RANGERS fans didn’t know what to expect when new American owners took over and Russell Martin was appointed head coach.
Truth is, they still don’t – but they can’t complain about the money spent in the first transfer window of the new era.
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The Ibrox club splashed out over £30million on new players for Martin but it’s fair to say the jury is still out on many of Kevin Thelwell’s signings.
Here, SunSport’s Ryan Rowe and Gareth Law reflect on Rangers’ transfer business from the summer window and do a deep dive into the two players who arrived on deadline day in Youssef Chermiti and Derek Cornelius.
The former is the club’s most expensive signing since Tore Andre Flo and arrives with plenty of potential, but also a lot of questions.
Cornelius could be the leader Rangers are missing at the back but will he partner or displace Scotland international John Souttar?
The team also discuss Cyriel Dessers’ departure and how the Light Blues will miss him, and look back at the success they had in flipping the likes of Jefte and Hamza Igamane for £6m and £10.4m respectively.
With the window now shut, our men pore over what was a VERY busy summer on the transfer front at Ibrox.
The big money signing
Youssef Chermiti has come in from Everton. A lot of potential but a lot of questions, Gareth?
I think a lot of questions, it’s the biggest fee Rangers have paid since Tore Andre Flo and I guess if you’d been told before the window closed Rangers were going to spend that amount of money on a striker, I don’t think it’d have been a guy who hasn’t scored a goal for Everton.
Now, Kevin Thelwell – Rangers’ sporting director – knows of him, he’s seen him.
So I guess the reassurance would be that he knows what he can bring, the potential he’s got he’s seen what he can do.
He’s got a good pedigree in terms of academy football, being at Sporting, there’s a lot of potential.
The buzzword now is a project player, it’s a lot of money for a project player so you’d like to think that if he’s coming in for that amount of money, that there’s potential but there’s a little bit of ready to go and can contribute straight away.
Russell Martin and Rangers haven’t got time to hang about, they need somebody to produce results. It’ll be a fascinating one to see.
On the surface, does it look like an upgrade on Dessers?
I think that’s what we have to remember, everybody looks at the chances Dessers missed but he still scored 44 goals across two seasons and this season.
It’s a lot of goals to lose from your team and I think that’s where the added burden will be there on both of the new strikers.
For all the chances he missed, Dessers still scored a lot of goals and important goals as well.
A change of system for Martin?
We haven’t seen Martin play a lot of two up top, but is there a chance he does it?
History would tell you that won’t happen, that he’ll strick with his tried and tested.
He’s talked about how he’s learned things from his time at Southampton, he gets a reputation of being stubborn for sticking but I don’t think that’s totally accurate.
I think we have seen signs – Sunday being one – that he’s not rigidly going to stick to something.
He spoke after the game on Sunday that they’d maybe spent too much time on working on life with the ball and Sunday seemed to show there was another side to the way we can play and the way he can have his teams play.
I would imagine it would just be the one striker but the option is there for him to try the two in different games if and when that’s needed.
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A new leader at the back
Most of us won’t have seen Derek Cornelius in action in many games, but Gareth you know someone who has?
Yes, I’ve got a friend who’s from Marseille and he’s a Marseille fan so I messaged him this morning.
I know back in the summer everybody thought Conor Coady would be the guy who comes in and that seemed to be the way things were working.
He was going to come in, we all remember Gareth Southgate talking about what a leader he was, so Russell Martin missed out on a leader and that has been something that has been talked about since they missed out on Coady.
Now, talking to my mate this morning, he says Cornelius has a bit of that about him – he’s a bit of a leader, he puts the team first.
He’s somebody who’ll be up for the physical battle, there’s the odd yellow card in him, mistimed tackle so he’ll fit in perfectly!
From what he said, he gives his all.
You look at his CV, he’s won a couple of Swedish titles, played in Serbia, played back home in Canada.
He’ll be ready to come straight in, he’s 27, Russell Martin will be hoping he can bring that leadership aspect they have probably been missing in those tougher times.
He plays exclusively on the left hand side, that’s where John Souttar has been playing so what does this suggest with how Russell Martin will sahep up this back four?
When you see a manager bringing players in, you very rarely see them come in and not play.
