Michael Beale reveals plans for 'different' Rangers as he promises fans a busy summer

Managing the Old Firm can be a bit like a game of snakes and ladders, a job where you’re never more than one wrong roll of the dice away from taking a slide.

That’s the position Michael Beale now finds himself as he sets about remodelling his Rangers team ahead of their long climb back to the top. The Ibrox boss was this week asked to ponder whether the gulf between the Light Blues side he inherited from Gio van Bronckhorst and Celtic was as big as the one he found when he first moved to Glasgow to partner Steven Gerrard in 2018.

Then, with Brendan Rodgers’s Hoops on the top rung, Gers were starting out at the bottom after the previous season’s humiliations under Pedro Caixinha and Graeme Murty. By the time Beale had followed Gerrard to Aston Villa three and a bit years later, Rangers were the team looking down on their bitter rivals.

But that lofty position is long gone now at Ibrox, with the recruitment mistakes made during Van Bronckhorst’s tenure sending the Light Blues on a downward spiral Beale is now the man holding the dice and he’s hoping to come up trumps this summer as he eyes up at least five new signings. His first roll in January saw him land a double six, with the arrival of new midfield pair Nico Raskin and Todd Cantwell breathing some much needed freshness into a stale squad.

The only question that remains about about his work this summer is whether it will be carried out with Gers in hot pursuit of Ange Postecoglou’s Premiership pacesetters - or back at square one. Looking back on his first season in Scotland, Beale - who saw an eight-game unbeaten derby run smashed in last month’s Viaplay Cup final - said: “Back then Brendan Rodgers was firing on all cylinders.

“We had been back in the league a year or