The line from Cyriel Dessers was said with a degree of jest and greeted with a sense of joviality. Yet it concerns a factor that is often overlooked by supporters as they judge the player but forget the person.

Speaking ahead of the first leg of the Champions League tie with PSV Eindhoven last month, Dessers was asked how he was settling in at Rangers. After detailing the pre-season that saw him return after injury, Dessers revealed that he still had Ikea furniture to assemble as he made himself at home off the pitch while trying to find his feet on it at Ibrox.

He referenced the search to find a property and a car and the "administration" that comes with uprooting your family to Glasgow. Having to deal with a period of flux while embarking on a pre-season campaign as part of a new squad and a new side is naturally going to take time and a toll, but it was used as an insight rather than an excuse by Dessers.

The Nigerian internationalist is not the only one going through that process, of course. Of the nine signings that Michael Beale made this summer, only Leon Balogun has experience of the city and the club as players have arrived from across England, Europe and America.

The demand from supporters is that performances are produced and results are earned straight away. That can be easier said than done, though, especially when so many component parts must be slotted in together by Michael Beale, in a football sense, and the support staff that are there to help every member of the squad focus their energy on sporting matters.

Mark Hateley and Marco Negri are two players who've experienced it, while Alex McLeish has witnessed a summer 'rebuild' even bigger than that which Beale's overseen since May. So, here's what it's like to adjust to the demands of Rangers. 

Hateley knows all too well what the summer signings are going through. He had made moves to AC Milan and Monaco before he joined Rangers in 1990 and even a striker as renowned and as proven as the Englishman needed time to find his feet after lengthy injury issues on the continent.

“It is the same wherever you go, you have always got the newness of everything that is happening around you,” he says. 

“Not every club is the same, especially when you are going from country to country, which I did going from England to Italy, Italy to Monaco and Monaco to Scotland.

READ MORE: The inside story of Rangers' summer transfer window

“The player goes first and the family normally follows and with all that you have then got living in a hotel or trying to sort a house. You are never settled until you have got your family with you and that is all part and parcel of the procedure that you have to go through.”

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Hateley scored his first Premier Division goal in a 3-1 win over Dunfermline at Ibrox. He didn’t know it then, but he was destined to become a legend and the title won that season was the first of six he would earn under the guidance of Walter Smith. The two goals that Hateley scored in the victory against Aberdeen at the end of the campaign stand amongst the most famous of his illustrious Rangers career. But he points to the Old Firm triumph in January 1991 as the moment where he really felt at home at Ibrox, the platform upon which his glorious career in blue was ultimately built.

“Some people settle quicker than others,” Hateley adds.

“That is just the way it is. Some feel that until they have got their family around them they can’t relax.

“Some people can see right past that and just concentrate on what they are doing in front of them for the next minute then the next minute then the next minute. That doesn’t worry them.

“It is all down to the individual. And, as we have always said, you need to be a special individual to cope with playing at Rangers. We have seen some great players come and fail. It is all down to the individual circumstances and how quickly you settle, especially for strikers.”

Hateley’s first months at Ibrox were not a write-off by any manner of means but they were a precursor to a heroic few seasons that saw Rangers dominate domestically and make an impression in the European arena. The partnership between Hateley and Ally McCoist was formidable and feared. When Hateley left Rangers in the aftermath of nine-in-a-row, Smith needed to source a replacement. In Negri, he found a forward that picked up where his predecessor left off in quite stunning fashion.

Negri didn’t need a period to acclimatise to Scotland or Smith’s side. He scored 23 times in his first ten league outings in a start to his Rangers career that has not been seen since.

“The most important thing is confidence,” Negri tells the Rangers Review.

 “The season before I signed for Rangers I was playing in Serie A, which at the time was the best league in the world. I knew that if I could score in Serie A then I could score in other leagues and that confidence for a striker is the best thing.

“Changing league, changing training sessions, changing city, it is not easy. I suggest that you must be ready for a big, big club like Rangers. If you play in front of 50,000 people, Ibrox can be so beautiful and so amazing, but it can also be a nightmare. You must be prepared as a footballer but also with a big personality.

READ MORE: Where are Rangers under Michael Beale after the first month of the season?

“I was a striker so when you are a striker, the best way to introduce yourself is scoring goals. If you score, everyone is clapping you and knows you in the right way.”

There is a juxtaposition between the careers of Hateley and Negri. One started slowly and became a hero, while the other set the world alight and then faded into obscurity.

Negri namechecks Ibrox idols Paul Gascoigne and Brian Laudrup as key contributors to that remarkable goal tally in the opening months of season 1997/98. And he had a plethora of personalities to help him feel part of the dressing room as he immersed himself within the Italian community in Glasgow following his arrival from Perugia.

“At that time, the team had a lot of players who had won nine-in-a-row so it was much easier to come in because there were people in the dressing room like Gough, McCall, Durrant, Goram and it was like a family,” Negri adds.

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“You were a new member of the family and thanks to them every new player had an easier life to be introduced to Scottish football and a new way of life. Every country has got different food, different weather. But if you are a footballer and you want to play around the world and for big clubs then you must adapt as soon as possible.

“The secret was Walter Smith. He was the best man-to-man manager I ever had. He was a coach, he was a big brother, he was a father. That was the secret about settling in at Rangers.”

