Rangers 'will be ready' to back Philippe Clement over transfers - chairman John Bennett
- Published
Philippe Clement (second right) and John Bennett (right) fielded questions at Tuesday's annual meeting
Chairman John Bennett says Rangers' board "will be ready" to back manager Philippe Clement in the upcoming transfer windows.
Clement had earlier warned that he does not expect to do "a lot of things" during January while still hoping to perform some reshaping of his squad.
The Belgian believes the summer is a better time to make bigger changes.
"The board will be ready, whether that's in January or the summer," Bennett told the club's annual meeting.
Bennett was asked by one fan whether the money spent by previous manager Michael Beale on a squad overhaul in the summer will inhibit Clement's ability to make the changes he desires.
"We had a lengthy meeting on Friday, Philippe Clement and I," he replied. "I don't think the last window impinges on our ability to strengthen the squad. We have to aspire to strengthen always.
"It's also about being clever, and more clever than we have been in the past, when it comes to wages, re-signing players and the recycling of wages rolling off."
Bennett also vowed to "fix" the club's recruitment problems and deliver a financial model that is "break-even at worst" without having to sell players to balance the books.
"For the second year in a row, we posted an operating profit, but last year we lost £10.5m prior to player trading," he said. "This is a new executive team for a reason - we have to drive through operating efficiencies.
"That £10.5m has to become, at worst, zero. Not every club operates at that level, in other words at minimum, break-even prior to player sales. We want to take Rangers to a place where it breaks even or better. I can tell you: it's turning - and it will turn. "
Bennett was also keen to point out that the club has deliberately avoided what he calls the "celebrity sporting director" by splitting up the role previously carried out by Ross Wilson before he left for Nottingham Forest.
Rangers took seven months to bring in Nils Koppen as director of football recruitment.
"We were very deliberate," Bennett said. "You could say that it's a split role now.
"It's very important in our view that we've spread the load. It's recruitment that we need to get right systematically, not sporadically.
"We didn't want to go down the road of an overarching, all-powerful sporting director. Some of these folk - and I interviewed them - want to be a celebrity sporting director. We don't want that. What was much more important was getting the right person for that very specific role."
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