Michael Beale on the 'undervalued qualities' he's brought to Rangers

It must be good to have the players back together again? 

Yeah, you sort of have the first week that you enjoy on holiday and then you're busy thinking about coming back. It's been a really busy summer. The recruitment team and the football board have been working really hard on bringing some new players in and finalizing things and we're delighted that we're coming back into the building with some new faces. They'll bring energy, quality and motivation. It's great to see the lads. Footballers almost have two New Year's resolutions as you like. They have the one before the start of a new season and obviously, the one everybody has at New Year. So everybody comes in optimistic. The boys look good, a lot of them have got a little bit of colour on their skin as well so they look bright and they've all come back in good shape which is fantastic and with the fixtures coming out today, it becomes very real and very exciting.  

You obviously mentioned that there have been five signings over the summer period. Kieran Dowell was the first one. Can you just tell us a bit about him?  

I'm really excited about Kieran signing. He's a player that's played extensively through the England schoolboy system up until the Under-21s. He was a boy when I was at Liverpool was across the way at Everton. A left-footer who can play in midfield, at no.10, can score goals and is a good passer of the ball. He's played with Tom Lawrence, John Lundstram, Todd Cantwell and Dujon Sterling in the past. So there was a good fit for some of the players that we have in the building. I really like him as a boy. We live quite close together. We both lived in Liverpool where I lived in the North West (of the city) and I'm just delighted that we managed to get him. I think it was an excellent opportunity for both Kieran and Rangers. 

Jack Butland, of course, has joined the goalkeepers too. He must bring great experience? 

Jack's got fantastic experience as a young goalkeeper, just turned 30. He’s very much a family man and has three children like myself. We have a lot in common off the pitch. As a player, I think he had a huge start to his career. He's been around the elite level for a long time. He's just come out of a Man United changing room that did well last season and played in two cup finals and the experience of that and being around Europe and those players is valuable. He's very much a mature man and speaks very well. He's very commanding, 6ft5 and it's important that we recruited him. He'll compete with Robbie and with John and Kieran for the jersey. I wanted to add competition. And obviously, with Alan moving on, it's a significant position for us to strengthen and we're delighted to have him. 

Dujon Sterling came through the Academy at Chelsea. What do you hope he can bring to the squad here? 

He is an aggressive defender, a very athletic, strong boy. I've known him since he was seven years old when we recruited him for Chelsea. I was there the very first night that he came in. I followed his career. He was doing fantastically well at Chelsea and had a period out of the game with an illness which held him back. But he's come back the last two years and done extremely well on loans. It was an opportunity to take a player that I knew very well, and I know his skill set and what he will bring to us. He can play across the back four. He can play as a wing-back, full-back can play in the back three as a centre-back as well. I'm delighted to have him. 

What about Sam Lammers? 

Well, I know Sam really, really well from being an Academy coach and playing against PSV teams coming through. He's a boy that we try to recruit at Rangers previously and we weren’t able to afford him at the time. He went for a big money to Serie A. He’s moved about a bit in the last couple of years and hasn't found a home. He has a home now. He's a no.10 that brings so much versatility to our game. He's another left-footer like Kieran, so he gives us fantastic balance in those positions as well, which we lost when we lost Joe Aribo. He's a really good presence. He's a goal threat and again he's someone that comes in from Italy, he's played in the Bundesliga, been an under-21 international. It was an opportunity that meant I was really excited to bring him to Rangers and work closely with him. 

And the latest signing Abdullah Sima? 

We're all familiar with Abdullah from the games in the Europa League back in the 20/20/21 season. He was a young boy then who took Europe by storm a little bit with his performances in the Europa League against us, scoring against Leicester and doing ever so well against Arsenal as well. Again, he's extremely versatile. He can play as a no.9 or 10. He can play wide on both sides and just turned 22. I think Brighton was very shrewd in signing him because he's a player with a high potential. What he needs now is some stability and I think we'll give that to him. Again, he was a player that when I came back in November, I was watching closely in the French division. He was playing for a team that was fighting at the bottom of the league, but he scored some really important goals against Lyon and Marseille and I like him a lot. He gives us a presence that we've not had in those positions. He’s very quick, he can dribble. He's obviously a big boy as well. 

How do you assess where the squad is at the moment in terms of personnel? 

I always think natural enthusiasm, motivation, energy are really undervalued qualities in the football club and just speaking to these boys and their families over the summer, the excitement that they have to come and join Rangers is huge. It's a very special moment for them. I think that energy and the quality they are bringing into the building, that motivation is fantastic. I think for the fans, there's some new faces they can get to know and support and I think it just brings a real freshness into the building. I felt that from November down, certainly our league form, in terms of points was healthy. But I think everybody felt we wanted some new faces to bring freshness into the building. We've got that. I'm pleased to say. It's not going to stop there. There are maybe two or three more that we're also looking to recruit over the summer. There'll still be maybe one or two that move out, so what I'm looking for is, is real energy, real excitement, real freshness, real motivation to match mine and I think then if that matches what me and the staff and the fans join as well, then we've got exciting times ahead. 

And in terms of preseason, what will these early stages look like for the players? 

Testing today, so the first couple of days they'll be the normal medical testing and just running tests to get some idea of their heart response and back up the training data we've given them over the summer. Each day that passes, more international players will return. Nico Raskin was the player that played the latest, so he'll have a couple more weeks and will join us after Germany. Everybody else will come back over the coming days and it will be about helping the young players and the new players because it's a blend. For the new players coming in, it'll be about giving them clarity on our style and then glueing all that with the ones that have been here for a while. So we'll be working very quickly on how we play, our style, our identity. It's important that the players are in tune with that as much as they are getting fit. I will be trying to give the players a lot of clarity and also spending a lot of time with the new players to help them integrate and the young players, because there's a number of young players that will be training with the first team also. 

You touched on the excitement then it must be an exciting time and for the coaching staff as well? 

Well, what people didn't see is (this work has been going on) as far back as March. I mean, Neil flew to meet San Lammers and then me and Damian flew to meet some players in Italy as well. And I've been all over with different staff and John Park, to meet these players, to speak to their clubs, to recruit them, to speak to their agents, their families. It goes all the way to Katie Lamont and Hannah McLean in terms of the work they do. Finding housing and integrating the players into the club. So for everybody, there's been a lot of work in bringing the new players in. Naturally, it's exciting in the coming days that they're here. Last night we took a meal with the five new signings with the coaching staff just to break the ice and introduce them to everybody. So for us, we've been waiting for this. We've been waiting for a clean slate. We didn't join the club in a position where the club was in a fantastic place in the league and results-wise. So it's a great chance now with the fixtures coming out today to look forward with optimism and to build the team that we really want to see. 

And it is obviously around five weeks until the start of the Scottish Premiership season and then Champions League qualifiers quickly after that, how important is this period? 

So important as I say, we'll have a week's training here to assess everybody and then we'll pick a squad to go away. We'll close the doors around the squad and pick a squad to go away to Germany to work in isolation. It's important we have that time in private to really work and bond. Bring the squad together. It’s a new venue that we're going to and very remote so that we can just focus on the football and then we’ve got some fantastic preseason games to come back to. An exciting one is obviously Alan McGregor's testimonial which will be a special night for him, but also the new players as it’s their first time at Ibrox against a real quality Premier League and Champions League team in Newcastle. And then from that moment, we'll be racing towards the season.