THE leading business consultant who got an alarming first hand insight into how dysfunctional Rangers had become before the current regime seized control last night praised Ibrox directors for taking time to appoint a new manager.

It has been three weeks exactly since Pedro Caixinha was sacked following a bitterly disappointing start to the season and many supporters are growing increasingly concerned by the failure to bring in a replacement.

A host of high-profile candidates, including Sam Allardyce, Frank de Boer, Steve McLaren, Alan Pardew, Gus Poyet and Giovanni van Bronkhorst, have been linked with the vacancy since Caxinha departed last month.

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Derek McInnes, the former Rangers player who has led Aberdeen to three consecutive second placed finishes in the Ladbrokes Premiership in past four seasons, remains the overriding favourite to take over.

However, Nick Watkins, whose Q4 Management company advises major sporting organisations on leadership and strategy, believes it is hugely important to their future success that they refuse to be rushed into an appointment.

“Managers are normally fired on a Saturday night and a new one is appointed on a Monday morning,” he said. “No thought is given to the appointment and the process. But the manager is a hugely high-profile appointment. It is an appointment that every fan gets excited about or disappointed about depending on who comes in.

“Often these decisions are panic decisions. Whenever a manager gets fired the vultures are very quickly flying over the carcass. All the CVs of the out of work managers come flooding in. The same old names, the Sam Allardyces, the Davie Moyses, get bicycled around. The chairman may decide to go with a safe pair of hands. There is always this panic to get somebody in quickly.”

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Watkins added: “I would hope that because of the delay in making the appointment, they are being considered in who they are going to bring in. What is important is these situations is the vision of the club, its strategy, its core objectives, what it wants to achieve.

“They have to identify who is best placed to steer the club to its strategy destination. What you don’t want is a knee jerk reaction and somebody being appointed who they then find the wrong person, who is the wrong cultural fit, whose style of management is not right for the club. They have to ask how the players will respond to this particular appointment.

“If they are taking an extra week to think about it suggests they have not been romanced by some of the names who are linked with the position. They have to ask if a manager’s ambitions fits with that of the club and the board. Is he a person who the players and fans can relate to?”

Watkins, the former chief executive of English League Two club Swindon Town, worked with Rangers during a time they were blighted by serious off-field unrest and got an eye-opening glimpse into the mess they were in.

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He was involved in the appointment of Graham Wallace as Ibrox chief executive back in 2013 – but he quickly identified the former Manchester City chief operating officer was inheriting an “impossible situation”.

“I had contact with Rangers when they were going through all that shenanigans with the Easdale brothers,” he said. “Ally McCoist was there as manager. The Easdales were running the club. David Somers was the chairman. They were looking for a chief executive or chief operating officer. Graham Wallace went in.

“They did the interviewing down in London. I was asked to help them do the assessment of the four shortlist candidates that they had and to attend the interviews. I am the chairman of the Executives in Sport Group recruitment consultancy and it was in that role that I was asked to do the Rangers assignment.

“There was a lot of negative press around the whole situation at Rangers at the time. Finances were stretched. They were playing in League One. They had an expensive squad who would go out on a Saturday and play part-time teams full of butchers and plumbers. Ally was on a huge salary.

“Mike Ashley had a nine per cent stake in the club and there was the whole business with shirt sales and what he was earning from the club. To be honest, it just seemed an impossible situation. As they say in Australia, it was a mad woman’s breakfast. It must have been an incredibly difficult time.

Read more: A knee-jerk managerial appointment could cost cash-strapped Rangers dear - the Ibrox club MUST get the right man in

“Rangers at the time was a publicly quoted company on the AIM market. Their nomad was Daniel Stewart. They knew David Somers from their work in the investment world. That is how he appeared. He had had a successful business career.

“But goodness knows what made him want to go and pick up that poisoned chalice. For a man who was living in East Anglia somewhere to go up to Scotland and deal with the challenges of Rangers was a gargantuan task.

“Being in charge at Swindon after it came out of administration was a bugger’s muddle, but dealing with Rangers and all of the personalities involved at that time must have been an impossible task. I think the good Lord would have struggled.”

A group of Rangers supporters fronted by South Africa-based businessman Dave King seized control in 2015 and has worked hard to address historical issues and put the club on a more sound financial footing since.

Watkins believes bringing in the correct manager after the tenures of Ally McCoist, Stuart McCall, Mark Warburton and Caixinha all ended in disappointment is a vital part of that process.

“The managerial casualties in football are too high,” he said. “If 33 per cent of the FTSE 100 companies were sacked within a year of their appointment the economy would be a poor state

The culture of the club dictates to a large degree, has such an influence, in how the club operates and what is expected. The club must understand if there is a cultural fit between the club and the manager as well as a strategy fit.

“If this delay is because they are quietly working away behind the scenes and doing all of the due diligence and not because of inertia then that is no bad thing. Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet, as Aristotle said.”