The Rangers transfer rinse and repeat scenario Russell Martin simply cannot escape – Keith Jackson

There’s something of an anomaly about the situation Rangers and their supporters find themselves faced with this summer.

The need for patience has never felt quite so warranted or so well earned as it does right now. And yet the time for understanding and for trusting in the process may already be running short.

A club that has been crying out for a summer of radical, sweeping change is finally entering into the very period of wide ranging recalibration which has been so badly needed for so long.

A broken, dysfunctional board has been thanked for its efforts and persuaded to step aside for the greater good.

In its place, a harmonious, more far-sighted regime has been installed, headed up by new owners with fresh money and contemporary ideas. In other words, this is precisely the moment these fans have been waiting for.

And yet, in so many ways, it’s probably starting to feel all a little bit too much like it always tends to do at this time of year.

Another summer rebuild is underway already with the aim of overhauling a playing squad which quite patently is not fit for purpose on the back of yet another flaccid campaign of feeble underachievement.

The fans have most certainly seen this movie before.

Given the enormous size of that task – and with Champions League qualifiers now only one month away – there is a familiar sense of urgency and the need to reinstate a revolving door policy in and out of the car park at the club’s Auchenhowie complex.

Which is why Rangers fans cannot be blamed if they are beginning to suspect that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

They’ve been asked to take this very leap of faith too many times. Their pride has been bruised by too many painful landings.

And yet here they