49ers swing Rangers axe on two key figures as owners make tough sacking decision amid transfer mishaps

Rangers have confirmed the exits of Kevin Thelwell as sporting director and CEO Patrick Stewart.

Thelwell arrived at Ibrox amid new 49ers Enterprises and Andrew Cavenagh’s takeover of the club this summer. He had previously been a key player in recruitment when operating as sporting director at Wolves and most recently Everton’s director of football prior to arriving at Rangers but a costly summer transfer drive has been widely criticised. Youssef Chermiti arrived from Everton in a deal that could rise to £10m, despite no goals in Merseyside, while others like Joe Rothwell, Emmanuel Fernandez, Max Aarons and Bojan Miovski have either struggled or not featured regularly.

Russell Martin’s calamitous reign as head coach also reflected poorly on Thelwell, who fans have hit out at in recent weeks. with the ex-defender sacked and Danny Rohl brought in to replace him. Stewart joined Rangers last year having most recently been Interim CEO at Manchester United, but his time at Ibrox has come to a close after little over a year.

Why Rangers are moving on from Kevin Thelwell and Andrew Cavenagh

It has now been confirmed changes have been made at the top and he will help lead the search for who comes next. A club statement on the former Everton and Wolves man plus ex-Man Utd chief reads: “Rangers Football Club confirms it has parted company with CEO Patrick Stewart and Sporting Director Kevin Thelwell.

“Rangers expresses its sincere gratitude to both Patrick and Kevin for their leadership and unwavering commitment to the club. Chairman Andrew Cavenagh and Vice Chairman Paraag Marathe have already begun the search process and, until permanent hires are made, Director Fraser Thornton will assume the role of acting CEO.”

Thelwell had said only earlier this month on possible January transfer business at Rangers: “You probably have a couple of days grace after the transfer window that finishes, but then the work really starts in earnest. That begins with a review and evaluation of the work that has been done so far.

What Kevin Thelwell said about Rangers transfer business

“What did we do well in the window? What didn’t we do well? What can we learn from what we did or didn’t do? And then use that information and intelligence to move us forwards.

“It’s a slightly different situation for us in our context because we lost a Head Coach and we’ve appointed a new one in Danny. We’re very keen to ensure he is an integral part of that process going forwards. We spent a couple of weeks allowing Danny to evaluate the group and we had a big meeting this week to sit down and talk about his feelings on the group so far.

“We’ll use that information, plus the information from the owners and other sources, to start to plan for January, and we do expect to be fairly active. It’s important for me to say that while I, and others, do a lot of work behind the scenes to make sure we bring targets to the table that we think could improve the group, it’s really about Danny having the final say in these moments. It’s important as a Sporting Director that you don’t bring players that the Head Coach doesn’t want to sign off on, so it’s very much about us working together for Danny to have the final say.”