When Ross Wilson left Rangers in April, little did we know that Michael Beale was going to be given the keys to Ibrox and given carte blanche to do what he wants – now we are paying the price.
Experienced players came to the natural end of their Ibrox careers and Alfredo Morelos, Ryan Kent and Glen Kamara wanted to move on.
The gaps in the squad needed to be filled and Rangers gave Michael Beale £13m to do it, with a free transfer and a loan signing the only players who have looked remotely like decent signings out of the nine he made.
Rangers woeful window under Michael Beale
How did he get it so wrong?
The former Gers boss spoke about having pace up front, more energy in midfield and a dynamism that would see the type of football he had always promised.
In Sam Lammers, Cyriel Dessers, Kieran Dowell, Leon Balogun, Dujon Sterling and Jose Cifuentes, he has signed a group of players who look miles away from what is needed.
Rangers needed Michael Beale to upgrade the squad, instead, in one transfer window he has filled it with players with almost no sell on value.
Sterling and Cifuentes might yet come good given their age and profile but, as yet, we just haven’t seen enough of them or seen them in their best positions.
The team around them has also been a shambles.
Jack Butland, Abdallah Sima and Danilo look like they could be key players moving forward but, in the most damning statement of the summer recruitment, how has Scott Wright ended up playing the last two games.
He played over 30 games last season without scoring a goal, has no goal contributions since January 2022 and has not scored a league goal since December 2021.
Is it too wild a statement to say that Eduardo Herrera and Carlos Pena made more of an impact than Sam Lammers and Cyriel Dessers have made so far?
They cost around half as much and yet Pena managed to score more goals in a weaker team than the £7.5m pair have combined.
Rangers should never have gone into the summer transfer window without a sporting director and Michael Beale throwing all his eggs into the baskets of too many players he thought he could fix has cost us.
Why any manager would want the job is beyond me given the mess they will be inheriting.
