Derek Johnstone: Rangers chairman Dave King must go softly, softly over Mike Ashley crunch talks

And King’s most important meeting during the coming days will undoubtedly be with the representatives of Sports Direct.

The major Gers shareholder will attempt to renegotiate the terms of a key contract with Mike Ashley’s company.

Dave mentioned in an interview with Sky Sports this week that fans are going to have to spend more if they want Rangers to become the leading club in the country.

“If we can’t get the Rangers supporters back to outspending the Celtic supporters we will be the second biggest club in Scotland,” he said.

But I am struggling to see how fans of the Ibrox club can do that – as things stand at the moment.

They have bought season tickets in their tens of thousands again this summer. A huge number of them have also bought shares in the club.

The only other way they can plough money into the club is to support the retail side of the business.

But they’re not going to do that if so much of their hard-earned dosh is, as is the case just now, going to Mike Ashley’s company.

Ashley, the billionaire Newcastle United owner, Sports Direct supremo and Rangers shareholder, doesn’t have to budge an inch on the deal.

It was a brilliant bit of business as far as Ashley is concerned. It was too good for him to turn down. He grabbed it with both hands.

The Newcastle fans have been slaughtering him for years – and it hasn’t made much of an impact, if any, on how he runs the St James’ Park club.

But Dave King remains adamant that he can talk to him and renegotiate the existing deal so that it becomes more favourable for Rangers.

The only way supporters are going to go back into Sports Direct stores in large numbers is if they feel their club is getting something out of it.

Something has to be done. Rangers fans have to know the Ibrox club is getting a fair return from the money they spend.

The Rangers fans have dug deep for the last four years. There is only so much more they can do. Hopefully an agreement can be reached.

Across the city, Celtic are in a completely different position. They are going to win the Ladbrokes Premiership this year. It is a one-horse race.

They sell 35,000 or 40,000 season books – and charge their fans a lot more money than their age-old rivals do, too. Their fans are also going into the club stores in their droves and buying strips and official merchandise.

So it is very, very hard for Rangers to compete. That is why they need private investors to come in and put money in. There is only so much the fans can do.

Ashley could turn around and say: “No, we’re quite happy with the status quo, I don’t care if nobody buys the merchandise.” That will be hard for Rangers to take.

But I do think it could be in the interest of both parties if an agreement they were both happy with could be reached and the contracts changed.

Dave King will have to go in with a diplomatic approach. He can’t start shouting and screaming and banging tables. The negotiations have to be amicable and professional.

He needs to explain how changing the deal could result in tens of thousands of supporters going into Sports Direct stores and spending money.

Regardless of the make-up of the contract, that could be attractive and appealing to the English businessman.

Mike Ashley’s profits went up again last year. His business continues to do really well. He doesn’t speak to anybody. Why? He doesn’t have to. He can pretty much do whatever he likes.

But that has to change. I would think the more goodwill he can generate among the general public just now the better.

Now is the time to splash the cash to get Allan on board

RANGERS have to bid higher if they are serious about bringing Scott Allan of Hibs to Ibrox before the close of the transfer window.

They have, not surprisingly, had bids of £175,000 and £250,000 rejected for the Championship Player of the Year, who is now reported to have tabled a transfer request to the Easter Road club.

Gers officials were probably quite right to start off their attempts to bring the 23-year-old, who is out of contract at the end of the season, by tabling a low offer.

But if they really want to get the player, if they think he can make a big difference to their prospects of winning the second-tier title and promotion, they have to up it again.

Hibs can’t be sure, even with Allan at their disposal, that they will win the Championship or go up via the Premiership play-offs.

The player can leave Easter Road for nothing at the end of the 2015/16 campaign and is allowed to a sign a pre-contract agreement with a rival club from January.

So what do HIbs do? Like all Scottish clubs, they need money. They may be tempted to sell an individual they got for free and make a tidy profit rather than lose him for nothing.

Having said that, if they were to sell him to Rangers, they would be making one of their main rivals stronger and increasing the Ibrox club’s prospects of doing well.

But will the lad be happy and give his absolute all this season knowing that the club he wants to play for wants to buy him? There is much for Hibs to mull over.

However, if Mark Warburton wants him – and I personally think he could be doing with another quality central midfielder – he really has to get Rangers to up their offer.

Allan is a Rangers fan and I am told he would jump at the chance to join the club he grew up supporting as a boy. He could be a huge star at Ibrox.

