Rangers chairman Andrew Cavenagh promised sustained winning and winning sustainably when his American consortium took charge of the Ibrox club, but the club's transfer business is doing little to back up that pledge.
Rangers committed a total of £35million to transfer fees this summer, according to accepted figures, while only £12million came back the other way. Across the past three transfer windows combined, the club has spent something in the region of £80million.
That outlay has produced a squad that still lacks an obvious creative force in midfield and faces strong odds against winning the domestic league title. Rangers will also have no European football this season following recent setbacks at the club, meaning the next set of accounts is likely to draw close scrutiny.
Cavenagh's consortium is linked to the San Francisco 49ers, the National Football League franchise, as part of the new ownership group that took control of Rangers with a stated 10-year plan for the club.
Raskin and Aasgaard stay put
Hopes had been raised that Rangers might cash in on two of their brightest assets after Nico Raskin started for Belgium and Thelo Aasgaard featured for Norway at the World Cup this year. Neither move materialised as expected.
Raskin remains at Ibrox, while Aasgaard has instead gone out on loan to Anderlecht, a departure the article's writer described as bizarre given the exposure he had just received on the international stage. If Rangers could not command a big fee for Raskin now, the question is when they ever will.
The club also turned down a substantial offer from Galatasaray for Youssef Chermiti shortly before the forward suffered a cruciate ligament injury, a setback that further complicates any prospect of a sale.
A new crop of young signings
Rangers have brought in several players aged 22 or under this year, including Kevin Kelsy, Kim Min-su, Vanja Dragojevic and Olwethu Makhanya, alongside winger Badredine Bouanani. The profile of these signings suggests they have been recruited partly with an eye on future resale value and improving the club's cashflow.
Before that can happen, those players need to be integrated into a team that is actually winning things, something the high turnover of playing staff at Ibrox in recent years has shown is not straightforward.
The missing player-trading model
For years, successive regimes at Rangers have talked about the need for a functioning player-trading model as a foundation for a self-sustaining club. That model still does not exist.
Until it does, the promise of sustainable winning at Ibrox remains just that, a promise rather than a reality backed up by the club's finances.
