Rangers Vs St Mirren preview: The Times They Are A-Changin'
- Adam Bortkiewicz
- Feb 22
- 3 min read
Morning all, Rangers are back for another dead rubber in the league. The Buddies visit Ibrox for today's game. But that's not the biggest story in town currently. Which is a relief honestly, how many times can I analyse the same stale team and formation? No one wants to read about all the great ways we could play, knowing that instead we have to watch Tom Lawrence struggle for another 60 minutes.
The big news is the potential change on the horizon at Rangers. We've seen takeover rumours before, but these are the first ones picked up by the New York Times that I can remember.
Everyone will know the broad strokes of the deal by now. But to sum it up quickly, 49ers Enterprise (the investment side of NFL side the San Francisco 49ers) are involved in a deal to purchase a 51 percent controlling stake in Rangers.
By the sounds of it the deal is well in motion but will take a few months to dot the i's and cross the t's.
This isn't the Americans outfit's first venture into football, in 2023 they bought over Leeds United at the cost of 170 million pounds.
Since then the Yorkshire side have spent fairly freely. There's also been plenty of restructuring going on behind the scenes. Both positive signs given the issues at Rangers currently.
I don't expect these investors to just pour money into Rangers and sit back. There's been some mention of a multi-club model, which is something we should be very wary of as supporters. Just ask FC Troyes in France, they've been in the City Football group since 2020. Unfortunately for the fans, they've watched their club be used as a way to launder players and money for whatever needs Manchester City require. It's led to protests and matches being abandoned, but there's no real change on the horizon for them.
The most likely scenario in the short term is that the major investment will happen structurally. Patrick Stewart has made several references to the improper running of the club in recent years. You'd like to think that such a big investment group with plenty of experience of winning teams would recognise that that has to change before this team can win anything.
The Belgian Elephant in the room is Philippe Clement. Unfortunately for those burdened with the task of watching Rangers every week, the Manager remains employed. Some have suggested that we are keeping him in a job to save the bother of bringing in someone who wouldn't work with the new ownership and structure. There's some logic to that approach, I assume contact was made long before the interest from the 49ers was made public. I'm hoping that's the case, as that will make the remaining few months of the season a little easier to stomach.
Patrick Stewart also gave an interview the other day. It's a long interview but it's worth reading/watching if you have the time. He was asked about Clement's future and made reference to the club changes necessary for us to succeed. He also highlighted Clement's European form as a reason for him still being in the job. It certainly wasn't the vote of confidence you'd expect if he was planning on keeping the Belgian in charge beyond the summer.
I've already laboured on for a long time about this takeover, the other news is that Rangers have drawn Fenerbahce in the Europa League round of 16.
It's a tough tie, I think slightly better than playing Bodø/Glimt. But I'll give some more detailed thoughts on that tie in the coming weeks.
What to say about today's game? I expect Rangers fans will react in an extremely calm way to the takeover news, and we won't see mocked up Rangers American football shirts or some ridiculous hats. Who am I kidding?
St Mirren play 352 and had plenty of joy against us in Paisley when we were in the throes of some truly terrible away form (real theme of this season). I expect Cerny and Igamane will relish playing in the channels today. That's where the space will be, and no wide centre back wants to be drawn out to defend a 1v1. And I don't think any defender wants to face Igamane or Cerny 1v1 anyway.
Aside from that, enjoy the game as always. Have a good weekend everyone.
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