Smith urges King to go on spending spree to stop Celtic
Smith was appointed as a non executive director by Charles Green in 2012 to promote a share issue and took up the post of chairman when Malky Murray walked away from the job.
With Sevco running at an annual loss in excess of £10m a year seeing the season out without going into administration looks like being a major achievement with the generosity of Mike Ashley no longer on call.
Mr King has been on a PR drive to sell 45,000 season tickets but with just over 30,000 gullible fans handing over their cash projections for the new season are already well short of expectations.
Smith enjoyed the benefit of a no questions asked overdraft from Bank of Scotland during his first stint as manager before going on an incredible spending spree second time around with the money saved from paying income tax on the salaries of his EBT Allstars.
“The expectation is sometimes unrealistically high at Rangers but that’s the club and that’s what everyone from the board to the manager and the players has to handle,” the former Everton boss said
“If Rangers can get back to the Premiership, like it or not there will be an expectation to finish as high as possible and I would say that would mean a top three or four finish.
“The Premiership has missed Rangers and when they come back the fans will be saying ‘we’ve four games against Celtic now and we need to equip ourselves well.’
“Celtic are always the yardstick, that’s no disrespect to any of the other clubs, but Rangers will have to try to match that yardstick. A sensible person will say they’d need a year to bed in but I’m afraid it doesn’t always work like that. If Rangers do go up, a top four finish will be the expectation in the Premiership.”
Despite losing out to Kaunas in a Champions League qualifier in 2008 and losing out on a season of European football Smith spent £17m on Maurice Edu, Madjid Bougherra, Steve Davis, Kenny Miller, Kyle Lafferty, Andrius Velicka and Pedro Mendes.
In the summer of 2010, with the wee tax case bill of £6m outstanding for Tore Andre Flo and Ronald de Boer, Smith spent £5.5m on Nikica Jelovic and James Beattie. Within a year of Smith stepping down as manager Rangers were placed in administration followed by liquidation in June 2012.