Cavenagh insists Rangers never had a leading candidate and dismissed the idea that Rohl was third choice behind Gerrard and Muscat.

Talks were held with several coaches in London beyond Rohl, Muscat and Gerrard and Cavenagh says there were five names he would have been delighted to move forward with.

“We interviewed a number of great candidates,” he said. “We spoke to a number of other candidates that you’ve never heard about.

“We left London 10 days ago, having done a whole bunch of meetings and I said to our group how happy I was that we had five candidates – not the three that have been talked about – I was extremely comfortable would be great coaches for Rangers.”

When pressed on why Rangers were unable to finalise a deal for either Gerrard or Muscat, Cavenagh described both situations as “complicated”.

“We didn’t rank people one, two and three,” he said. “We had 10 days at that point, tops, to get a coach into the building, so we pursued all five simultaneously.

“Was anybody offered the job? The way that it works isn’t like that. You don’t have a big ceremony and send somebody a letter with a bow on it.”

The American implied that neither Gerrard nor Muscat were officially offered the role as they pursued multiple candidates simultaneously.

“You’re working on a whole bunch of different details at the same time,” he added. “The two people you mention are complicated.

“They’re halfway around the world, they have families, they’d have to move, they’re coming in mid-season.

“So what you’re trying to do on every candidate is just constantly try to move the ball forward and figure out, ‘can we make this happen’? And again, we’re doing that with five different people at once.”