Wednesday 29 March 2017 19:54, UK
Rangers are close to confirming Pedro Caixinha’s new “local” assistant and say the Portuguese has been conducting the interviews himself.
A number of former players, including Barry Ferguson, Alex Rae, John Brown and Peter Lovenkrands are among those to have met with the Gers boss after Caixinha previously insisted on adding someone more familiar with the club to his backroom staff.
Managing director Stewart Robertson said Rangers will make an announcement shortly on the role and revealed it will be down to Caixinha to make the call after meeting with candidates.
"There has been various interviews held, there are some more still to be held and I don't want to put a time frame on that," he told Sky Sports News HQ. "But it shouldn't be too much longer before we can make an announcement on that front.
"It is important to him [Caixinha], it is something he stated in his interview that he would want to have a local person as part of his team. From that perspective we want to give him the best chance we can.
"If that is something he feels is important then we will absolutely do what we can to help him bring someone in.
"He is doing the interviews, it is absolutely his appointment. He is the guy who will be working with the successful candidate so it is important that he can build the relationship and build the trust there."
Robertson also said he is keen for Rangers to keep 15-year-old Billy Gilmour, who has already trained with the first-team, with some reports linking the midfielder with a move to the Premier League.
"Billy's got a decision to make, really. He is 15 years old, at a key stage of his career and we'd love him to stay but he has got an important decision that he needs to make so we will see what happens on that," he said.
"From the club's perspective we want to keep our best players, and that's the key thing for us, is that we do everything we can to try and retain his services."
Elsewhere, Robertson says Caixinha is still assessing his squad and admits it may still be some time before veteran duo Kenny Miller and Clint Hill, who are both out of contract this summer, find out if they will be offered new deals by Rangers.
Asked if the club had started contract talks, Robertson said: "We're not even looking at that at the minute. It's still very much about Pedro settling in. Once he gets to know the players he will start to look at things and assess things going forward.
"There is still plenty of time to go until the end of the season. We just need to let Pedro do what he is doing and things will happen from there."
Robertson reckons the new boss will take his time before altering his squad dramatically, but said feedback from the players and management team has been positive so far.
"We're delighted with how things have gone so far. The feedback from Pedro, the players and staff at the training ground has been very positive," he added.
"His approach has been very much about let's see how things work and then we will gradually make changes. It's about evolution rather than revolution. He's gradually making one or two changes but nothing radical.
"But he will be quite rightly making demands of us too. I'd be disappointed if he wasn't. But so far, so good."
