It was a new structure with new faces for a new era. Less than a year later, the football board at Ibrox encapsulates the alterations that have unfolded and perhaps sums up where Rangers are on and off the park. Once again, it is a time for change.

In December last year, Nils Koppen was named as director of football recruitment. In a statement on the club website, Rangers said that the move completed the men’s football board that would oversee and implement "the club's football strategy, including making key decisions related to player trading, contracts, and squad planning." The board itself is now in need of a long-term vision and the personnel to deliver it.

James Bisgrove left his post as chief executive officer in May to take up a post in Saudi Arabia. By then, Zeb Jacobs had already accepted an offer from Feyenoord as his stint as head of academy lasted just one season. Last month, John Bennett stepped down as chairman due to ill health a year after succeeding Douglas Park.

Rangers have yet to fill the posts vacated by Bisgrove and Jacobs. The process to recruit a CEO is ongoing after Jim Gillespie, the St Mirren vice-chairman, turned down the position. David McCallum is overseeing the academy at Auchenhowie. At first team level, the faith in Philippe Clement that was reaffirmed when he signed an extended contract remains in the corridors of power. At a time of upheaval in a business sense, Rangers need the Belgian to provide calm and hope, to win matches and win over the doubters within the fanbase.

(Image: Rob Casey - SNS Group) The Rangers Review revealed on Tuesday evening that Creag Robertson had resigned as director of football operations and will leave in the coming weeks to pursue fresh opportunities. It is understood that the decision is Robertson’s and sources insist it is not a case of the former head of business and education jumping before being pushed.

The return of John Gilligan to Ibrox offered Rangers a shot at stability and he will remain as interim chairman for the foreseeable future. Gilligan’s to-do list has already become lengthier, however. Gilligan and George Letham are now the main figures at Ibrox, with RIFC plc director Graeme Park also contributing more closely to the running of the business.

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Gilligan answered a call of duty from the club, his club, when Bennett made the decision to step aside and Letham has long been an influential figure around Rangers in a financial and operational sense. Their titles or status is irrelevant to both, but their roles could be defined as interim chairman and acting chief executive. Given their respective backgrounds and business acumen, their presence should provide supporters with a source of comfort at a time when more questions are being asked than answered.

If the pair had been a couple of decades younger, they could have been the ideal candidates for Rangers. As it is, both are doing their bit while they can and have to. Both men are in and around Ibrox the majority of the working week and Rangers business consumes their hours.

Gilligan may have been retired for four years but the former managing director of Tennent’s still has a get-up-and-go attitude and approach at the age of 72. He spoke last month about the position being an honour and a privilege and how he now wears two hats – one as chairman and one as a supporter – as he goes about the job in hand.

Koppen, James Taylor and Karim Virani continue to oversee their respective departments in football, finance and marketing. The football board – which also comprises of Philippe Clement and Dr Mark Waller – remains operational but the first year of its existence has been challenging and everchanging to say the least.

It was designed to put the power base in the hands of a collective and a process rather than one figure. The departure of Ross Wilson as sporting director and Michael Beale’s failings as manager necessitated a change of strategy at Ibrox. The theory and the practice have been tested in recent months and the addition of a figure with more experience in the game – perhaps under a director of football title – would arguably be beneficial for Rangers.

The requirement for recruitment cannot be shirked. The four main roles can be prioritised and the chief executive position is the top item on the agenda at Ibrox. It could well be the case that Jacobs and Robertson are not replaced until Bisgrove’s successor has got his feet under the desk.

A CEO appointment before Christmas remains the ambition at Ibrox. A demanding, perhaps disillusioned, support want everything to be done yesterday right now. That is unrealistic, though, and the agency appointed to oversee the CEO continue to work through the process as quickly as possible.

The likelihood that the preferred candidate has a notice period to serve could push a start date into the New Year. In that situation, Gilligan and Letham will hold their respective roles for as long as required. The need to get this appointment right will determine the outcome rather than pressure to get a body in the door to appease supporters.

“They need to have a strong business acumen, experience,” Gilligan said of the qualities the chief executive must possess when he spoke to the media for the first time. “They need to have ran businesses where there’s pressure and ned to deliver, it can’t be a comfortable business because the stress and pressure of being CEO of a football club is pretty big. They need to be a good communicator and getting to people. And they need a tremendous work ethic because it goes without saying it’s unbelievably difficult. They need to be a good person. I like decent people.”

Gilligan rejected the idea – put forward by Dave King in a series of interviews last month – that Rangers were a club in crisis. Supporters may feel that characterisation is accurate and the emotions will only be eased when appointments are made and a vision is presented.

Asking the punters for patience is always going to be a difficult proposition. That is the same for Gilligan as chairman as it is for Clement as manager. From the outside looking in, Rangers have the feel of a rudderless ship. That sense has been denied and downplayed from within but there is no doubt that the club and the support could do with calmer waters and a clear navigation towards stability off the park and success on it.

It would be somewhat ironic if Gilligan is serving as chairman come the anniversary of regime change in March next year. The Rangers that King, Gilligan and Paul Murray took over was a shell of the club that they had grown up supporting and had known before the arrival of Craig Whyte and events of 2012. The rebuild on and off the park was prolonged and painful. By May 2017, Gilligan believed he had done his bit and he stepped down from the board.

(Image: Rob Casey - SNS Group) “It is almost ridiculous to compare it,” Gilligan said of the Rangers he returned to this time around and the one that he found almost a decade ago. “It would make me cry rather than laugh. You cannot describe how low we were in 2015 and what we inherited in terms of all sorts of aspects of the club. It is unrecognisable since that day. Listen, every day at Rangers Football Club is a challenge, the level of expectancy is enormous. As a fan, I am part of that problem. But it is just ridiculous to compare it, to even begin to compare it.”

Accounts for RIFC plc will be released in the coming weeks and the Annual General Meeting will be held before Christmas. The mood of the shareholders and supporters will be defined by what is there in black and white and what is said and done to address the range of issues at play presently. There will, or there should be, plenty of pressing questions for whoever sits at the top table.

It would be folly to start printing the place names right now. Recent weeks have, after all, been an example of just how quickly things can alter at Ibrox. It is time for fresh faces once again. This new era must last longer, and be more successful, than the last short-lived one.