The overarching Rangers strategy under Michael Beale remains cloudy and transfers create a complex picture - Keith Jackson

Let's assume from the outset that Michael Beale knows exactly what he’s doing.

Given the meticulous manner with which he’s gone about his work in his first six months in the job it seems reasonably safe to conclude that the Londoner is a man with a precise plan all worked out for overseeing this mammoth Rangers rebuild. It stands to reason that the vision will be right there, firmly lodged inside his own mind’s eye.

The thing is, for the rest of us, it’s becoming more and more difficult to decipher what it’s actually supposed to look like. With less than two weeks to go before the curtain comes up on the next league campaign, Beale’s overarching strategy remains somewhat cloudy and perhaps even a little bit confusing. On Saturday against Hamburg, for example, he fielded ten different players in a variety of forward thinking positions without his team ever looking as if it had a set formation or a clearly defined style of play.

Having started with a front three of Fashion Sakala, Rabbi Matondo and Abdullah Sima, backed up by Ianis Hagi and Kieran Dowell, Beale ended the friendly with Todd Cantwell and Tom Lawrence as the creative link men behind Sam Lammers, Kemar Roofe and Cyriel Dessers. If truth be told, for long spells, it did all feel a little bit messy and chaotic. All of which is easily dismissed assuming Beale was using the match for nothing more than ‘getting minutes into legs’.

But what if the man in charge hasn’t quite puzzled out yet how to squeeze so many of these players into just eleven shirts? And that’s before Beale presses ahead with further moves to recruit Jose Cifuentes from Los Angeles FC and Danilo from Feyenoord.

Beale looks highly likely to add at least one more striker to the mix before the