Philippe Clement insists Rangers' new director of recruitment Nils Koppen is the perfect hire due to his experience of finding gems at similarly budgeted Dutch club PSV.

The two Belgians were both at Genk for a six month period before Koppen moved to Holland but didn't know each other. 

They will now work closely, casting their net far and wide to bring talent to Ibrox that can improve the first team.

It's understood the new appointment is an expert in analytics and will look to continue the modernisation of Rangers' scouting operation that will see more focus on the use of big data to guide decision-making.

The change has been made after a summer that has seen little return for a £13m transfer spend and anger from fans over misfiring attacking signings like Sam Lammers and Cyriel Dessers.

Clement insists the time was right to bring Koppen in.

He said: "We had a lot of talks with different people, myself and the board. We are convinced he's the right man at the right place. He has a good track record in PSV bringing players in who are not too expensive. 

"That is a reality in this club, we are not the one with the most money in the world and can buy whoever we want. We are fishing in not the best pool but we need to get the best fish out of that and as fast as possible. He's the right guy to guide that process. There are several good people already inside of the club to help in that way but with what he did at PSV we all think that he can be a really important asset.

" In these days a lot of people play the games on Playstation of Football Manager or whatever and you have the budget and it works or it doesn't work then you put the computer to one side. It's not that easy a job. It's also totally different because you also have the competition with a lot of teams. I know this because with Bruges I had a similar budget to here and we were competing with the same players. 

"PSV are a little bit in the same world. There’s a lot of teams like that in Europe so it’s really important to be first with the players and to recognise them really first.

“The club have made a really good step. I’m convinced, and so is everyone at the club, that we can be faster and better at that."

While Rangers don't have the funds to splash out at the level of the Premier League in England, they do have significant resource compared to many clubs on the continent.  And as we have seen with the strikers signed by Michael Beale, a multi-million transfer fee does not always guarantee success in Glasgow.

"It is not about the amount, it is about the quality." Clement mused. "Here also there are a lot of stories about players coming in who are much cheaper than others and performed really well. In the end it is not about how much you spend. Of course, the more you spend the more chance you have to go in a bigger pool of players. You have more chances to find the right ones, but it needs to be the right ones."

Perhaps part of the problem is the Ibrox club focusing too much on a British market where it's difficult to find value. With Brexit, it's much easier to source signings from, say, South America or Africa where quality is cheaper to source. Asked if Rangers have to be smarter about the markets they are looking to, Clement was unequivocal.

He said: "Of course. I am really demanding and the club is really demanding and that was also one of the questions [asked of director of football candidates]. In these talks we spent a lot of evenings and nights, for a long time, with many people discussing around that. Really good candidates who were really strong on the UK market, but didn’t really know the European market. Then you take a big risk that the pool is too small to make the right targets. Nils was one of the best candidates by knowing the markets we need to aim for."