Walter Smith has admitted that Sevco need more cash to finish second behind Celtic.
The former Rangers (IL) manager enjoyed the best of times at Ibrox when David Murray was able to fund success through his special relationship with the Bank of Scotland and illegal tax schemes.
Mark Warburton doesn’t have those options with only ever deepening soft loans from directors keeping the club afloat.
Up against full-time opponents Sevco have found life in the top flight increasingly difficult with a 3-0 win over Kilmarnock the highlight of the season.
Back-to-back defeats from Celtic have brought a sobering dose of reality to many supporters as the club’s #goingfor55 slogan looks more and more foolish.
Former club chairman Smith is a regular guest in the Ibrox directors box and admits that the realities of 2016 aren’t easy to cope with.
“It’s difficult to say where I expected them to be at this stage,” he said. “I think they’ll be disappointed with the number of draws that they’ve had at home especially.
“If they had won more of those it would have lifted them up a bit and put them into second position but I thought there was always going to be a settling-in period and that it wouldn’t be as easy as a number of people had maybe thought. The strides forward have maybe not come as quickly as they would have hoped.”
Turning to a favoured topic Smith added: “There’s no doubt that the team needs investment but the previous circumstances that the new board have taken over mean it might take a bit of time to recover.
“Rangers need investment if they are to challenge Celtic, you can’t hide away from that, but it’s a difficult period to try to satisfy both the financial and the football aspects.
“The majority of fans are realistic as well. They take in the problems the club have got. In the first season back I’d have been very surprised if you got a circumstance where the team came in and put in a challenge to Celtic right away.
“Realistically I couldn’t see that happening without a higher level of investment which was always going to be difficult to achieve.”
In August 2013 Smith stepped down from his role as chairman of Sevco having provided reassurance to fans as they bought season tickets.
