Rangers manager Michael Beale says good riddance to poor season ahead of rebuild

Rangers manager Michael Beale has admitted he’ll be glad to get to the end of the season but is looking forward to a title challenge next year.

Beale and his players travel to Paisley on Saturday to face St Mirren with nothing at stake for either side in terms of league position. The Rangers boss wants a strong performance to sign off for the season but will be happy to be turn attention to a fresh start in the summer.

“This season is done after tomorrow,” Beale said. “Good riddance to this season and we will come back next season and we will give it a right good go.

“I’ve been looking to the summer for the past few weeks, to be honest, so we’ll get this game out the way in the right way, and then a very short break before back to work.

“I am really excited about pre-season. It is not the easiest thing to do, come into a club in the middle of the season when part of the season has been written. I am glad the summer is upon us.”

The break will be an opportunity to revamp the squad, with five senior players having already said goodbye to the fans and more expected to exit Ibrox.

Kieran Dowell has been announced as the first summer signing and Beale says there are three or four other deals close to completion.

The manager has already stated his intention to do business early ahead of Champions League qualifying and is eagerly anticipating a new campaign. Having taken over from Giovanni van Bronckhorst during the World Cup break, he will get a chance to put his own mark on the squad.

He said: “I am relishing everything being re-set and giving ourselves an opportunity to have a really strong pre-season, some new players coming in, bringing new energy and enable me to really fully imprint my ideas on the team.

“I am looking forward to a full pre-season, everything being re-set, the league being re-set to zero, and a lot of optimism around what we can achieve.”

With Rangers going through the season without a trophy, a challenge for domestic silverware is demanded next year and asked if he was confident the team could overhaul Celtic for the big prizes, Beale was positive.

“I am,” he said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be sat here.

“My excitement for this summer is because I see the work we are doing in the background.

“We are very close to what I want and if I get that in I will be very pleased and we will have a very strong pre-season, implement some new things and we will come out of it a much stronger team.

“I think the team will be in an immensely much better place than the team I inherited for sure, because it was different to the team I had left a year before.”