When Andrew Cavenagh arrived at Rangers’ pre-split camp in April, he carried with him some conclusions from 11 months as the club’s chairman, specifically in relation to recruitment.
The camp was driven in part by Danny Rohl, who wanted to use a free weekend before the final five games to work with his squad, however, that wasn’t the whole point of the trip to Spain.
Rangers’ football decision-makers were also in attendance at what was viewed as something of a summit. With Jim Gillespie a month into his job as CEO, here was a chance not only to shape the summer window, but also to collectively lay out a new shared vision alongside US ownership, Rohl, Gretar Steinsson, Dan Purdy and Stig Inge Bjornbye.
In moving away from a sporting director model, Rangers sources suggest they are building a collective club DNA, one that should cast a threadline between managers, squad building and seasons. The Lawrence Shankland move early in the summer, as explained at greater length previously, typifies that shift to a more collective model of recruitment, learning lessons from the past.
One of the topics Cavenagh drove, and reiterated in a sitdown with media at the end of the season, was a growing acknowledgement that has developed internally since last year’s takeover: it takes a certain type of person, not just a certain quality of player, to play for Rangers.
“If you look at the squad, we’ve clearly proven there is talent to play with everyone in the league,” Cavenagh said. “We haven’t stitched it together sometimes for 90 minutes, and certainly not across the season, which you need to do to win the title.
“I think you do look at that combination of things and say you need more leadership. I’m not trying to degrade those that are there, but we need better leadership, more mentality to achieve our goals. I am trying to be clear, we do think the team needs more chemistry, leadership and experience.”
Rohl reiterated that point, speaking in his homeland after a bitterly disappointing culmination at the end of the season, suggesting the club now knew they could not win anything with only young players. Having defended his team’s character stoutly for months, the German routinely pivoted to discuss a need for leaders in the final weeks of the season.
In a press conference after the final home game of the season, which Rangers lost 2-1 to Hibs, and which was dominated by James Tavernier and Rohl falling out, the head coach quietly reiterated that recent weeks had shown, “It showed me that we need a strong cut, strong changes to move forward.”
Only the head coach will know to what extent his shift in messaging was calculated. In fairness, it would not have been very clever to question your team’s mentality in public with a title race ongoing. Regardless of how you categorise words like ‘leadership' and 'mentality’, Rangers think they need more of it. And while Shankland has been signed in part for goals, he is also joining because of his leadership experience, his proclivity to score in big moments, and what the club think he can transmit to others.
Let’s not forget that, although it takes a certain mentality to show quality under pressure at a stadium like Ibrox, quality is the benchmark. A good player who struggles to show his best version immediately after joining is still preferred to a player who understands the remit but is out of his depth. The two qualities, mercifully, are not mutually exclusive.
Speaking earlier last season, Rohl outlined his belief that Rangers needed to develop a core of players, as he experienced at a higher level with Bayern Munich, in order to win regularly and develop players: “When I look back to my time in Munich, you had a core like Alaba, Kimmich, Müller, Lewandowski and Neuer. This is a core. And around this core you can play with exciting young players.”
This is what Rangers need, and what they have lacked for a long time: a leadership group that sets the tone, raises the standard and leads on the park. Leaders allow room to grow, as Rohl witnessed at Bayern. It is arguably harder to replace a core of these than it is the manager at certain points.
The scattergraph below shows the lack of any tangible spine or core last season. Only Jack Butland, Djeidi Gassama and Nico Raskin played over 2,600 minutes for Rangers.
This graphic justifies what the eye saw last season, due to numerous factors, Rohl lacked dependables.
Butland was the only true ‘consistent’ throughout the season, given Nico Raskin’s banishment early in the season under Russell Martin, but the English No.1 endured a poor campaign.
The inconsistent Djeidi Gassama played the third-most minutes after Raskin, who came into good form after Christmas but, like the rest of his team, floundered somewhat in the split.
Manny Fernandez would have reached the benchmark had he broken into the team earlier, although, like Nasser Djiga, Fernandez had ups and downs throughout the campaign. Youssef Chermiti falls into the same bracket. Ending the season with 14 goals, it is easy to forget the striker had started one league game by December.
Mikey Moore was excellent but, for an 18-year-old, overrelied upon. Arguably during the split, when the loanee carried a knock, that showed. Seven players shared minutes on the right wing. Tochi Chukwuani split midfield duties alongside Connor Barron and Mo Diomande. Ryan Naderi and Tuur Rommens both made firm impacts after joining in January, only to be hampered by injuries. The likes of Bojan Miovski, Oliver Antman and Thelo Aasgaard did not become regular starters.
By contrast, Celtic had five players over the 2,600-minute benchmark, including Scales, McGregor, Tierney, Maeda and Nygren, all players who made significant impacts as others struggled.
Hearts had seven: Devlin, Findlay, Shankland, Braga, Kyziridis, Shankland and Halkett. The seven players who played the most minutes for Rangers were Butland, Raskin, Gassama, Fernandez, Tavernier, Moore and Meghoma.
Had Chermiti been paired with a Cyriel Dessers or Shankland last summer, to ease the embedding process, perhaps Rangers would not have lost so many games early in the season. Had a Fernandez or Djiga played next to an experienced and in-form centre-back, perhaps the defensive ups and downs would have been less pronounced.
There are different types of leaders. Some step up in big moments, some live a monkish existence and take others up a level, some start away games at full throttle to stop mistakes before they happen, some are vocal. Some inject confidence through actions, some would try the same risky move whether playing five-a-side or in front of 50,000. Generally, they should be regarded as those who play the most consistently, contribute the most regularly, and keep standards highest for the longest.
Cyriel Dessers, speaking exclusively to the Rangers Review last month, explained why new signings need help to understand and adapt to the Scottish game.
“If I look at the team I arrived into, this was a very strong side with a lot of experienced guys who knew the things that were asked in the Scottish Premiership, which I think is also very important at a club like Rangers," he said. "They knew this and they could transfer it to the new guys.
Read more:
- The reason it took Rangers years to sign Shankland - and what finally changed
- Rangers' transfer requirements and what Danny Rohl will need in every position
“I remember being told, when you arrive here in Scotland and go to one of the top two teams, everyone thinks this is going to be fun. We will be one or two in the league and we are going to score a lot of goals. It is normal for people to think like this when they arrive, but after the first two games you feel it does not work like this in Scotland. You have to be 100 per cent every time.”
Rangers will look to acquire that core over the summer, plainly, it has been a long time in coming.
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