7
Antonio Colak: 8
Ben Davies: 7
Ridvan: 3
John Souttar: 2
Tom Lawrence: 4
January 23:
Todd Cantwell: 9
Nicolas Raskin: 9
Ok a few of those scores were emotionally-driven, but in general you get the sense of Wilson’s performance. It is absolutely miles off, with way too many duds signed up under him and things not starting to see a bit of improvement until last summer, but with nowhere near enough of it.
There’s also been the injury blight under Wilson – we cannot hold him accountable for the ridiculous injuries plaguing Rangers, but so many players he brought into Ibrox became unavailable due to injury, and he must carry the can for that, for the lack of due diligence on his part.
29 players, and we could only score 10 of them at the most as 7 or better (for performance, value for money and profit) is not great given he spent about £25M. In his defence, he was responsible for for sales which earned a minimum of £37M (Bassey, Aribo and Patterson) which may or may not see another £12M in time too. So overall he did profit us by £12M.
Was he a failure? Financially, no, he probably wasn’t. But on the pitch, two trophies of a possible 7 while not a complete disgrace isn’t good enough for the money spent. On the counter side Rangers got to Sevilla which was epic.
Rangers’ Director of Football is the ultimate football chief at Ibrox, where the coach’s performance is a huge part of his own assessment.
And unfortunately while Wilson wasn’t an unequivocal failure, the successes he did have he wasted, and the club now languishes in a second-best hell of mediocrity behind Celtic.
Will he be remembered for Calvin Bassey or Rabbi Matondo? You decide.