Bain’s interview – has it settled Rangers fans fears?

Rangers’ chief executive Martin Bain today answered some of the questions the fans have been demanding answers for in today’s Daily Record.  With the recent departure of Thomson and Wilson, and a handful of other first team players deciding to leave on free transfers, the squad has been left depleted.  Beyond the first team starting eleven, our only backup are our younger reserve players, leaving fans wondering what will happen while Smith and the team are down under taking part in a lucrative international tournament in Sydney.

In the interview, a clear attempt to calm supporters during a time of uncertainty and upheaval at Ibrox, Bain also speaks frankly about the club’s financial restraints, the bank and takeovers in an attempt to ease the fan’s fears of what exactly is going on at Rangers.  But has this interview done anything to make us fans feel better about the situation at Rangers?

When it comes to the most pressing issues being discussed online and in pubs up and down the country, the main issue was tackled first by Bain – the squad, or rather, the increase in departures with no replacements as yet.  When questioned, Bain stresses that the fans must show faith in the club during the summer.  While Celtic continue to give Lennon an open chequebook to ensure they have a squad of sufficient quality to compete for the SPL title, virtually nothing has happened at Ibrox, with the exception of the failed bid for Burnley winger Chris Eagles.

Unfortunately for Rangers supporters, we are finally seeing the effects of the combined issues of our own financial plight and the true appeal of the backwater league that is the Scottish Premier League.  Eagles, Boyd, Novo, Wilson and Thomson are prime examples of the ability of Rangers in competing for the signatures of players both at other clubs and those already on our roster.  All were offered contracts at clubs with far smaller stature both in England and abroad, yet all will earn far more money than Rangers could offer and even the appeal of Champions League football is no longer enough to tempt players to ply their trade at Ibrox.

All were offered massive increases in their contracts to stay (or in Eagles’ case, sign for us) yet none would.  Novo cited the reason that he wouldn’t be offered regular football, which from a player’s perspective at his stage in his career is fine, but he remains unique as the rest were first team regulars and not, in the case of Novo, playing ten minutes off the bench every week.

Boyd and Thomson opted to join the Scottish revolution at the Riverside, headed by ex-Celtic manager Gordon Strachan.  While Middlesbrough  may be favourites for promotion from the English Championship they would at best end up like McLeish’s Birmingham – a mid-table  Premier League team.  So besides a promotion trophy, the only real possible silverware, both players have left a club playing in Europe regularly and winning medals every year for one thing – money.

The same goes for Wilson.  The lad only broke into the Rangers side last season thanks to Bougherra’s international duties and injuries, performed very well and his development came on leaps and bounds alongside veteran captain David Weir.  Liverpool have now signed one of the best youths the club has produced in a decade – even though, according to Bain, he was offered a highly lucrative deal to stay.

The move to Liverpool will no doubt see Danny remain a reserve player as Liverpool continue the hunt for a regular left-back, not only affecting his chances of selection by Levein for Scotland, but also denying himself the opportunity to continue his development at Rangers in the SPL and in Europe.

Bain has asked for the fans to show faith during the summer, and judge the club for their transfer dealings after the summer, not now.  The pressure to find players of decent stature to cope with both the SPL and Champions League football, who want to play in the SPL and not cost much in both wages and transfer fees, is very tough indeed.  This means that rather than showing faith to Walter and Bain instead of anger and unease, I believe we should also be showing empathy for the situation they find themselves in.  Yes the financial issues at the club are the fault of David Murray who believed that throwing money at the team would buy success which it did over two decades, but the aftermath means we have to wake up to reality of the issues we face as a club in the immediate and foreseeable future.

Thankfully the interview brought some light at the end of the tunnel.  Bain has publicly announced the club are looking to sign “three new players of a decent standard”.  The players not only have to be good enough to walk into the first team but also have to meet the usual financial criteria we are limited by AND add, to quote: “a quality of player that is going to add an asset value to the club “.

Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Wilson and Thomson, despite the latter blaming uncertainties at Ibrox due to the financial position of the club, both wanted to leave Rangers regardless.  Wilson already had his heart set on a move to English giants Liverpool and Thomson also wanted a move to enhance his career.  I guess winning medals gets boring after a while.  However this brings me to a topic always spoken by Rangers fans on blogs and forums across the internet – loyalty.  Should Thomson, a player hotly tipped to take the captaincy at Rangers and Wilson, a successful product of the Rangers youth system, have given more loyalty to his employers during a time of uncertainty?

Ask many and they would expect the same loyalty they have for the club when emptying their wallets purchasing the season tickets and replica shirts to fund the player’s lavish lifestyles.  But football clubs, like any other business, are fast becoming seen as just employers to players and brands to fans more than they are anything else due to the control money and television has on the industry.  I always retort with the “would you leave your job for twice the wages?” line when anyone questions player loyalty these days and generally get the same answer.  Greed motivates players now, not loyalty, and it’s a fact we just have to live with.

