There is no magical formula that guarantees titles, but there are ways to make life easier for yourself. For me, Rangers’ squad balance has been off for a while, and you can see it in the consistency levels across a long season.
58 games, 30 players, and too much scattergun
The modern schedule is relentless. Between league football, cups and Europe when it comes around, you’re not really building a team for 38 games. You’re building a squad for something closer to 55 or 60 matches, with injuries, suspensions, rotation and the odd player just falling out of form.
That’s why the “we’ll just sign a few and see how it goes” approach rarely works. If you’re typically using around 30 players across a season, then recruitment isn’t just about the first XI. It’s about the 18th man, the ones who play ten games, and the ones thrown in when the pressure’s on at a tough away ground.
The current makeup feels lopsided
Looking at the squad through a simple lens, it’s heavily weighted towards players brought in from outside our league, with far fewer from the SPFL and only a small handful coming through the academy. The balance of that just doesn’t sit right.
It’s not about where somebody’s passport says they’re from. That bit genuinely doesn’t matter. The issue is the risk profile. When you’re recruiting heavily from elsewhere, you’re asking a lot of players to adapt at the same time: new league, different refereeing, different pitches, different tempo, and a different kind of weekly pressure. At Rangers, you don’t get a quiet month to learn on the job.
Spread that risk across too many signings and it can drag the overall level down, even if a few individuals do well. Truth is, it starts to look like a constant reset.
A simpler, stronger model
I’d much rather Rangers concentrated the serious spending on fewer, higher-quality players from outside Scotland. Not loads of gambles, but a smaller number of signings who are clearly upgrades and can handle the expectation.
Then you fill out the squad with tried-and-tested SPFL players who already know what a wet Tuesday in Paisley looks like, and what it takes to grind out points when you’re not at your best. That’s your depth, your reliability, your “we can trust him for six weeks” option.
And finally, the academy should be more than a slogan. If you’re going to use 30 players, why can’t a few of those minutes be going to your own lads? That’s not romanticism, it’s just good squad management when it’s done properly.
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