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He’s coming in on loan, he’s coming in to get game time and he wouldn’t be leaving Marseille if he wasn’t going to get an opportunity.
Nasser Djiga’s been playing on the right, Souttar on the left, I don’t know what’s going to happen there so that’ll be interesting.
But don’t get me wrong, you need strength in depth.
I don’t think he’ll be coming in as cover particularly if he has those leadership qualities.
Jury out on new signings – but who’ll be the best of the bunch?
What have you made of the business Rangers have done getting players out and what have you made of the new signings so far?
I think if you said you’d get £6million for Jefte you’d be happy for that so I think that was a big tick – I think that was excellent business.
We all saw what Hamza Igamane did in the final days at Rangers, you look at Alexander Isak and Yoane Wissa in England as well, it’s becoming a concerning part of the game.
All three got their own way ultimately so there’s no incentive the other way to show that doesn’t work now, if you want to go, you chuck your toys out of the pram.
But saying that, when you know a player wants to leave, to still get the sort of money Rangers got, I thought that was quite an achievement for a guy who’d barely been in Scotland and the mark up that Rangers got.
You could argue both of those were quite good business.
The jury is still out on the players that have come in, purely on results and perforamnces right now.
Sunday showed potential but they’ve now got to go out and show that every day, difficult game up next against Hearts.
I think that could arguably be a bigger sign of where this Rnagers squad is going under Russell Martin.
He’s relied on a lot of players from down south, I think we mentioned the defence already, he’s relied on a lot of loan signings but that could be circumstantial in terms of getting bodies in and putting his own stamp on it.
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It’s not going to happen overnight and you have to slowly build it and everybody now relies on the loan market.
I think Gassama has shown signings as we all saw in Europe but he’s kind of gone off the boil a little bit as well, Antman burst onto the scene.
I think there’s still a lot of work there.
I think Miovski would be the standout.
When you see what he did at Aberdeen, even speaking after the game on Sunday, sitting looking comfortable in his own skin – talking about these guys who have the mentality to play for the Old Firm, just the way he spoke, the way he plays, I think he will turn out to be the best of the bunch.
He also knows the Scottish game and I think that counts for a lot more than sometimes people give it credit.
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What’s next for Raskin?
We talked about player power forcing moves, but this is one you could look at and say the manager’s won it a little bit.
We don’t know if Raskin was trying to force his way out but there was the fall-out, that was the last thing Russell Martin needed.
What his father said and all these things.
The manager has got to show his leadership there, he’s shown them by bombing him out of the squad, that was the big call, the easy option would be to leave him the squad and that wouldn’t hav ebeen the talk around the line-up.
Raskin’s now away on international duty so it’ll bubble away longer than both would’ve liked but maybe time away from each other would do them good!
It’s going to be interesting to see how that develops now.
In a sense, Russell Martin dealt with that you could argue in the right way, the club dealt with it in the right way.
Now it’s arguably about Raskin coming cap in hand to Russell Martin to try and salvage his future.
He knows he’ll now be at Rangers for at least the next few months so either he works with him or he doesn’t play.
That is the fact now.
The window verdict
Will this go down as a good, a bad or an ugly transfer window for Rangers?
I guess the one thing – we know what’s happening across the city and Celtic fans are unhappy with the number of players they haven’t brought in.
Rangers fans can’t be unhappy with the number and it just depends now on the quality and the mentality.
You could argue that a lot of them the jury’s still out and they’ve got a lot to improve.
You look at someone like Joe Rothwell, I thought he would be a really good signing.
You see what he did down south, arguably one of those leaders you could look at but I don’t think he’s quite shown.
The other one is Max Aarons as well, you’re talking about Rangers fans who were desperate some of them to get James Tavernier out of the side.
Personally, I thought Aarons would be a good signing as well but he’s made Rangers fans wish Tavernier back in the team.
Guys like your Aarons and Rothwells, guys that aren’t project players, these guys have experience good and bad and I think some of the focus should be on those players more now.
They really need to stand up. The manager’s put his faith in them, put his neck on the block for them and they need to start showing signings that they’re getting used to what he wants but also the goldfish bowl that they play in.
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