Rangers’ summer transfer window closed with a flourish rather than a whimper. As the clock ticked down toward Thursday’s 5pm deadline, Derek McInnes’s side confirmed not one but two fresh faces — completing a deal for Portland Timbers striker Kevin Kelsy and finalising a loan, with an option to buy, for Stuttgart winger Badredine Bouanani. It took the club’s summer rebuild to a remarkable 14 incomings, the kind of wholesale squad overhaul rarely seen at Ibrox in a single window. And yet, when the teamsheet for Saturday’s Scottish Premiership visit of Motherwell was released, neither name appeared in the starting XI. McInnes, speaking to Rangers TV before kick-off, took the time to explain exactly why.
Of the two, Kelsy’s absence from the XI is perhaps the more straightforward to explain, and McInnes didn’t shy away from acknowledging how late in the day his arrival had been finalised. Rangers had been chasing reinforcement up front for weeks, with the club’s number nine search taking on fresh urgency after Youssef Chermiti’s serious knee injury left the club light in attack. Kelsy’s move, at a reported £9m, was a deal that had been “dragging out” in the manager’s own words, and the club deserved credit, he felt, for getting it over the line in the circumstances.
That said, arriving on deadline day and stepping straight into a Scottish Premiership starting XI two days later was never a realistic ask. McInnes revealed he had spoken with the Venezuelan forward the previous day, and the player himself had indicated he’d feel more comfortable easing into life at Ibrox from the substitutes’ bench rather than being thrown in from the first whistle. It’s a sensible, mutual call given the whirlwind nature of his move — a switch of continent, a new league, and a squad he’d barely had time to train with before a competitive fixture arrived. McInnes left the door open for a introduction at some point during the game, and fans got their first glimpse of the striker as a second-half
Bouanani’s situation is even clearer cut. The Algerian international winger, signed on loan from Stuttgart with an option to buy reportedly worth around €18m, wasn’t involved in the squad at all for the Motherwell fixture. According to McInnes, the reason was simple fitness and preparation time rather than anything to do with ability or application: Bouanani “hasn’t had a lot of football the last few weeks” following his fall down the pecking order in Germany, where he’d been left out of Stuttgart’s registered Champions League squad before the move materialised. With that in mind, the club opted to ease him in with a lighter training session on the eve of the game rather than risk throwing him into a competitive Premiership fixture. McInnes’s stated intention is to build him up gradually — a couple of proper training days under his belt before the midweek trip to face St Mirren, with a hope that he could be involved in that game rather than against Motherwell.
It’s a sensible approach given Bouanani’s profile. Signed to add craft and directness out wide — a left-footed right winger comfortable cutting inside, in the same mould that has made him a full France youth international turned senior Algeria international — he arrives with useful pedigree, including a spell coming through the ranks at Lille where he was regarded as one of the most exciting academy products the club had produced in years. But a player short of matches and short of full fitness is of little use thrown into a physical Scottish Premiership away day, and McInnes’s caution here looks entirely justified rather than a slight on the player himself
Both explanations fit into a wider pattern that has defined Rangers’ summer. This has been an unusually busy transfer window for the Ibrox club, driven in large part by injury misfortune compounding an already ambitious rebuild — Chermiti’s ACL issue and a defensive injury crisis earlier in preseason left McInnes admitting at one stage that his side were “playing with fire” given their shortage of fit options. Fourteen summer arrivals is squad reconstruction on a scale that takes time to bed in properly, and McInnes has been consistent in stressing that quality alone isn’t enough — timing, fitness and match sharpness matter just as much when integrating that many new faces into a group already trying to find its identity and results together.
That broader challenge was still evident against Motherwell itself. With both Kelsy and Bouanani unavailable to start, Rangers instead named a forward line built around already-established faces, and it was two of those more settled names — Derek Naderi’s early opener and the return of composure at the back from Emmanuel Fernandez — that did the heavy lifting in a narrow 1-0 win. Kelsy did get his introduction from the bench, giving supporters a first look at the striker signed to solve the club’s centre-forward shortage, while Bouanani will have to wait at least until the St Mirren fixture for his own Rangers
McInnes was clear that Motherwell, unbeaten and sitting handily in the table themselves, represented a tough enough task without complicating matters by rushing two undercooked new signings into the side. With St Mirren up next in midweek — a game McInnes himself will miss having been hit with a touchline ban — and Rangers’ first Old Firm derby of the season following soon after, the pressure to get both Kelsy and Bouanani up to speed quickly is real. But on the evidence of his post-match comments, the manager appears determined not to let deadline-day urgency dictate matchday team selection, preferring instead to bring his newest recruits in on his own terms once they’re properly primed to make an impact.
