How Rangers chief Andrew Cavenagh landed Derek McInnes as transfer and pre-season updates given

While the pair didn’t meet in person whilst they were both in America over the past fortnight, Cavenagh rang McInnes on the phone and was left convinced that leaving Hearts for Rangers was the right decision.

Rangers have made it clear that McInnes was the only man they wanted to replace Danny Rohl and concluded matters swiftly after convincing their prized target.

“The conversation with Andrew was really positive,” said McInnes. “He made it clear that he wanted me to be the manager, there was nobody else part of the conversation. He gave the reasons why he wanted me to be the manager, he said he would do all he could to support and to try to deliver the team that we all want.

“To be honest, a lot of the messaging was stuff that I was hoping for. I feel he's been very visible, Andrew, since he's been at the club, and trying to drive a lot and implement a lot of what's going on ... standards, making sure that we are a winning club as well as just a brilliant football club.

“I want to be a brilliant Rangers manager. I can only do that if I'm lifting trophies, and I want my players to really enjoy being here as well, because I know what the club can give us. I think the board see that as well, they've invested already a significant amount of money and a significant amount of time to put into it, but everybody wants to be rewarded by silverware and success, and that's what we're all jointly trying to achieve.”

McCrorie comes in - more to follow

Part of that will be bringing in new players. Scotland internationalist Ross McCrorie joined from Bristol City on Thursday and McInnes is working on more to follow.

“Over the last week or so, there's been a lot of Zoom calls - even when I was on holiday - and really just seeing where everybody's at in the squad,” explained McInnes. “Anticipation of players maybe moving, and all these conversations. So I think what's been clear is we've tried to get a framework in place of what the squad needs to look like in terms of numbers and in terms of positions, and then just slowly but surely adding the names to that.

“There's a number of good conversations going on at the minute with a lot of players, a few players, and I've never been a manager that gets everything they want, so I don't expect to get everything that we want. But hopefully we can get a few of the players in that we've identified.”

McInnes is also fine-tuning his pre-season plans and inherited an already arranged trip to Austria, as well as a friendly against West Ham at Ibrox on July 26.

“Nothing's been confirmed on that,” added McInnes on pre-season. “We’ve got a structure in place now, we've been liaising with the club over the last week, so we've got dates in mind to tick boxes of our games. We're looking at one or two different options potentially, but we've not ruled out going to Austria yet at the minute.

“We've got a couple of closed-door games already booked in, and we've got the West Ham fixture at Ibrox, we think that'll probably be the only game at Ibrox before we play Dundee United [in the opening league match].”