Rangers’ Kevin Thelwell is not Mr Popular but Ibrox announcement might cut him some slack | OneFootball

For all that most/all Rangers fans cannot stand Kevin Thelwell, and understandably so, the Sporting Director might be feeling a little smug right now.

Rangers’ recently announced all the squad members away on international duty, and Ibrox Noise noted it was one of the highest numbers we’ve ever had.

Announcements

Three Scots in John Souttar, Liam Kelly and Connor Barron. Norway’s Thelo Aasgaard, Finland’s Oliver Antman and Albania’s Nedim Bajrami.

Then there’s Burkina Faso’s Nasser Djiga, Canada’s Derek Cornelius, England’s Jayden Meghoma, and of course Belgium’s Nico Raskin.

Add Macedonia’s Bojan Miovski, England’s Mikey Moore, and Portugal’s Youssef Chermiti as well as one or two youths and loanees…

That’s 13 players away on international duty for their countries whether at senior or U21 level.

Ibrox Noise was always on record as saying we measured the quality of our squad in part by the number of active internationalists it had.

And that 8 of those players were Thelwell additions gives the much-maligned Rangers chief a bit of slack.

Slack?

Does 13 players playing for their country fix everything in Govan? No, of course not.

How they play at Ibrox for the Famous is what matters.

But back in the day Rangers had effectively no internationalists at all, and the team was dire tripe.

We still consider this a poor squad, but it’s also hard to argue with the call ups and players in question when they’re on duty for their countries.

And some of these are strong. Portugal U21s, England’s and Belgium’s NT are pretty credible. Sure, the Albanias and Finlands aren’t so major but we made a big enough deal of Glen Kamara back in the day.

So yes, the squad that Thelwell has heavily influenced is internationally credible. That’s despite the fact that Rangers fans cannot stand Kevin Thelwell.

If results on the pitch match that he will definitely lose a lot of the criticism he’s been receiving.