Danny Rohl lays out Rangers blueprint as he targets instant results

New Rangers head coach Danny Rohl has given his players clear demands for improvement in several areas ahead of his first match in charge.

Rohl has only had two training sessions before Thursday’s Europa League encounter with Brann in Bergen.

But the German believes a swift change in mindset and energy can yield instant results as he looks to turn around the club’s poor start to the season.

Rangers fans were struggling to see the tactical improvements previous head coach Russell Martin was trying to introduce and Rohl has prioritised victories after the team won only five of their first 18 matches.

The Light Blues have yet to get off the mark after two Europa League games and Rohl is eyeing a more focused approach.

Outlining his route to improving Rangers’ fortunes, the former Sheffield Wednesday manager said: “What I want to see on the pitch is intensity, sprinting, togetherness and a ‘playing forward’ style. Because we want to create chances, we want to create goals.

“And we have to understand, and this is also part of football, we have to defend as a unit, much, much better, with a lot of aggressive challenges.”

The German has observed that Rangers need more purpose in possession and more cohesion and determination without the ball.

“We spoke about what I want to see and it’s important we take things step by step,” the 36-year-old said.

“The first thing is we have to speed up our game. We arrive in fantastic situations, we arrive between the lines, but instead of attacking the last line, we break and we stop.

“We want to attack the last line and that means, for me, if we do it again and again, we create more chances and we score more goals.

“It starts with a good positioning in possession, but I said to my players as well, we have to understand we are a big, big, massive club and our demands are very high. But you cannot just think we can win football games with nice football.

“We have to understand we have to press well, we have to hunt, we have to counter-press and we have to play with intensity. If you do it as a unit, again and again, then it’s very hard to beat us and to break us down.

“This is what I want to change very quickly.”

Meanwhile, Rohl has brought in Sascha Lense as first-team performance manager and Matthias Kaltenbach as assistant coach.

Lense worked alongside Rohl at Sheffield Wednesday and was previously part of Ralf Rangnick’s backroom team at Manchester United.

Kaltenbach came through the coaching ranks at Hoffenheim, where he had a six-year spell as assistant coach, working alongside current Germany boss Julian Nagelsmann. He joined Ajax in 2022 as assistant coach to Alfred Schreuder.