Now that the dust has settled on Rangers dismissal of CEO Patrick Stewart and Sporting Director Kevin Thelwell, the scale of the damage they inflicted becomes painfully clear.
What was sold as the beginning of a new, modern era instead became one of the most chaotic and regressive periods in the club’s recent history.
Their lasting legacy will forever be tied to the catastrophic 123-day tenure of Russell Martin, the head coach they jointly appointed - a decision that delivered Rangers worst league start since 1978 and, in the end, ultimately dragged both men down with him.
Stewart’s time at Rangers started on the wrong foot and never recovered.
Appointed in November 2024 as the former CEO of a Manchester United side stuck in a decade-long tailspin, he officially began work the day after the 2024 Old Firm League Cup final.
The timing raised eyebrows, some wondered if he deliberately waited to avoid being associated with a potential defeat, and the unease only grew from there.
His first January window produced only a single signing, the loan of Rafael Fernandes from Lens, a player who scarcely made a matchday squad, let alone contributed on the pitch.
It was a timid, uninspired start at a moment when Rangers needed decisiveness and clarity.
The situation worsened in February. Rangers crashed out of the Scottish Cup at home to Queen’s Park, a Championship side struggling for form.
It was a humiliation that effectively ended any realistic chance of silverware that season. Stewart publicly backed Philippe Clement, even declaring on Rangers TV that he would not sack the Belgian. Less than two weeks later, Clement was gone after a damaging defeat to St Mirren.
The U-turn was stark and highlighted an executive already out of his depth.
His failure to read the room was on display again in May when he publicly condemned a Union Bears tifo depicting Graeme Souness with a gun, a replica of a famous photograph of the Rangers icon.
To supporters, the reprimand felt clueless, tone-deaf, and emblematic of an executive team that did not understand the club’s culture or its people.
The structural issues mounted. Rangers entered the summer without a sporting director because Stewart had failed to appoint one earlier, leaving no time to properly plan for the biggest rebuild in years.
His promise of a deep-dive consultation into sports science, analysis and squad planning produced no tangible improvement.
And then came his most baffling proclamation: calling Russell Martin a “cultural architect”. It was an astonishing label for a manager who neither understood Rangers nor earned the respect of the fans, and whose press conferences were marked by irritation, condescension and dismissal of supporter concerns.
If Stewart’s reign was marked by indecision and cultural misreads, Kevin Thelwell’s tenure was defined by poor judgment and misplaced confidence.
Appointed in April 2025 after a mixed at best spell at Everton, he assumed control in the summer and immediately misfired.
The Martin appointment, championed by both Stewart and Thelwell, went ahead despite supporters’ near-unanimous belief that it would fail. It did, in spectacular fashion.
Given the largest Rangers transfer budget since pre-2012, Thelwell somehow constructed a squad weaker than the one that had limped through the previous season. His marquee striker, Yousef Chermiti, a player he had previously signed at Everton, arrived for over £8m despite failing to score a senior goal in two years on Merseyside.
He has looked miles off the required level. Meanwhile, the club ended the window with just one recognised left-back, 19-year-old loanee Jayden Meghoma, after selling Jefte, Ridvan Yilmaz and Robbie Fraser within weeks of each other.
The the bizarre decision to sack Nils Koppen, the recruitment chief who had identified talents like Hamza Igamane and Jefte, both of whom would later be sold for sizeable profit elsewhere after a single year in Govan.
Thelwell justified the Martin appointment by claiming the coach “knew the club” due to a brief and unsuccessful loan spell in 2018. In reality, Martin had been one of the poorest top-flight players the club had fielded in years.
The internal politics grew murkier. Thelwell appointed his own son as head of recruitment and recruited Dan Purdy and Jon Hunter Barrett, both past colleagues, into key positions.
The transfer strategy became heavily skewed toward the English market, where prices are inflated and value is scarce, ignoring the global approach that had previously unearthed bargains.
When Martin was finally sacked, the managerial search that followed was shambolic. Rangers effectively had Steven Gerrard and Kevin Muscat lined up before both walked away.
Eventually, the club crawled back to Danny Röhl, who had been overlooked earlier in the process, and asked him to re-enter consideration. It took the entire international break to make the appointment, during which Rangers dropped more points under interim manager Stevie Smith.
Even off-field decisions descended into farce, with the club preparing to reappoint popular kitman Jim McAllister before abruptly ending talks once news leaked to the media.
By this point, Stewart and Thelwell had lost the supporters, the dressing room and the trust of the board. The club finally acted. In a carefully worded statement, Rangers announced both men were leaving, thanking them for their service but making clear, between the lines, that the club needed a new direction.
Chairman Andrew Cavenagh later explained on Sky Sports that the decision came after a full review, emphasising that Rangers required “different executives” to lead the club forward.
The implication was unmistakable: Stewart and Thelwell were not simply unfortunate, they were inadequate.
Their departures now give Rangers a chance to reset properly. With Danny Röhl bringing renewed clarity, energy and identity on the pitch, the club finally has breathing space to rebuild its football department with competence rather than chaos.
The lessons of the Stewart–Thelwell era are stark: money means nothing without structure, titles cannot be chased with slogans, and Rangers cannot be led by people who do not understand Rangers.
The timeline of failure is complete. Now, the hope, for the first time in months, if not years, is that the next timeline will finally be one of progress.