By Doug Ward

16th Mar, 2023 | 5:10pm

Rangers replacement for Ross Wilson sat right under his nose as Ibrox chief faces fresh protests

Ross Wilson’s time as Rangers’ sporting director has been long over and with fresh protests aimed at the transfer chief, it’s time for Douglas Park and co to cut him loose.

Wilson’s been Rangers’ sporting director since October 2019 when he left Southampton to take up the role at Ibrox.

However, Wilson’s time in Govan has been fraught with major issues.

Sure, he helped the Gers win their 55th Scottish league title in 2020/21 and reach the Europa League final a year later by signing the likes of Ianis Hagi, Leon Balogun, Calvin Bassey, Kemar Roofe and John Lundstram.

However, for every good signing Wilson has overseen, he’s endured multiple shockers on Edmiston Drive.

In his first January transfer window in 2019/20, Wilson oversaw the loan signings of Hagi, who later joined permanently and turned into a good signing – and also Florian Kamberi, who joined from Hibs.

In the title-winning season, Wilson still signed Cedric Itten, Bongani Zungu, Jack Simpson and Scott Wright.

In 2021/22, Wilson signed Nnamdi Ofoborh, Fashion Sakala, Juninho Bacuna, James Sands, Amad Diallo and Aaron Ramsey.

You can start to see how it all starts going downhill, can’t you?

This season is probably the worst though with the ex-Southampton transfer chief overseeing deals for John Souttar, Tom Lawrence, Rabbi Matondo and Ridvan Yilmaz.

Sure, Wilson did well to get the fees he did for Calvin Bassey and Joe Aribo last summer – but what about Ryan Kent and Alfredo Morelos being set to leave on frees this summer?

And what about the goalkeeping situation?

What about the millions wasted on vanity projects like Ramsey or signing new left-backs who Giovanni van Bronckhorst doesn’t even want to play.

And worst of all, even though Michael Beale has done a decent job since coming in during November, hiring your old pal to come back to Ibrox as the first-team manager is a very lazy appointment.

Wilson has a major issue with moving forward, it seems.

Kent and Morelos weren’t sold when they should have been, our last two managerial appointments have been for men who were previously at the club at some point and old players like Allan McGregor have been handed new contracts.

And while all of this has been happening, Celtic have introduced some fresh ideas and they’ve pulled well ahead of us again.

Wilson failed – the director of failure.

Luckily, a replacement could already be at Ibrox in John Park.

Park, 65, has been linked with a similar role at Hibernian [Scottish Sun] so it’s definitely something the current Rangers scout has the ability to do.

Wilson hired Park, sure. But this is a man who brought in the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Victor Wanyama, Fraser Forster, Stuart Armstrong and Moussa Dembele at Celtic as they went on their nine-in-a-row title spree.

At Blackburn, Park helped build Blackburn into the Championship play-off contender they are currently.

Park already has the know-how at Ibrox. But it just seems as though he has more know-how than the man who’s currently above him in the hierarchy.

Wilson hired someone who’s better than him at his own job to work underneath him and that should be something that’s very clear to the Ibrox board.

In other Rangers news, the club has been told to make a move for a 40-goal player.