But football wasn’t always like that – you only have to go back 15 years to see a group of men who would have played on a pitch of broken glass every week for free to play for Rangers, and the days of having a group of players who would never leave their clubs for another are well beyond us now.  Thanks to Sky, players are motivated by greed in their short but rewarding careers.

Bain does make it clear through that the club are looking at two players at the moment and hope to have that number up to three by the end of the window.  With no European qualifiers to play during the summer we do have the time to ensure we get the right men in for the job – which is pleasing to hear given he also admits “At this stage we are not close to completing anything“.

The Chris Eagles deal did show we are actively looking to sign players but also reinforces the club’s stance that we won’t break our wage structure just to get someone on board which is a good thing – it sends a message to the players and agents we may be in negotiations with that we won’t be held to ransom.

The other good sign from Bain’s comments on this matter was: “We did offer nearly £2million to Burnley for Chris Eagles. I just wasn’t prepared to bow to those kind of wage demands. But that was proof we do have money and we are active in the market.”.  So now we are assured we can afford to spend £2 million on (at least one) player.

Bain also admits that having such a small squad for next season is not ideal: “No-one is saying it is and injuries and suspensions then become a major concern.”.  Although we are fortunate to have a number of talented youth players they alone cannot support the squad whenever the injury list gets longer than the squad can cope with.  It is highly unusual for any youth to break into a first team and make an impact – ask John Fleck, even the most critically acclaimed youth players find it difficult to take the step up to the first team.  Signings are needed to not only give us depth in our squad but also to ensure these young players don’t have massive expectations heaped on their young shoulders too early.

Despite admitting the squad is too small, Bain delicately avoided when asked if Rangers had players good enough to win the SPL next season by saying: “We will never start off a season not believing we can win the championship but the reality is it’s going to be a difficult one – perhaps the hardest one yet”.  In other words – no, he doesn’t.  It hardly fills us with confidence.

Bain does however believe “[if] we can bring the right three players over the line before the end of the transfer window, then it will give us a much better chance”.  So in essence, Bain believes like the majority of football supporters that we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the SPL with a team of kids and the first team we have remaining.  It is of paramount importance for Rangers to sign the three targets Bain talks so freely about – without them, any injury crisis could destroy any hopes of competing for the title. Not making the signings we need is far too big a gamble.

What Bain does want to avoid though is a repeat of the Rothen fiasco which he admits “That was a painful lesson”.  Rothen arrived on loan at the beginning of last season and was essentially a panic signing, one to ease protest at the lack of signings and to fill the wide-left position which still needs dealt with now more than ever after the departure of DaMarcus Beasley.  On that issue though Bain stresses that the club should be looking for players of the same quality of Bougherra and Davis, both of whom had outstanding seasons last term, but yet again where and how are Rangers supposed to sign players of that quality with our limited resources?

It’s all fine and well saying that’s the type of player Rangers need, but unless we can sign another player of their ilk, which is highly unlikely, then it’s something Bain should be wary of in any other Q&A style interviews he does.  We aren’t a stupid bunch, we know what the team needs, but we also understand what our limits are in terms of signings we can make.  With Bougherra we were lucky to find a player of his quality but even he admits to having an eye on a return to the Premier League with a bigger team and in the case of Davis – he is a die-hard Rangers fan and wanted nothing but the club to finalise his move north when he returned to Fulham after his loan period here.  The fact remains we can’t afford to spend the same type of money we did when we signed them and can’t realistically expect the manager to sign players of their quality this season.

Bain has attempted to answer the burning questions all Rangers fans have been asking but has done little to ease our worries.  He has attempted to make light of a worrying situation at Rangers and though it is easy to say we need to sign players and that we need to remain faithful to the club we love, Bain must also accept that the fans can’t sit with our fingers crossed hoping something happens in the coming weeks.  We need the three additions he speaks of as a minimum before the season starts again and not a moment later, and we need the team fit and ready for the new season ahead.

While I and many Rangers fans have faith in Smith and his team, we still don’t have the same faith in Bain – or the board.  I welcome the more vocal side we have seen of Bain (and new chairman Alistair Johnston) since the departure of Murray as chairman, but all too often in the recent past we as supporters we have been let down and kept in the dark regarding issues of importance at Rangers.

Hopefully this interview will be the start of many more when fans are demanding answers from Rangers, but if questions are continually answered in a deflective manner, such as the issue of takeover: “the ownership side of it is a matter for David Murray” – and important questions avoided, then such interviews will remain as P.R. exercises which do little to quell fans fears over the situation the club finds itself in.  Bain has put his neck on the line in stating we need three new signings so now we will expect exactly that.  Let’s just hope what he has said in the interview doesn’t come back to haunt him or indeed us.

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