Andy Halliday spells out the size of the massive rebuild facing Micky Beale

Andy Halliday is expecting nine or 10 players to arrive at Ibrox in the summer!

Micky Beale spoke at Hampden of a revamp rather than rebuild but the reality is that he is facing a very similar situation to the one that Ange Postecoglou inherited in the summer of 2021.

Seven contracts will expire at the end of this season with loan stars James Sands and Malik Tillman likely to be thanked for their services and wished all the best in their future careers.

All the talk of signing Tillman overlooks the fact that two more midfielders were signed in January with a contract extension given to Ianis Hagi.

Steve Davis, Scot Arfield and Ryan Jack almost certainly won’t be offered new deals but that still leaves John Lundstram, Glen Kamara, Tom Lawrence and Alex Lowry cluttering up the payroll.

Halliday plays for Hearts but has developed a lucrative media career where matters at Tynecastle are rarely discussed, not even the 0-7 aggregate scores in two matches against the Ibrox club this season.

Watching his appearance on Open Goal, The Sun reports Halliday saying:

He said: “I think in the summer, genuinely, Rangers will sign nine or 10 players.”

That would count as a huge squad re-build with nine players recruited in this season’s summer and winter windows COMBINED.

But Halliday believes it is necessary – and that the club need to back their boss over the summer sculpting and future strengthening.

Asked on Open Goal podcast if the recent style was how he thought a Michael Beale-led Rangers team would play, Halliday added: “It’s hard to say. I think I’d say no because I don’t think they’ve played well in a lot of games.

“There have been a couple of games where they’ve been good but I don’t think they’ve had that 90 minute performance outwith Tynecastle so I’d say no in that respect.

“Short-term you can talk about the difference in squads [with Celtic] but you need to win finals and it doesn’t matter how you play, it’s whoever gets the trophy at the end of it.

“In the long-term which I think is the most important thing for Rangers to focus on right now because the league is away.

“For me the Scottish Cup is the only thing they are playing for now but he needs windows and he needs to be backed by the board – whether that happens I’m not sure – and then he has to make a decision on the nine out of contract in the summer.”

With so many on expiring deals, and a similar influx of players predicted, Halliday clearly sees a massive turnaround in store on Edmiston Drive.

Scott Wright and Kemar Roofe are still under contract for next season as are John Souttar, Rabbi Matondo and Ridvan Yilmaz. So far Beale has only sweet talked Hagi and Leon King into signing contract extensions.