da betcris： If Pedro Caixinha didn’t know how hard a task he has ahead of him when he took the job at Ibrox, he certainly does now. It’s been a baptism of fire for the Portuguese at Rangers with his side struggling to improve in any way on the reign of Mark Warburton.
da bet7： In truth Rangers have treaded water in Scottish football for the majority of season, never really picking up a consistent run of form at any point.
They now find themselves third in the Premiership, at risk of dropping further down the table with St Johnstone lurking.
Supporters are desperate for their team to close the gap on Celtic and compete for honours once again but two do that significant changes must be made at the club this summer.
The positive thing is though, most of the changes are realistic and achievable with the right know-how and expertise.
If Pedro Caixinha and his staff can enact these FIVE changes at the club over the next few months then we will undoubtedly see an improved season next term…
Buy young Scottish talent
The amount of emerging young talent in Scotland’s top-flight and second-tier is actually quite exciting for fans of the national team. There’s plenty of fresh blood who are getting lots of first team experience at traditional and established clubs up and down the country.
There’s Jason Cummings and John McGinn at Hibs, Stevie Mallan at St Mirren, Kenny McLean at Aberdeen, Liam Lindsay at Partick Thistle. The list goes on and what’s more, traditionally these players never cost an arm and a leg for clubs of Rangers stature to acquire.
Bringing in this young Scottish talent, who know what it means to play for Rangers, could be massive in their ambitions to win major silverware.
Mark Warburton tended to favour players coming from the English lower leagues, a strategy that clearly hasn’t paid off and now the club must return to their roots and sign some youthful Scottish talent full of energy and passion.
Avoid past-it big names
Whether or not they will shop in Scotland remains to be seen but one thing they certainly shouldn’t do is invest the names like Philippe Senderos, Niko Krancjar and Joey Barton. Known to Rangers fans because of their time in the English Premier League, there’s no doubt their arrival lifted the spirits of the club last summer. That was, of course, before they took the pitch.
All three have flopped. Joey Barton was caught up a betting scandal before being released, Philippe Senderos was embarrassed at Celtic Park and rarely seen again and Niko Krancjar lived up to his reputation as a sick-note with an injury early in the season that will rule him out until after the summer.
The reality is, if these kind of players were still worth something they probably wouldn’t be turning up to play at Ibrox, that’s just the nature of the situation in 2017.
Rangers must focus on brighter talent, players they can shape and mould and turn into proud Gers stars. Not faded stars who arrive full of bluster and soundbites.
Clear out the deadwood
With a sound transfer policy in place in terms of bringing players to the club, what Pedro Caixinha needs to do is be ruthless in his assessment of the current squad.
Rangers simply don’t have the resources to have a bloated squad and focusing on a core group of 15/16 players should be the way forward next season. Anymore than that and the club risk their budget being stretched too thin and their squad being full of players simply not up to the task.
Building this core unit has worked wonders at both Aberdeen and Celtic and is something Caixinha needs to get under control. There are five or six names we can think of off the top of our head that immediately should be told they don’t have a future at the club.
If Caixinha doesn’t fancy them, they need to go and there can’t be any sentimentality to it. There’s too much at stake.
Give the U20s a chance
If Rangers do cut the size of their first team squad then they will need to rely more on the U20s squad and the young stars coming through at Auchenhowie. We’ve seen recently that the likes of Myles Beerman and David Bates don’t look too out of place. You can see their rough edges but they will only improve with more game time.
The likes of Liam Burt and Serge Atakayi have impressed in the U20s side this season and should be in and around the first team squad more, especially if it means Pedro Caixinha can divert resources away from procuring back-up dross and into proper first-team stars.
Bringing through youth is something Rangers should have done years ago when they had to work their way up from the bottom run of Scottish football. It’s time to start thinking with a long-term goal and stop focusing on chasing down Celtic.
Focus on Rangers
The myopic desire to measure themselves against everything Celtic do is holding Rangers back from achieving their true potential. What the club needs is to focus on themselves and not care what the Hoops are doing.
The reality is that fans will always care but the supporters need to show a little patience and understand rebuilding Rangers is going to be a five year process at least. Of course their should be visible improvement, but expecting to close the gap on Celtic immediately is unrealistic.
Rangers should focus on their own processes, their own scouting, their own hierarchy, transfer policy, everything you need to be a successful footballing side. Trying to chase Celtic is only going to lead to another disappointing season that could set the club back even further.
Bring through youth, enact policies that may no provide short-term elation but long-term stability.
Only then will they be the team supporters expect them to be.