Kris Boyd believes Rangers are paying the price for a lack of ambition and poor recruitment, which has contributed to their disappointing start to the Scottish Premiership season.

Boyd fears that the gap between Rangers and their rivals, Celtic and Aberdeen, may already be too wide to close, leaving the club’s title hopes in jeopardy.

Sunday’s defeat to Kilmarnock has left Rangers trailing the leading pack by six points.

While Boyd is yet to be fully convinced by manager Philippe Clement, who’s celebrating a year in the job this week, he argues that the responsibility for Rangers’ struggles also lies with the club’s leadership.

Speaking about the reasons behind Rangers’ recent decline, Boyd pointed to poor recruitment decisions, particularly when compared to the reinforcements brought in by their main competitors during the same period.

Several of Clement’s summer signings have been underwhelming so far and don’t appear to be coping with the demands of representing Rangers.

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“Recruitment,” the ex-striker stated. “When you look at Rangers under Steven Gerrard, he made it quite clear that the time to strengthen is when you’re winning and it just didn’t happen at Rangers.

“I felt as if the football club felt they had enough to go again, Celtic strengthened, brought in Ange Postecoglou who had fresh ideas and changed everything while Rangers stood still.

“They’ve paid the price for that and players that could have been moved on for big money, their price has depreciated or they left for free and the assets are no longer there.

“Giovanni van Bronckhorst had a great run in Europe with largely the same team, but domestically you could see that Celtic were starting to get back on top.

“The recruitment for Rangers has not been good enough while Celtic’s has been spot on. The structure right now isn’t where it should be for the size of club Rangers are. Ultimately it’s not been good enough.”

Marley Watkins’ late winner for Kilmarnock, another of Boyd’s old clubs, condemned Rangers to a second defeat in eight league matches as pressure mounts on Belgian boss Clement.

Despite their slow start, Boyd insists it’s not time to panic about finishing outside of a UEFA Champions League spot yet.

“There’s always time to turn it around but I think it’s going to be very difficult,” added Boyd, speaking at the Copa Del Cure Leukaemia event at St. George’s Park.

“Celtic have started the season really well, as have Aberdeen. Rangers have had a sticky start. I think performances still have a long way to go to get to the level of championship winning teams.

“If you can just hang in there you never know, but I wouldn’t be betting any money right now on Rangers to win the league.

“Philippe Clement said this season was going to be a transition, it was going to be difficult for the club but – perhaps because I was a part of a successful Rangers team – I find it difficult to process the whole ‘project’ idea because at the big football clubs you’re under pressure every single week and you need to win now.

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“For Aberdeen, the turnaround has been unbelievable. You’ve still got to win the games but I think their fixtures have been kind.

“There’s going to be tougher challenges ahead for them and I would be astonished if it’s not a Celtic and Rangers one-two again.”

Cure Leukaemia is a UK-based blood cancer charity founded in 2003, working to accelerate the process of bringing life-saving treatments to leukaemia patients by funding specialist Research Nurses across the country…