Rangers actually went into the summer with a clear route mapped out. Nils Koppen had identified and worked on a number of deals over a period of time, then it was announced he was leaving. Even after that, he stayed on for roughly a month or so to try and make sure there was some sort of handover to Thelwell and Purdy on the recruitment side.
The idea seems to have been continuity: Koppen would help finish the business he had in motion, while the new structure bedded in. In theory, that should have meant a relatively smooth transition. In reality, almost all of that work ended up in the bin.
A gap between recruitment and the manager
By the time Russell Martin was properly in the building and looking at the squad, it was obvious he wanted a very different profile of player to what had been lined up. According to the account, pretty much every deal Koppen had been pushing was knocked back because they didn’t fit what Martin had in mind.
That would be fine if the timing had been right. The real problem is that a big chunk of the existing squad had already been moved on. Martin had made his calls on who wasn’t in his plans, players had started sorting out moves elsewhere, and there was no easy way to roll that back. So you end up with a squad being emptied while the replacement plan is effectively reset to zero.
The recruitment team suddenly find that months of prep work are basically wasted. The list of names, the phone calls, the groundwork with agents, all of it becomes background noise because the manager wants something else. That is exactly how you end up in a scramble late in the window.
Scrambling for alternatives and English market reliance
At that point, it falls on Thelwell, Purdy and Martin to try and build a new list at speed. Naturally they lean on what they know best and who they can get on the phone quickly, which means a heavy focus on contacts in England. You can see why that happens, but it narrows the market and ramps up the pressure when time is short.
They did apparently try to go back to some of Koppen’s original targets, but football moves fast. Once players feel they’ve been messed about or left waiting, they don’t just sit on their hands. By the time Rangers circled back, some targets had already signed elsewhere, others had decided they weren’t interested after how things had been handled.
That’s how a window that started with a joined-up plan ends up looking disjointed from the outside. Not because there was no thinking at all, but because the club changed direction halfway through and couldn’t keep everyone aligned: recruitment, the manager and the players we were trying to sign.
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