Michael Beale neglected a position this summer that every manager going back to Mark Warburton in recent years has tried to get right for Rangers.
Goalscorers aren’t always easy to find but a club of our size should be able to recruit them anywhere across the front three.
In particular, Michael Beale let two starting wingers/wide forwards leave in Ryan Kent and Fashion Sakala and signed nobody to replace them in what has been an issue for years.
Michael Beale negligence in addressing Rangers wing issue
How many bad and sub-par wingers have Rangers had since 2016 when the club returned to the top flight?
Joe Dodoo, Harry Forrester, Daniel Candeias, Dalcio, Eros Grezda, Jordan Jones, Brandon Barker, Sheyi Ojo, Scott Wright and Rabbi Matondo, to name but a few.
Jamie Murphy gets a pass, but only because his numbers were promising before a tragic ACL injury on the opening day of the league in 2018.
Signed for a combined fee of less than £5m is it any wonder that none of the players named were prolific or provided any consistency.
It’s some £2m less than was paid for Ryan Kent though and, depending on who you talk to, he was no better than the ones already named.
Only in our title winning campaign did he get to double figures for goals.
In the other four seasons, his numbers were nowhere near the standard expected of a Rangers forward.
For whatever reason, Michael Beale knew that Kent was leaving Rangers and did nothing about it.
When Fashion Sakala left, a new winger or wide forward seemed like a no-brainer.
Then he let Ianis Hagi, who played off the right-hand side on the way to 55 and Alex Lowry, who plays off the left, both leave on loan.
Decisions that look more puzzling by the day.
If we continue to pin all our hopes on a striker to score our goals, we will face the same problems of chances consistently being missed.
In January, whoever is in charge, the priority has to be two wingers to support Danilo, Kemar Roofe and Cyriel Dessers.
It’s a problem that has been around for years, hopefully, the new manager already has a couple of names in mind.
