It goes without saying that Rangers need better players. We all know this. However, the number of Rangers legends themselves who are now saying that is overwhelming. We spoke to one only yesterday who said the same thing, and we have seen Ally McCoist in the press heavily criticising recruitment too. These guys, who do not want to necessarily undermine and criticise the existing players, can nevertheless see how bad Rangers recruitment has been.
Basically, when you sign EFL slop, that is what you get. Rangers fans have a part to play in this too. Rangers fans did not protest the signings enough. Ibrox Noise technically praised one or two of them. We liked Mikey Moore, we liked Oliver Antman, and we liked Nasser Djiga. All of them had great CVs. All of them were solid players who should have taken us up a level. None of them have. We are not going to deny that we are certainly no better for having these kinds of players than we were. But it was abundantly clear the number of players who were terrible.
Recruitment has failed
We were very vocally against Aasgaard, and boy has he been a crock of rubbish. He has been terrible. We were similarly vocal against Manny Fernandez. Surprisingly, he has not been as horrible as he could have been. Maybe he just looks better because everybody around him has been so bad. Who knows? But he has actually done a little better. Certainly not a £5 million defender like what we paid, but a passable defender. And better than we feared. But being better than we feared is not exactly high praise for a Rangers player these days. The fact is that we do need an overhaul.
Röhl and the rebuild
Manager Danny Röhl, yes, we are just going to call him manager these days because that is what he is now. He made a pointed response at the presser recently regarding how many players would be needed. The fact is the whole squad does need an overhaul. We discussed that in a recent article where 28 players were analysed and extrapolated. As we mentioned, there are only a handful of players that we would even suggest are tolerable. We do not think there is a single Rangers-level player, although what is Rangers level these days, that is another debate.
Legends agree – the squad is not good enough
The simple fact is, if even Rangers legends are willing to put their head above water and say that our players are terrible and we need better, the club really has to do something. Kevin Thelwell really did do a lot of damage, but he was not the only one. His predecessor, Nils Koppen, did the same stuff. Nils Koppen signed so much rubbish for Rangers as well. In his defence, he did somehow manage to get Jefte and Igamane, and we made around £17M out of those two. That is not bad. We admit those were successes by a mile. But the reality is, the rest of the players he signed have been absolutely terrible. That terrible January window with Silva, Cortes, and Diomande was not very good to say the least. Not value for money either.
Rotten recruitment must end
Then that summer window following that, Clement got in yet more rotten players. Igamane and Jefte were part of that, but we cannot say that the rest have exactly shone. At the end of the day, better the players need to be to do a bit better. But of course, we need a better manager as well. It is not just the players even if Rangers recruitment has stunk.