Regardless of this summer’s window, it’s pretty clear that 56 is a long shot next season. Even Walter at his best wasn’t able to secure 52 overnight. He returned in late 2006 and didn’t win the league till 2009.
Derek McInnes therefore becomes Rangers manager at a time when expectations, at least upon Ibrox Noise, are lower.
That’s not that we’re not must-win. We absolutely are. But now that we have a real Rangers core of our club back, it’s the building block we start with.
We cannot win everything overnight following yet another reset.
The reason we have reduced our demands is that we have the manager and the direction we want. We would love it if we’re top of the league immediately and winning everything. That is what we want and ‘demand’.
But we’re realistic too. Rangers have a dreadful squad with far too many foreign mercenaries, EFL slop and subpar rubbish.
We have assets, but Derek McInnes will need time to build something here.
He MIGHT be able to secure miracles overnight. It’s not impossible. But it’s more likely that he will put the pieces into place first.
Not until everything is set up right can Rangers be what we should be.
This is why Ibrox Noise is more generous with everything now. We fully support Del, we support the management and the squad.
But just because we’re all-in here doesn’t mean we expect it to win overnight.
Walter was a genius. He brought in Weir and Ehiogu that January and overnight Rangers were Scotland’s best team. But STILL did not win the league for another two and a half years.
If that’s how long it took Walter, we have to give McInnes, the closest thing we have to the great man, time.
It might mean not winning the league for a while.
But at least we have a Rangers that we can believe in and that is ours again.
We had no time for Rohl, for Martin, for the appalling recent appointments which did what they could to erode our club.
But we have all the time for McInnes, and for the board now.
That gets a lot of slack.
Hopefully it doesn’t take too long before results on the pitch are matching the superior balance off it.