Pedro Caixinha took charge of Rangers almost four months ago, when the club’s board snatched him from Qatari side Al-Gharafa.
Despite arriving at the end of the season, there was still time for the boss to manage the team in eleven matches, which were enough for him to take the club to the Europa League.
But that was also enough time to see who was worth keeping at Ibrox or not, as he prepared the club for the transfer market, in which eight players have already been signed.
Caixinha was interviewed by the Portuguese newspaper Record this week, and talked about how he evaluated who would he keep in the squad for next season.
Record mentioned that the manager released 14 players this month, and asked him how this process was done.
“That was one of the points that brought us last season. Rangers had to pay Al-Gharafa a price to get us out in March, because our contract only ended in May. The president made it a point that we had the time to get to know the club, the squad, the different levels of academy and the Scottish market in order to know the needs of that team. And so we did.
“We identified a group of 13/14 players who did not have features to follow the model of belonging to a squad of a great club like Rangers. At the same time, we made a list of ten players that we wanted, not forgetting the need to have a hard core of important Scottish players.”
The manager was then questioned if the goal was to reduce the ‘risk of choice’ in the squad.
“No doubt, and do it because of the knowledge we had of the players and the markets from where they arrive, but also that there was an identification between the manager and the players themselves. And, with that, make the squad smaller but more competitive.
“I had bad experiences in Leiria and Nacional, in the second seasons, where I led too big squads and here we decided early that we did not want to take that risk. We will have 21/22 players and the rest will be provided through the Rangers academy.”
Caixinha seems to be ruthless on behalf on Rangers, going for quality at Ibrox rather than quantity.
