3 hours ago
3
You took all of this in and wondered what Andrew Cavenagh must have been making of it in America.
Eleven new signings in recent weeks and close to 30 since his consortium moved in last summer. Their running total of transfer fees long since careered past the £25m mark. Last January, it sped across the £35m barrier and now it's knocking on the door of £50-£60m on new players.
These players. These largely dull, pedestrian Rangers men playing in front of a mostly hushed and increasingly tired stadium with 15,000 empty seats. They won on the night, and so hope lives for some of kind of European story this season, but it was so desperately lacking.
Within the club there is patience and a mindset that this is a long road Rangers are on and an acceptance they're only at the start of it.
There is a commitment to spend and spend again. Cavenagh and his backers have been true to their word, they have stumped up fortunes. Have they spent well? Right now, it's impossible to say that they have.
Compare this to Celtic's elan and fluidity the night before. Compare the sustained class of Camilo Duran to anything that Rangers have. Duran cost somewhere between five and six million.
Where is Rangers' Duran? Where is their Callum McGregor, their Benjamin Nygren, their Kieran Tierney, their standard-setters, their goal machines, their players who drive the team forward?
Where, indeed, is their Nico Raskin? On the bench on the night. Unused. A wee injury, apparently. Nothing to do with the rumoured gathering interest from Fenerbahce, we were told.
The rumour-machine was in overdrive in pre-match. Is he going? How much is he going for? Who's coming in? Where's he coming in from?
The plates continue to spin at Ibrox as McInnes attempts to put order on all of this, to forge a coherent team from all the disparate parts.
He has to make it work against a backdrop of Celtic threatening to run amok with what they already have and what they might soon add if the £40m of Champions League loot drops into their lap next week.
An hour after the final whistle, the only sound heard at Ibrox was the hum of three lawnmowers gliding over the turf. It was quiet, eerily so.
You half wondered if McInnes might come out for a moment just to experience how calm it can be out there. Take it while he can. There won't be much stillness in this place for a while yet.
