Brendan Rodgers and the £30M Ibrox kitty

With Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers’ interest in Alfredo Morelos well-documented now, it begs a huge question;

Just how much would the ex-Celtic manager offer Rangers for his services, and could that money have a major impact on next season’s title race?

The bid would be in this summer, and while Rangers made a £5M profit in the recent accounts, market value estimates of Morelos range from £10-£25M depending on what kind of form he’s in.

And the fact is a sizable bid will be required to wrest a player of his age, ability and contract length (signed till 2022) away from Ibrox to the board and Steven Gerrard’s satisfaction.

The fact he’s an international too will bump up the amount Rangers would expect to get for him.

Which then leaves the question of how much is in the kitty for Gerrard to play with for next season.

Stevie was unable to spend anything in January, save for £100K on Kamara – the rest were frees and pre-contracts. But last summer the club allowed him to spend around £10M on the likes of Connor Goldson and Nikola Katic.

If we take that base figure, that every summer the base kitty Gerrard will get (like Pedro got before him) is the £10M mark, then anything beyond it is based on players sold – and Alfredo Morelos could well be a goldmine if the club play their cards right.

And if Rodgers is serious about his interest in Morelos, not only will it give Celtic fans another reason to hate him (giving Rangers millions?) but it will help Rangers compete far more convincingly next season if Gerrard suddenly has a warchest more like £30M than £10M.

And perhaps with the sales of other players who have some value (Tavernier) and/or who haven’t really settled (Barisic) Rangers could well have a serious amount of dough to play with this summer.

Of course, it’s all ifs and buts. We don’t know for sure Rodgers wants Morelos. And more than likely he’d try to get him on the cheap. But if he (or anyone) was to pay market value for this young hot property Colombia striker, Rangers’ summer transfer business would start to look the most serious it has for many, many years.

And that can only be a good thing.