That bond between boss and player is always imperative. Just like Beale's remit this summer in the 2004 off-season, Alex McLeish faced a substantial rebuild on the back of a season where Rangers had relinquished the SPL crown and finished empty-handed. It was a time of financial constraints and only two fees – one for Dragan Mladenovic and the other the bargain buy of Nacho Novo – were spent as McLeish strengthened the spine of his side.

Jean-Alain Boumsong was the headline acquisition from Auxerre. Marvin Andrews arrived from Livingston, Alex Rae left Wolves to sign for his boyhood heroes, Gregory Vignal joined on loan and Dado Prso’s Monaco swansong was the Champions League final defeat to Porto. Like the process that Beale has worked through this summer, McLeish knew he needed a strong strike rate in terms of his signings. Every deal is always a gamble but the risk was minimised by McLeish putting in the miles and the calls to Sir David Murray quickly followed.

“We looked back on the previous season and said that we had to absolutely, 100 per cent, get the recruitment right,” McLeish says.

“I went over to see Dado playing for Monaco against Real Madrid in the Champions League. He was terrific. I thought it was an absolute no-brainer and I phoned David.

“He was a free transfer and I knew we had to sign him. That is what I did, I wanted to see players with my own eyes. I knew who Dado Prso was and was aware of the European market, the South American market, but I wanted to see him with my own eyes. We heard through the grapevine that Dado would love to play for Rangers.”

Another handful of players were recruited in January as Thomas Buffel, Sotirios Kyrgiakos and Ronald Wattereus joined a group that were also boosted by the return of Barry Ferguson. The former Ibrox skipper encapsulated the character and quality that McLeish required. 

Coaches and scouts can recommend players based on the attributes that can be seen with their own eyes or measured with data analysis. McLeish had arguably the most important trait of all, though, as stars from different backgrounds and with different personalities were moulded into a team that would fight until the very end on Helicopter Sunday.

“It was man-management, that was my forte in the days when I was at my best and full of energy,” McLeish adds. 

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“That was the case when I joined Rangers and we had some wonderful times, like the treble season and that Helicopter Sunday season. I had the energy to bring those teams together.

READ MORE: Nicola Docherty lives her dream as Rangers skipper amid future call

“People said it wasn’t a great Rangers squad in 2004/05 and we were getting criticism. Marvin was prancing about the dressing room the last four or five weeks saying ‘Believe!’ and getting the players laughing and up for it. I knew what we had in terms of quality, but I knew what we had mentally as well.

“The treble team had world-class players in there and Martin O’Neill felt that the Celtic team was the best after the Lisbon Lions. It was quite a feat for us to beat them and it came down to getting the right players in that summer. If you look at Michael now, he needs more to come from his signings this summer.”

That is certainly the case when it comes to Dessers, a £4.5million recruit from Cremonese, Danilo and Sam Lammers, who cost £6million and £3.5million respectively this summer. These are Beale’s buys and a frustrating start to the season has raised questions over the forwards and their boss. All will be given time to make the kind of impression that is required and to repay the faith and the fees that have been invested. Not every player can, after all, make the immediate impact of Prso or Negri.

“We were in America and we had the new recruits together,” McLeish says. “I said to Dado ‘big man, you have got to sing a song for the whole squad’.

“He hesitated and went ‘Oh no! I can’t do that. Do I have to?’ And then just blasted into ‘Ohh, we’re halfway there!’ and belted out Livin’ On A Prayer. He screamed it out and the boys loved it.

“Every one of them said ‘By the way boss, you have picked the right one there’. That was before he had even kicked a ball, but we just knew that he would fit into what we were building. We had characters. We had guys like Alex, Barry coming back up the road was a real coup and made a difference.”

The standout signing from this summer has been the one that always seemed destined to handle the Rangers experience. Jack Butland leads the way when it comes to assessing those that Beale has brought on board. For the likes of Dujon Sterling, Kieran Dowell and Abdallah Sima, there is plenty of room for improvement with gametime limited to date.

The other arrival, Ecuadorian midfielder Jose Cifuentes, will be given some leeway from the support. Out of all of the new faces, it is he who has gone through the biggest change to make the move here.

The advice from Negri is the prerequisite for any Ranger - supporters will grant players more time if they are committed to the cause. Hateley, meanwhile, wants to see big characters stand up to be counted, to demand and own a jersey that can weigh heavily on the shoulders.

Fans should be cognisant of the trials and tribulations that players go through and the bigger picture must be kept in mind when snap judgements are being formed. As those who have been there and done it know, Rangers is no normal football club.

“You look at players down in the Premier League, you have got players being bought for tens and tens of millions of pounds and they are not being rushed into a team because they are not ready,” Hateley adds.

“You see it every week when teams don’t think they are ready regardless of what has been spent on them. We are not paying anywhere near that, we are not at that class of player. But you still expect them to come into the cauldron of Rangers Football Club and hit the ground running.

“That is the comparison. You have got very, very good players that have cost a lot of money being allowed the time to settle and get, as is the buzzword, up to speed with the club. But that is not possible at our club, you have to come in and have to be ready and have to take all the weight of the world on your shoulders straight away.”