Dave King must take the lead this week to end the shamble enveloping Rangers

A STORMY reception surely awaits Rangers directors at the club’s AGM on Thursday.

It has been a month since the hunt for a new manager was issued via the dismissal of Pedro Caixinha.

And a year since the last AGM, when Mark Warburton was still in the hot-seat and no-one had ever heard of Progres Niederkorn

Unless a Giovanni van Bronckhorst-shaped rabbit can be pulled out of the hat in the next 100-odd hours, the shareholders are going to want to know why it has taken so long.

Soundings from those closest to the inaction tell of different individuals on the Board favouring differing candidates.

My information is that a consensus was reached for Derek McInnes to be prised away from Aberdeen.

But when the numbers for his recruitment were crunched and scrunched, the cost of bringing him and his assistants in from a Premiership rival – and arming them with the resources they would need for the task at hand – was too high.

What we do know from the time elapsed is that if Graeme Murty is the answer – the long-term answer, that is – the question will need rephrasing.

He comes across as a good man, one with a decent grasp of both the history of the club he temporarily leads and the singular demands of trying to close the gap on a Celtic rival growing ever richer, and ever stronger.

That managers stand and fall by results, though, is inarguable.

Beating Hearts away, with a back-in-from-the-cold Kenny Miller scoring twice in a 3-1 victory, was more than fine.

As was the 3-0 win against Partick Thistle that followed.

But the losses at home to Hamilton Accies – their first league win at Ibrox since 1926 – and away to Dundee on Friday night, however, are simply not what is required.

Murty manfully declined to use the managerial uncertainty as an excuse for Friday night’s reverse.

As much as he deserves credit for taking all the responsibility, it is hard to escape the conclusion that an apparent lack of leadership has percolated from the Ibrox boardroom all the way down to the players.

Highly-skilled, highly-paid athletes they may be, but the Rangers players are like everyone else – they need to feel they are part of a coherent plan.

That needs to come from the top, specifically, in this case, from Rangers chairman, Dave King.

He delegated the – ultimately-doomed – appointment of the last manager to a recruitment panel, comprised of Managing Director Stewart Robertson, Head of Football Administration Andrew Dickson, and non-executive director Graeme Park.

This time a new approach is required.

It is time, in short, for King to get hands-on – chequebook in hand.