Rangers' new owners warned over manager appointment they must 'be wary of' as risk factor explained

That is according to former chairman Dave King who has stressed that the demands of managing the Ibrox club can be a challenge for an outsider to come to terms with.

Rangers are entering a new era under the ownership of a US-consortium headed up by private healthcare tycoon Andrew Cavenagh and 49ers Enterprises, the investment arm of the San Francisco 49ers, after King and other major Rangers shareholders agreed to sell their stake in the club.

Sporting director Kevin Thelwell has confirmed that a new manager will be appointed in the “coming days” with Davide Ancelotti and Russell Martin understood to be the two leading candidates, while Francesco Farioli, the recently departed Ajax head coach, is also believed to be in the running.

Ancelotti is seeking his first head coach position after serving as assistant to his father, Carlo Ancelotti, most recently at Real Madrid, and previously at Everton, Napoli and Bayern Munich. Martin, meanwhile, is looking to get back into management after being sacked by Southampton last season, having won promotion to the Premier League the previous year. The former Scotland defender spent six months on loan at Rangers in 2018.

King previously threw his weight behind a return for Steven Gerrard, saying he was the "obvious" choice, before the man who brought title number 55 to Ibrox was ruled out of the running due to family commitments. After the failed Philippe Clement tenure, King feels that another foreign appointment would be a risk for the Ibrox club, although he backed the new owners to "manage" the risk should they decide to go down that route.

Speaking to Sky Sports, he said: "If I look at who is available for the club, I think it's quite a challenge for them because when you're bringing in a new manager I refer to the Glasgow environment.

"Some people think that's a little bit unfair but certainly in my experience, Mark Warburton and others all thought they got the Glasgow thing. But until you get to Glasgow you don't get the Glasgow thing. Even someone like Steven (Gerrard) who came from Liverpool where you think is closer to the Glasgow thing.

"Once you come in and you're managing one of the two big clubs in Glasgow, you can try and think you understand it and you can speak to people who have been there before, but until you actually get in there you don't really get it.

"So I think that's the factor that I would be wary of and I think the 49ers will consider about bringing in a European manager that's got no experience of Scottish football at all. That's going to go from Champions League qualifiers to going off to the north of Scotland on a drab, wet, windy, horrible Wednesday evening and try to motivate your players and get results out of them.

"But I do think the new owners understand the challenges. They know it's a risky appointment and I think they'll manage the risk as best they can."