What Rangers' new outlook means for the main figures at the club

THE deal to keep Walter Smith at Rangers for a final season is not only good news in itself for the club, it is also one symptom of a generally improved prognosis for the SPL champions. Smith's agreement to serve one more year as manager followed the decision by Lloyds, Rangers' bankers, to loosen the purse strings – and that decision will have a positive impact on almost everyone connected with Ibrox, not least on Lloyds themselves.

Far from being predicated on sentiment, it has been made for sound business reasons. Having imposed stringent spending restrictions on the heavily indebted club for the past two years, Lloyds have now acknowledged the recent improvements to Rangers' financial position which have come from a steady reduction in the wage bill.

The bank has rightly decided to keep Rangers afloat as a going concern rather than forcing a fire sale in search of the quickest possible repayment of their debt. Rangers' qualification for the Champions League will generate significant extra revenue, ensuring the club maintains its modest monetary recovery and allowing it to maintain its wage bill at present levels.

If the consortium headed by Andrew Ellis eventually succeeds in buying out Sir David Murray and taking over as owners, that recovery may well be speeded up, as the possession of sufficient funds to improve the present budget could well be a precondition of the sale. But Rangers' agreement with Smith and his assistant coaches Ally McCoist and Kenny McDowall comes after they and Lloyds agreed that they could not continue in limbo indefinitely, only beginning planning for next season whenever Ellis finally completed the process of due diligence and had an offer accepted.

Although his working without a contract since January indicated a certain tolerance of a very uncertain situation, Smith had been worried for some time about the consequences of allowing a period of indecision at Ibrox to persist. Most tellingly from his point of view, the inability to offer new contracts to existing players threatened to see Rangers start next season with a severely weakened squad. Now that the coaching team have been kept in place – and McCoist and McDowall told they will take over when Smith steps down a year from now – key players can be expected to stay. The problems at the club are far from over, but at least they are now being tackled in a positive and coherent way.

WALTER SMITH

THE manager's agreement to stay on for a final season is the starting point for a series of decisions on the footballing side of the club. When he returned to Rangers in 2007 Smith did not expect to be around until the summer of 2010, never mind the extra year to which he has now committed, and in recent months he may well have wished he had got out more quickly.

Certainly his agreement of a new one-year contract should be seen as in large part an altruistic act. Smith will be well paid, of course, but he is financially secure already. Securing a smooth transition to the next phase of the club's life, and leaving behind him a more settled organisation, may well have been his primary motivation.

ALLY McCOIST

SMITH's heir apparent and his fellow assistant coach Kenny McDowall have now at last been given a timetable for taking over. They have signed two-year deals on the understanding that for the second 12-month period they will be in charge.

After serving a long apprenticeship, McCoist will soon be rewarded for his patience. He could easily have found managerial posts elsewhere, but now has his dream job within sight. The extra year's transitional period will allow him and McDowall to oversee the overhaul of the squad.

SIR DAVID MURRAY

THE Rangers owner has wanted out for some time, and is understood to have had talks with Ellis earlier this week. The announcement that Smith had agreed a new deal came shortly after those talks, and may have come about because Murray concluded there was no prospect of an imminent sale.

If that is the case, it is bad news for the businessman in terms of planning his own future, but there is also a positive side for Murray. After at first insisting that he would only sell to someone who was right for the club, the present owner saw his moral authority weakened when it became apparent that the scale of the club's indebtedness meant it unlikely he would be able to turn anyone down. Now the bank has sanctioned a degree of financial detente, Murray is once again in a stronger position.

ANDREW ELLIS

THREE months on from first publicly expressing an interest in buying Rangers, the former Northampton Town chairman has still to bridge a yawning credibility gap as his ability to follow through on his intentions continues to be regarded with widespread scepticism. That scepticism will not decrease in the light of Rangers' announcement on Tuesday evening.

Apart from that fact, however, the Smith announcement does not necessarily cause Ellis any additional problems. If he does not take over, it is irrelevant to him who the manager is. And if he does take over, he would surely prefer there to be a stable management team already in place instead of being tasked with finding one in a very short period.

ALASTAIR JOHNSTON

THE chairman has been openly critical of the speed at which the Ellis bid is moving, stating last week that Rangers would plan for next season on a "no change in ownership" basis. Given one of his principal tasks since assuming office last August has been to find a new owner, in one sense this is a setback for Johnston.

Conversely, Lloyds' agreement to cut the club some slack is an implicit vote of confidence in Johnston. It also allows him the breathing space, if the Ellis takeover does not materialise, to go out and seek an owner in a calm fashion rather than being portrayed as someone desperate to sell.

DAVID WEIR

THE veteran defender now finds himself a giant step closer to fulfilling his desire to spend one more season as a Rangers player. Now 40, Weir said he would only stay on if Smith did too, and it was clear his ideal scenario was for the man who brought him to Ibrox to stay at the helm until he himself retired.

KRIS BOYD

CLOSE to leaving Rangers several times over the last couple of years as the club sought to make some money on the transfer market and cut its wage bill, Boyd has made no secret of his desire to stay. Although he has not always been a favourite of Smith's, the striker has a proven goalscoring record in the SPL which is likely to see him remain as a key member of the side next season.