Rangers’ fails in recruitment and why they happen | OneFootball

With Rangers continually failing to bring in the right players (Igamane aside) I have been thinking about why we do so badly every single year.

So, this is my thoughts.

The first thing is all our prior Football Directors have been correct about one thing.

Football is part of the entertainment industry.

But where our recruiters go wrong is they think we are working in the comedy sector.

I might be wrong, but when our recruitment team hear the phrase “entertainment industry” they seem to migrate to the opera singers (the players who perform best when they have plenty of space and time), when what we the fans are looking for are the punk rockers; the ones who know how to play when things get dirty, but can also think outside the box – and want to make a difference.

In other words, we were looking for the physical players who know how to use their brain.

That is why I was so massively vocal (when others were very quiet) about getting Hagi’s contract (Ed and I have a major difference of opinion on the Romanian) sorted out, and getting what I believe is by far our best player playing again; and why I also wanted to shift out all our entitled prima-donnas to a very hard seat in the stands, until they finally wise up and begin to deliver something meaningful to our team.

To this day, I still think how Rangers conducted their business around Hagi has been an absolute disgrace, and the dreadful sign that it has already sent to future hires is Rangers will rather waste millions hiring a fantastic player and then bench him, rather than just keeping our word and playing the one player who could have made a massive difference to our season.

Yeh a big round of applause to all involved in that one.

So, I’m glad that finally Rangers is beginning to show some resemblance of the team I knew was in there, and I’m glad that someone inside Rangers has finally listened and we finally can see what we have been missing…

But, I hope Nils Koppen, our head of football recruitment is also listening and he is now looking for those players who are willing to play in the rain and the mud, and those who have a football brain. In other words, the players who have the ability to move the ball up the field and into dangerous areas.

A player that knows how to read the game and can respond to events around them in real time, just like Ryan Jack at his peak.

Today, there are many players like Hagi, who have been overlooked by the number crunchers, because their speed is not in the top 1%.

The fact is there are many “top” players in the English Premier league who by their actions are clearly refusing to put in the hard work, because they are too scared that an injury might cost them millions.

However, there are plenty of players just below this “top” tier, who are just as good statistically, but in my view are better choices, because they are willing to play hard and can play as a team.

What we need in our team is a hard spine down the centre. We also need a new an instinctive striker like Colak (who we could have picked up for nothing two months ago), and some new players for our back line.

However, perhaps the biggest difference might be to give the captain’s armband to Raskin or Souttar or Balogun on a permanent basis, and to perhaps use the formation we used against Celtic as our new starting eleven despite it struggling against Hibs.

I honestly respect Tavernier, but he is just too slow and too ‘nice’ to be a Rangers Captain – time for a change.

And not just with the captain.