There's nothing 'sustainable' about the level of spending currently on show at Rangers

Sustained winning and winning sustainably. That’s what Rangers chairman Andrew Cavenagh promised when taking over the helm with his American consortium.

Yes, it’s still pretty early in his 10-year plan, but that desired end goal still seems some way away if recent market windows are anything to go by.

Going by the accepted figures out there, a total of £35million was committed to transfer fees at Ibrox this summer with just £12million coming in the other way.

All told, something in the region of £80million has been forked out over the past three windows on a squad lacking any obvious creative force in midfield and strong odds against to win the domestic league title.

With no European football thanks to the calamities of recent weeks, the next set of accounts should make for interesting reading.

Watching massive amounts of money being ploughed into Rangers with no commensurate rewards ought to create unease given the lessons of the past at that club. And whether the new regime is backed by the San Francisco 49ers or not, the well will eventually run dry without greater encouragement than this.

Nico Raskin starting for Belgium at the World Cup and Thelo Aasgaard being there with Norway heightened hopes of some serious money being tabled from interested clubs, but it just hasn’t turned out that way.

Raskin is still in situ while Aasgaard leaving for Anderlecht on loan feels slightly bizarre. If Rangers couldn’t get big money right now for these guys, particularly Raskin, when are they ever going to?

The fact a hefty offer from Galatasaray for Youssef Chermiti was also kicked out shortly before he damaged his cruciate doesn’t help either.

Kevin Kelsy, Kim Min-su, Vanja Dragojevic and Olwethu Makhanya, all aged 22 or under, have surely been signed with one eye on attracting suitors with bulging bank balances and improving cashflow on this front.

However, they have got to be knitted into a team actively achieving things before that point comes – with the eye-watering turnover of playing staff in recent times proving that’s not as straightforward as it looks.

It is not the intention here to spook Ibrox fans with the stale soundbites from past regimes, but, for years and years, all sorts of characters hammered on about the need for a functioning ‘player-trading model’ to serve as one of the bedrocks of a self-sustaining operation.

Rangers still don’t have one – and that desperately needs to change before the new mantra of ‘sustainable winning’ can be chanted into reality.