What is more, if he does well, then Rangers could sell him on for far more money in two or three years. He has residual value.

It is well worth paying several thousand pounds now for someone they could offload, if he is of a mind to leave, for several million in the future.

I have said this in my column before, Rangers have to copy the Celtic signing policy to flourish on and off the park. It looks to me like they are doing that.

The Parkhead club have brought in good, young players for reasonable fees. Getting Stuart Armstrong, Nadir Ciftci and Gary Mackay-Steven from Dundee United for the money they paid was good business.

They are all in their early twenties. That is the right time to get these lads. Scott Allan is the same age and would be a shrewd acquisition, too.

Blues need a bit of height going forward

I ENJOYED seeing the new Rangers team which Mark Warburton has assembled in the pre-season friendly against Burnley at Ibrox on Tuesday night.

You could see a real difference in the Rangers side. There was a freshness there which has definitely been lacking in the last season or two.

The goalkeeper, Wes Foderingham, tried to pass the ball out to his full-backs or his centre-backs as often as he could.

I sensed the Rangers fans liked that approach, even though the home team lost 1-0 after conceding a goal to Scott Arfield in the second half.

But the supporters stayed to the final whistle and applauded the team off the park. You don’t see that very often at Ibrox after a defeat.

But I don’t think Rangers will be playing a team of Burnley’s quality every week in the Ladbrokes Championship, or even in the cup competitions, this season.

It is early days – the match against Sean Dyche’s side was just the third pre-season friendly – but already you can see the foundations which Warburton is laying down.

They aren’t there yet. It will take a few more months, and possibly a few more signings, too, for them to bed in and come really good.

But I was certainly impressed with James Tavernier at right-back. I like players in that position to get forward and he certainly does that.

Martyn Waghorn up front should have scored twice. He had a couple of great chances and didn’t take them, but the important thing was he got himself in the position to net. The goals will come for him.

I thought Andy Halliday looked a really good player as well. He made some good tackles, passed the ball well and rarely gave the ball away.

Jason Holt is also a good addition to the squad. I admired him when he was with Hearts. I think some real quality footballers have been brought in. Most importantly, they like to get the ball down and play.

My only worry is the lack of height up front in this Rangers squad at the moment.

Dyche was very clever on Tuesday night. He stopped Rangers from playing after they had dominated the first half hour by pushing his wide men up on to the full-backs and his strikers on to the centre-backs.

He forced the home side to kick it long. Barrie McKay, David Templeton and Waghorn aren’t the biggest. The visitors won anything that got played up to that trio fairly easily and got back into the game as a result.

I don’t see how Warburton can change things with the players he currently has at his disposal. There is no Plan B yet for me. He needs a big six-foot tall ball-winning frontman to give him another option.

There is no presence in the final third. Burnley had Lukas Jutkiewicz, the former Motherwell player, in attack. He is big and strong and he gave central defenders Rob Kiernan and Danny Wilson a really difficult evening.

Rangers need somebody like that. I think Waghorn will do well when he achieves full fitness, but I don’t think he is a target man. I see him being most effective playing just in behind a lone striker.

I was speaking to Alan Stubbs at the match. The Hibs boss will have seen exactly what the Burnley manager did to counteract the threat Rangers posed going forward.

He will be prepared for the Petrofac Training Cup first-round match against Rangers at Easter Road tomorrow.

I am in no doubt Stubbs will do the same thing – close Rangers down and make them kick the ball long.

Having said that, Mark will have seen what happened in midweek and will be prepared for the same thing again.

But the lack of height in attack is my only worry.

Your question for Derek Johnstone

JEFF KERR from Ayr asked DJ: “Should Ally MacLeod be inducted into the Scottish Football Hall of Fame?”

Derek said: “No, I don’t think Ally should be in the Hall of Fame.

“Before we went to the World Cup finals in Argentina in 1978 the Scotland manager was THE man.

“He could have been voted as the president of Scotland at that time. He talked us up.

“But Scotland ended up being the laughing stock of that World Cup, so I don’t think you can reward somebody for failure.

“The players were every bit as much to blame, but I don’t think he should be in the Hall of Fame due to how poor we were in South America.

“Ally went on to do a great job at Ayr United, but I don’t think you can get in on the back of his achievements at Somerset Park either.”

If you have a question for DJ, just email him on dj@eveningtimes.co.uk and we’ll print the answer alongside the question.