Dave King says 5-1 Old Firm hammering to Celtic told Pedro Caixinha everything...

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...he needed to know about Ibrox flops.

 

King reckons April's Old Firm humiliation could prove to be the best thing to happen to the Light Blues.

 

By Andy Devlin

 

IT was their worst home defeat to Celtic in 120 years.

 

But Dave King reckons April’s 5-1 humiliation at the hands of the Hoops could prove to be the best thing to happen to Rangers — on the park at least — for some considerable time.

 

The Ibrox chairman believes the crushing loss served as a massive wake-up call to everyone.

 

For him it also underlined what new boss Pedro Caixinha already knew — that most of the players he had inherited were nowhere near good enough.So together they embarked on a huge summer of transition.Eight new arrivals have been confirmed with the promise of even more to come.

 

Manchester City Academy Director Mark Allen has been appointed the club’s director of football while King has brokered the most important deal of his tenure — one which will eventually sever all ties between Mike Ashley and Rangers.

 

Now King is looking forward to getting back to Ibrox on matchday — excited by the squad being assembled by Caixinha.

 

He said: “We brought Pedro in early for a reason — to come in and assess his squad.“Pedro asked me the question the very first time I met him.“He said ‘Dave, why did you pay the compensation to get me in when you could have waited until the end of May and got it for free?’

 

“I said ‘The reason we did that is that we will be in Europe, we have a new manager coming in and we need you to come in and assess the quality of the squad in the way you want to play’.“The importance of that was emphasised by the Celtic 5-1 game.“I think that was a very important game for Pedro.

 

“If he had gone against what he was trying to achieve and tried to shore it up and get a 1-1 draw he wouldn’t have learned about the players.“He knew what he wanted to do. He was testing the players in a competitive environment. If we had brought him in at the end of May he would have got the team for pre-season training, got them running around and gone straight into Europa League qualifiers.

 

“He tested them against Celtic and didn’t abandon them and say ‘Let’s lose 2-1 or draw 1-1’.“He tested the players and we saw an evolution in his player plan.“He learned a lot about the ability and character of the players in his squad in those weeks at the end of the season and identified specific players.

 

“It’s probably fair to say now we are now in the high 90s percentage-wise in terms of getting the exact players he wanted.“Okay we’ve had to invest money, but that’s a commitment we made.“What we can say is that we are all happy with the players he got.”

 

With Rangers now free from the clutches of Ashley and Sports Direct, additional funds are likely to come Caixinha’s way.But with extra cash comes extra pressure.

 

Rangers limped to a third-place finish last season and while they did secure a return to Europe after a six-year absence the return was not good enough for King.

 

He stressed: “I will repeat a bit of what I said last year, which didn’t come true. That we were going to try to compete with Celtic for the Premiership.“It was very disappointing the way last season turned out.

 

“If I look at the business Pedro has done, his player plan was very different to Mark Warburton’s.“It’s not a direct criticism of Mark, although it probably is in a certain sense. The player plan was more positional in that we needed to do this and we needed to do that. It evolved.“Pedro has been very firm.”

 

King was also delighted to secure the service of Allen from Man City.

 

He added: “If you go back two years ago then I think there was a recognition of Rangers as a football club. Rangers is Rangers.“But there was still a concern about the turmoil that was going to go on and whether this rebuilding exercise was going to work.“I think what we have seen in the last year is a normalisation of that situation.

 

“I think people accept the club is on the way back.“That the rebuilding programme is working — just commercially behind the scenes. There is a greater trust in everything about Rangers. We know the club, but where will it be in two years time?

 

“Now we have someone like Mark who sees Rangers as a bigger opportunity and is not worried about where Rangers will be in two years time.“He’s not worried about ambition, he can see what we are doing.”

 

Meanwhile, King revealed Mark Warburton’s legal threat over his sacking by Rangers in February has failed to materialise.

 

He said: “I haven’t heard from Mark Warburton. I regarded that threat of litigation as nothing more than frivolous.“It has disappeared and it has gone. Litigation could have happened the other way, but Mark could never have sued the club.“If Mark had continued with his action we would have counter-sued but the fact is he has quite correctly let it die a natural death.”

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I would say you have to give King credit for coming through, sometimes it just takes time.

I hope Pedro has got this manpower thing right from the get-go.

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I think the following quote from that article is a fine indication of the forward thinking of King and his commitment to putting the club back where it belongs at the pinnacle of Scottish football.

 

He said: “We brought Pedro in early for a reason — to come in and assess his squad.“Pedro asked me the question the very first time I met him.“He said ‘Dave, why did you pay the compensation to get me in when you could have waited until the end of May and got it for free?’

 

“I said ‘The reason we did that is that we will be in Europe, we have a new manager coming in and we need you to come in and assess the quality of the squad in the way you want to play’.“The importance of that was emphasised by the Celtic 5-1 game.“I think that was a very important game for Pedro.

 

Paid compensation instead of just waiting another month to get Pedro for free. To get this show back on the road as quickly and competently as possible and hopefully that's now going to be paying dividends in the shape of this overhauled squad.