The four key pillars of 49ers Rangers takeover as pundit names quartet of questions revolution must address

A former Rangers star believes there are four pillars of concern that the Ibrox takeover bid will have to address.

It’s been a disappointing campaign again on the domestic front for Rangers. They are not going to win the Premiership title and will end this campaign without a trophy, having exited the Scottish Cup in embarrassing fashion to struggling Championship side Queen’s Park and suffering defeat in the Premier Sports Cup final vs Celtic.

Their Europa League campaign ended at the quarter final stage against Athletic Bilbao as attentions turn to next season. Barry Ferguson is the interim manager and a takeover led by the enterprise wing of the San Francisco 49ers NFL franchise is in the works. US health insurance tycoon Andrew Kavenagh is also set to be a key player in a new dawn at Rangers. For former player Steven Naismith, he feels the takeover has to address four things.

Rangers takeover must tackle four pillars

That is what they truly desire, style of play, the next permanent manager and recruitment. He told Sportsound: “Like everything in football, if this takeover is at the point of, yes, it's a foregone conclusion, then 100% they'll already be in the process of looking at one, what are we wanting as a club? Is it, are we want a specific style of play?

“And if we do want that, then they'll be having discussions as we speak to work out who's a potential manager or head coach that they think they can get and who's realistic. On top of that, they then conversations will follow into recruitment and, right, we're playing this style, so I need two wingers or I need three centre-halves. They're all conversations that probably are coming in the background if this takeover is that far down. The people that unfortunately are last to hear about this are the fans because when it can all be done officially is whenever it is concreted and sorted.”

Seasonal focus

For now, the focus is very much on finishing the season as strong as Rangers can for interim manager Ferguson. He told Clyde 1: “As a club we obviously need to do a lot of work.

"It's getting late in the season and the club needs to get back challenging. It's a good European run, but sadly it ended tonight. But domestically we need to be challenging for trophies. So in terms of my future going forward, I'll wait and see what happens there.

"I'm just concerned in terms of what happens; I just want my club to get back where it should be. That's my main concern. Whether that's me or somebody else, and if it's not me, I'll fully support them. I'll go back and do what I was doing before and get right behind them, making sure that we get the club back to winning trophies on a regular basis."