A loan issue for Rangers and Chelsea?

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A loan issue for Rangers and Chelsea?


Rangers and Chelsea have always had a bit of an ‘unofficial’ brotherhood with the ‘Blues Brothers’ façade. How real it is is open for debate, but there are fansites which allude to the relationship so there is probably something there, however slim.

But one thing the clubs most definitely do have in common these days is the loan system, and the sheer bulk of players out on loan at any given time.

As Rangers fans know about half the first team squad is (or was) out on loan this season – a tonne of genuine first-team members like Greg Docherty, Jordan Rossiter and Jak Alnwick as well as the less favoured youth lads seeking minutes.

Indeed, around 20+ Rangers players from the Academy and first team fodder found themselves loaned out over the course of the season, which in itself is not a great sign in terms of a reflection of recruitment. The Joe Dodoos, the Carlos Penas, the Herreras – all that mince Rangers signed over the past five years loaned out because we couldn’t get rid of them.

But spare a thought for Chelsea (yes, poor old multimillionaires Chelsea) – last season the loan count was announced by manager Sarri as around 47 players. 47!

We have no clue about the loans system as used in the Premier League, and Hazard (see what we did there) a guess that the vast bulk of their outgoing are youths, whereas that would be the difference with Rangers.

With a vast youth academy, clubs like Chelsea and Liverpool (of course, Rangers use Liverpool’s youth frequently as we did with Spurs and Arsenal back in the day) need to give their boys senior experience, so dozens of kids go out on loan.

At Ibrox? We just signed badly, and while a lot of our kids go out too, a huge proportion of our loans out are just the end product of bad business.

Rangers suffered from years of poor signatures – too much wasted money in trying to bridge the gap to Celtic, hoping to stumble on a magic formula for success. And now the only way to get this dross off our hands is by exploiting the loans market.

We don’t know just many are out (or were) on loan at Liverpool, Utd, City and Arsenal, but we’d suggest it’s mainly kids – rather than expensive signings.

And hopefully few to none of Steven Gerrard’s senior acquisitions ever ends up having to go that route.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. The number of players we have out in loan should gradually reduce as the crap ones come to the end of their contracts. It will happen again; nobody gets everything right, but should reduce.
    Youth players on loan works well for us to reduce the numbers in the squad. Also, lots of clubs line Chelsea, Liverpool and ourselves use loans to give experience to young players. As you note, this can also increase their sell on value
    So it is a skill we need to utilise

  2. Never ever bought into this assumption that all rangers supporters must prefer chelsea,as their favourite english team.All this blues brothers carry on.I for one don't have a preference to chelsea and I only support on football club,which is of course, the famous glasgow rangers.In saying that the english team i prefer to win and do well against all others,is newcastle utd, always has been.Don't give a shit about mike ashley,but i like to see newcastle doing well,for their superb supporters also,who remind me of us,
    with the passion they support their club with.

  3. The difference between rangers and Chelsea is that Chelsea made £80m 2 seasons ago from fees received for loaning players out.

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