ROSS WILSON has spoke of the “fantastic progress” made by Rangers on and off the pitch in the last 12 months but insists the building process will never stop.
Speaking at the club’s annual AGM, the Sporting Director discussed a range of topics as he shared his delight at the aligned one club vision which has joined up various aspects and departments within the club.
He said: “I have used the phase a lot about developing a one club ethos, we wanted to join up all aspects of this club and we can now see that across all of the pillars that support football development.
“Whether that is our scouting and recruitment, our performance preparation, our medical, our analysis or the emergence of our girls and women's team into the club.
“We now feel that we are building a really strong Rangers here, there is a long way to go, the build will continue.
“We have got a high ceiling that we continue to reach towards but I am delighted that we feel in a significantly stronger place today than we did when we addressed the last shareholders meeting.
“We see scouting and recruitment as an important part of our vision.
“One of the things we identified really early was to start to build a thorough and modern scouting and recruitment department.
“I am delighted that across the last year we have recruited some really high level scouting and recruitment personnel to join an already existing group of strong staff.
“I now feel we are much more connected to the market in Europe and we are able to capitalise on opportunities when they come our way.”
Wilson also spoke of the work going on off the pitch with continued improvements to Ibrox Stadium and Rangers Training Centre.
He said: “Off the pitch we are working together to make this club as strong as we possibly can with our people and our personnel, our systems and our processes.
“We have continued to push our facility development both at Auchenhowie and at Ibrox.
“We wanted to make the dressing room much more modern, whilst also preserving the history of Rangers and we have managed to do that.
“There’s work going on all the time to really push this club forward and make sure that the environment we are working in every day and the environment here at Ibrox is befitting of a club the size of Rangers.”
Wilson thanked the shareholders, the board and the investors for their backing as the squad continues to go from strength to strength.
He said: “Steven and I sat down right at the beginning of the Coronavirus and we spent a lot of time assessing the squad that was here and planning what this season looks like.
“We are thankful to our shareholders, the board and the investors for backing us in the most difficult of markets to achieve what we wanted to achieve.
“A lot of players left as well, whether they were out of contract or ones that we decided to move on and we feel that the players that have come in have enhanced the group both in terms of their character and their abilities on the pitch.
“We are really really happy with the squad we sit here with today, but again my caveat always is that we never stop and we keep pushing to see where we can take this year.
“From a scouting and recruitment perspective and from a squad building perspective we are really happy with where we sit today whilst acknowledging there's still a long distance to go.
Wilson finished with a word for the Academy and Women’s programmes and praised both for the strides being made in recent times.
He said: “Our Academy continues to push and it continues to make a lot of strides, we have acknowledged since I came here that we wanted to make some changes in our structure which we announced some months ago.
“We will make further changes as we move forward in order that the Academy is modern and fit for purpose and we have to see output from that.
“Steven has gone on record a number of times and said if young players are good enough they'll get a chance here. Not only are a number of young players training with our first team every day now but we have also seen the emergence of young Nathan Patterson and that is what the Academy has got to do.
“It has got to produce players that are ready to play for Rangers and we are pleased that that journey has started again and we will continue in the future.
“I began this address by talking about the one club ethos that we wanted to build here.
“Our girls and women's team absolutely have to sit aligned and part of that and I am pleased that they do today. We have got some strong ambitions and targets for them to reach in the future.
“They have started the season well under Malky Thomson, Kevin Murphy and Amy McDonald, it looks a really strong group for us now both on and off the pitch.”