Rangers fans hoping for much-needed and large-scale change to the struggling playing personnel in January are set to be disappointed after manager Philippe Clement confirmed that won’t be happening next month.

Speaking at the club’s AGM this morning, Clement and the board were directly challenged on the desperately-required upgrades for summer’s rather poor transfer window and a squad in general that is miles below the needed level for Rangers in general.

But unfortunately the feedback wasn’t what fans need to hear.

He said:

“Reshaping it in January is much more difficult than in the summer, that’s the reality in football with every club so I’m realistic about that,” he said. “The idea is to do something but it will not be a lot of things, it needs to be the right things.”

This might be a bit discouraging for some fans who wanted to see the likes of Lammers and Dessers shown the door, and wholesale changes made to make the squad infinitely more title-pushing worthy.

We do agree that January is a tough month, but what comes next suggests not much is actually being learned at all.

He went on, about outgoings:

“First we need to make a good assessment about that. It’s not good, fair, or honest to do it in six weeks, that’s really short to make decisions around that. Until January and even in January players have the time to prove themselves that they are the right men for the club and position. It’s an open battle in that way to show themselves.”

Definitely discouraging – Clement said inside a few days of joining that he’d need weeks to see these players and make any kind of instant calls on them – now he’s saying weeks, six of them in fact, aren’t enough. We’re not quite sure what difference December will make if not for the League Cup final and Celtic matches, and even then, Clement backtracks in his own assessment by saying players have until January but then even beyond.

Any Rangers fan hoping this manager would finally be the end, for example, of the Tav and Goldson dynasty better think again. They remain immune, ditto Barisic, and we can’t see a lot of changes elsewhere at all.

John Bennett promised funds for Clement, for Nils Koppen, to utilise in January, but Clement seems eager to just keep on giving Mick Beale, Gio and Ross Wilson’s failures more time.

We doubt much is really going to change at all.