Nils Koppen: Rangers name recruitment head as new technical director with expanded responsibilities

Nils Koppen: Rangers name recruitment head as new technical director with expanded responsibilities

Nils Koppen insists "there will be some changes" after being named Rangers' new technical director.

Koppen - who is currently director of recruitment - will continue to oversee the club's transfer strategy ahead of "quite an important" January window.

However, with director of football operations Creag Robertson set to depart, the Belgian will also take on overall responsibility for the club's men's academy, medical, football operations, performance and analysis departments.

In a club statement, Rangers said: "Koppen has led on the significant task of implementing a new recruitment model, with Rangers striving to build a new, modern and sustainable structure for the football club."

When asked if the staff he is taking on in his new role gives him hope Rangers can be successful in the years ahead, Koppen told RangersTV: "Nearly a year inside of this club and [I have] had the time to observe a lot of processes and people inside of the football department.

"I must say there's a lot of good people within this department but also a lot of areas that we have to improve, have to address on the short term and I think there will be some changes in the coming period, but all with the idea to strengthen the department and making the next steps.

"It's crucial that the team around the team has to be on the highest level to let our team perform on the park to get the best possible results.

"Winning is all that matters at this club and it is my job to ensure that everything that supports our men's first team, from recruitment, to the academy, medical, performance, operations, analysis and everything in between, is at as high a level as possible.

"I look forward to the challenge ahead and to supporting the wider team as we work night and day to ensure this club is challenging for trophies on every front."

Last week, Scotland head coach Steve Clarke called on all the bodies and clubs across Scottish football to unite and improve the pathway for young players.

A recent Scottish Football Association report revealed the country "lags significantly behind comparable nations in terms of young-player minutes at every level of the game", with the ages of 16-21 a particular problem.

Koppen admits Rangers must improve the output of their academy and insists he will also look to "sign the best talents of Scotland", with plans also in place to bring in former players to help those going forward understand more about the club.

"First of all, we have to fill in the key positions within the academy to ensure that we'll be ready for the future," he said.

"We can be a productive academy by bringing players through to the first team. I think there's a lot of good work to be done already in the last years within the academy but we cannot be satisfied with the general output of the academy.

"We have to keep on creating room for our own academy players to make the step to the first team, and we can do that by a better squad build-up, to roster them into the first team [and] to give them the opportunity to step up and be a part of that.

"I think one of the objectives still will be to sign the best talents of Scotland [and] to maintain our best talents, because I'm sure we've got a lot of good talents already in the building.

"We want to do that by strategic partnerships with other clubs, by changing our own philosophy, by bringing the players on a younger age, [to] expose them to the first-team training environment, to give them the opportunity to show themselves and make the right steps at the right moment.

"What we also don't have to forget is that we're a Scottish club - we have to educate players, not only for our first team but also in general for the Scottish game.

"One of the things where I'm looking at is maybe adding in some ex-professional Rangers players to increase that level of DNA to that level of detail."

Rangers signed 11 players while 16 departed Ibrox in the summer as manager Philippe Clement and Koppen looked to rebuild the squad, cut wages and reduce the average age of the group.

The 39-year-old - who will remain across the club's recruitment as well as his new duties - added: "I consider it as one of my key responsibilities within my new role, to be a part of that very important strategic pillar that recruitment and player training is in the club, and we have to get better and we have to keep on improving on that way.

"It's about continuing the work towards [the] January window, what's quite an important one for the first team. It's about ensuring the stability in the football department and I think as a very important one, making key decisions within the academy to get the right structure in place.

"As I mentioned before, this is a very unique place, so by bringing people back with the Rangers background, we know what it's about. I think it's a quite crucial one moving forward."