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00:00Rangers, obviously very much out of the title race. They've got the Europa League left to
00:05try and salvage some silverware from this season. In terms of Rangers, they're at Dundee
00:11this weekend, but obviously bigger matters going on behind the scenes is where we're
00:15all very much aware of. The latest surrounding the San Francisco 49ers takeover deal with
00:23the club. As things stand, that's obviously been a process that's ongoing for the last
00:29couple of weeks. What can you update us on, Ben, around that at this moment in time?
00:37By the looks of it, it seems as if we're heading towards a point where it's near and done.
00:43We've seen Andrew Kavanagh at the Games in recent times. Just recently, just as we've
00:52come on to record this, Les Allen, who's one of the key figures behind the deal, he's
01:01explained his role in terms of the takeover with Andrew Kavanagh and the 49ers. He's teamed
01:08up with him and it changes the game a little bit. We're starting to work with an organisation
01:13that's quite established and at the very top of the sports world, top sports in commercial
01:20relationships. It looks as if, as well as that, there's going to be an upgrade of the
01:26training base at Ockenhowey. There's already been Zurab Amiran has left his role as Rangers
01:33Head of Academy amid a review of the club that was stated before the news that 49ers
01:41were going to be coming in happened. That's ongoing and that seemingly has happened as
01:46part of that process. Last week as well, we had informed that Rangers were also in
01:51Germany for a transfer summit as part of the Transfer Room Forum. They joined a host of
01:58clubs across the world. For Scotland, I believe it was Hibs and Aberdeen who were there alongside
02:04Rangers and Celtic. Plenty going on behind the scenes at Rangers. Weirdly, probably if
02:13you're comparing it with Celtic, the league is done for both teams but they've both got
02:19different objectives. The Europa League is Rangers' primary objective, for Celtic it's
02:24the Scottish Cup. In the league, I suppose now, if you're the 49ers looking over it and you're
02:30the football people behind that coming in, you're really looking at the squad over this next two
02:34months to assess who's going to be there next season, who do we want to make permanent moves
02:40for, a.k.a. Vaclav Cerny. I suppose for Barry Ferguson, he's got two months left now to try
02:46and build on two statement victories that he's achieved and to try and put himself in the best
02:51frame possible for the manager's job that you would have to assume he would want and would
02:55take if offered. Since we last recorded it, I think it's important to touch on that, that those
03:00two victories for Barry Ferguson, he'd been written off, hadn't he, as soon as that interim
03:05announcement was made that he'd be taken charge until the end of the season. Realistically, Ben,
03:11do you think he will be under serious consideration if, for example, they were to beat Celtic in the
03:16final Old Firm after the split and say if they were to get to the Europa League semi-finals,
03:23do you think he'll be under serious consideration or do you see them going,
03:27giving the money that these are serious businessmen that Rangers are looking to forge a
03:33partnership with here, do you think they'll go for a kind of a real kind of statement big name?
03:38See, it's hard to, obviously people say, oh well, he's beat Celtic, he's progressed in Europe, but
03:45Philippe Clement also got victories over Celtic, he also progressed in Europe. I mean, he's the one
03:51that got Rangers into the top eight, so the thing Philippe Clement didn't do was games like Saturday,
03:58half five, Dundee away, they're the ones that they slipped up in, you know,
04:03Hibbs at Ibrox, they're the type of games, you know, they drew with Hibbs last time out,
04:08dropped points to Aberdeen, so their next three league games are against teams they have dropped
04:12points to and I think arguably for this squad, and I imagine this squad will look different in 12
04:18months time, but I think just getting back to winning the games you should be winning
04:22probably doesn't as much sort of fortune as those statement results. I don't think the
04:28Europa League ones factor into it too much, I think he's kind of checked that box in terms
04:33of beating Fenerbahce, I don't think people are exactly expecting Barry Ferguson to bring
04:38home that trophy, to be going back to Bilbao by the time the summer comes, so I don't think
04:44necessarily if he gets beat off athletical Bilbao, then it's like, right, he's not going to be the
04:48permanent Rangers manager, I think if he wins out domestically and wins, say there's 10 games left
04:55overall, if he wins eight, nine of them, then I think he puts himself in the reckoning,
05:01but I think outside of that, then I think it's still a big ask, I do wonder as well from his
05:05perspective whether, and obviously if you get offered the Rangers job, great, but he was at
05:11a point where it looked like he was quite happy doing punditry and doing some columns, you wonder
05:16if he manages to get Rangers into a point where there seems to be a level of progress made,
05:20whether it's a good chance for him to step away and maybe go and take a job at
05:27Scots Championship level, whether he goes back down, he had a short stint at Blackpool
05:32about a decade ago now, but does that give him the opportunity to then step back down south to
05:36sort of League 1, League 2 level, if that was the route he wanted to go down, so I think for Barry
05:42Ferguson he can't really lose, if he manages to get, if it all ends terribly from here, then
05:48he can shrug his shoulders and say, well it was already a mess before I got there, I tried to,
05:52I did the best I can, but he'll be the one who'll take all the credit if they manage to
05:57get another win against Celtic, show some level of sign that they're not going to be inconsistent
06:03in the league, and if he manages to have any sort of further progress in Europe,
06:07then he takes all the credit.