It is not just Derek McInnes feeling the early heat at Ibrox – the men who hired him are under the microscope too, and none more so than chairman Andrew Cavenagh.
Two competitive games, no wins, and a support already asking hard questions.
After a summer of heavy spending and heavier turnover, the Gers have opened 2026-27 with a 1-1 draw at Dundee United and a Europa League defeat away to Jagiellonia Bialystok.
Fair or not, that start has put the whole direction of the club up for debate.
The point was put bluntly this week by the Daily Mail, which asked, with a reported £70million spent in a year, “little sign of pro-Scottish bias” and “a team still full of last term’s losers”, what exactly Cavenagh’s strategy for Rangers is.
It is a provocative framing, and the figures should be treated as the newspaper’s own, but the underlying question is a fair one for any supporter to ask.
The money and the mixed message
What we can say for certain is that the American-led consortium fronted by Cavenagh and 49ers Enterprises, which took a controlling stake in 2025, has backed its manager in the market.
Nine players arrived this summer: Lawrence Shankland, Ross McCrorie, Dan Neil and Cammy Devlin among the additions, alongside paid deals for goalkeeper Ivor Pandur, Vanja Dragojević, Olwethu Makhanya and Daisuke Yokota, plus the loan capture of Ben Godfrey.
Yet the Mail’s jibe about “last term’s losers” lands because a good chunk of the squad that finished third and trophyless last season is still here.
The reality is that a whole squad can’t be changed but there are question marks all over the pitch at present.
The same old defensive habits resurfaced in Poland. Spending big and clearing out the fringes is one thing – changing the culture of a group that underachieved is another entirely.
That only comes when good players are doing the business on the pitch, time and again.
Whatever happened to the ‘pro-Scottish’ plan?
The “pro-Scottish bias” line refers to the recruitment approach Cavenagh reportedly outlined earlier in the summer, a nod towards leaning on players who already know the Scottish game.
On that score the jury is genuinely out. The appointment of McInnes, a manager who knows the Premiership inside out, fits the brief, as do free transfers for Shankland and Devlin from Hearts.
But the bulk of the paid business has come from England and abroad, which is exactly why the Mail feels able to question whether the stated plan and the actual spending truly match up.
As we noted when Cavenagh’s spending promise met McInnes’s first real test, the words have never been the issue, it is the delivery that counts.
What Andrew Cavenagh must prove next
Here is the honest truth. A strategy is only ever judged on results, and right now there are none to point to.
Nine new signings cannot be expected to gel in a fortnight, and this ownership deserves a little patience for backing a popular manager with serious money.
But patience at Ibrox is finite, and a winless start to the season has arrived at the worst possible time for a board still trying to convince supporters it has a coherent plan.
The window is open for almost another four weeks, while the Europa League second leg comes at Ibrox on Thursday amid building pressure, with Hibs visit before that.
Get those right, and the questions fade. Get them wrong, and the search for Andrew Cavenagh’s strategy will only grow louder.
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