DAVE KING admits he was surprised to see Rangers fail to use their Champions League cash boost to bolster the Ibrox squad after transfer deadline day passed without a deal being done.
Boss Giovanni van Bronckhorst added seven players to his ranks this summer as fees were spent on the likes of Ben Davies, Ridvan Yilmaz, Rabbi Matondo and Antonio Colak.
John Souttar and Tom Lawrence arrived on Bosman deals from Hearts and Derby County respectively, while Malik Tillman completed a season-long loan switch from Bayern Munich.
Those signings were enough to clinch a Champions League berth and Rangers will begin their Group A campaign against Ajax on Wednesday as they also gear up for matches with Liverpool and Napoli this term.
But Van Bronckhorst's side ended the humiliating Old Firm defeat to Celtic on Saturday with none of their summer recruits on the park as their Premiership title challenge suffered a significant setback just weeks into the new campaign.
There was an expectation amongst supporters that Van Bronckhorst and Ross Wilson, the sporting director, would make further moves in the market to add strength and depth in the forward areas to ensure Rangers can compete on all four fronts.
And former chairman King can't understand why funds were not made available on the back of European success and the big-money sales of Nathan Patterson, Calvin Bassey and Joe Aribo in recent months.
“It was a big surprise to me," King said. “With Rangers, you always had a plan ‘A’,’B’ and ‘C’.
“Plan A is how you do in Scotland if you don’t get into the group stages of the Europa League.
“Plan B is what happens if you do get in and Plan C is what happens if you reach the group stages of the Champions League.
“Clearly, the club is not going to win the Champions League. You are not going to spend the kind of money needed to win it.
“But you can take away the bonuses gained from reaching the Champions League to strengthen your team so you can win the Scottish Premier League.
“Given where we’ve come from, and given we’ve now got the Champions League money, I am extremely surprised that Douglas hasn’t made that available to Ross to significantly strengthen the team.
“I am surprised the surplus resources the club now has hasn’t found its way back into the team.”
