A change in Ibrox policy that no one noticed…

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A change in Ibrox policy that no one noticed…


It’s rather sneaked up on us hasn’t it? In fact, we’ve barely noticed it at all, and that’s the passage of time for you.

When Ibrox Noise covered this topic some years ago, it was a slightly controversial idea – the notion of paying £1M for a player. When would it be the right time to go into that budget again. Some poo-poo’d the idea as irresponsible, and live within our means, others suggested it was essential to get back to where we needed.

No one really noticed as it started becoming commonplace again.

With the signing of Carlos Pena, Connor Goldson and Filip Helander, Rangers have spent around £9M on three players. And it made barely a ripple in the grand scheme of things.

Who was the first £1M player for Rangers back in the SPL?

Astonishingly it was the horror signing that was Joe Garner, a bizarre £1.8M purchase from Preston in 2016, Mark Warburton’s big-cost buy which was the largest waste of nearly £2M, and which, in all fairness, was a pretty controversial outlay for a player who absolutely didn’t warrant such expenditure.

Rather than the pricetag being too heavy, Garner was just absolutely rubbish and would have been poor value for half the price – he scored just 10 times in 34 outings for Rangers, and while that’s not the worst return in history, it sure wasn’t good enough for the fee.

But here we are today, £1M, £2M, £3M signings are now commonplace at Ibrox and absolutely no one noticed the prices slowly returning to what Rangers normally paid for the quality of talent we used to sign.

Can Rangers win the league with that calibre of player? Yes, thanks to the savvy acquisition of marquee Bosmans like Davis, Arfield and McGregor along with astute low-price signings like Aribo and Kamara.

But the point is Rangers’ board is now willing to spend the cash Steven Gerrard needs to mount a challenge. They were willing to support Pedro, and now they’ve done it two summer windows in a row with Gerrard – spending now under Stevie has gone close to £5M this window, and it already looks a bit wiser than the wastes of money Eros Grezda and Kyle Lafferty were (and Borna Barisic initially looked) last summer.

Changed days, huh?

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6 COMMENTS

  1. A slightly different take on transfer fees. The way I look at is this:
    The gate at the Oxford game will pay for Aribo.
    The gate at the Marseille game will pay for any fee required for the development of Hastie.
    The gate from the Blackburn and Derby games will pay for the Edmundson fee.
    Qualify for the Europa League group stages and that will pay for Helander with some change.
    3 home games in the group stages and a few wins would pay for another £4m player again with change.
    So in the grand scheme of things no one can really say we are living beyond our means.

  2. Partly true, but largest part of that is a "possible" income.. For me it's better to spend when you have it, Euro football is such a minefield early in season even pre-season. Been saying same thing to my clubs fans every summer, build slow & solid, I want solid improvement not peaks & troughs

    • Also partly true. We are already effectively into the 2nd round and should qualify comfortably for the 3rd round. So that's 3 home ties with likely full houses at close to a £1m income for each tie. That would pay for Helander. So the only signing from "possible" income would be the as yet unsigned £4m player.

  3. Do we want a team capable of challenging for the league and cup competitions this year or not. The board and manager have to given The chance before people start whingeing on what monies we are spending

  4. On average, Rangers can "afford" about £5m per season on transfer fees but in recent seasons have spent about £10m. The extra got covered by Europe last season

    So far we have spent just under £5m. Towards the end of the window, I think we'll spend the other £5m if Europe is still on track.

    Whilst we might sell Morelos for £10m+ this summer, I think next summer could be first where transfer income exceeds outgoings. After winning the league, Aribo, Helander, Kamara, Tavernier, Barisic will all attract £10m+ bids and then we can say the balance of power has shifted and club has fully recovered…on and off the pitch…

    • Don't really want to burst your bubble, but that was the same shit people were talking after we signed Pena etc for big money.
      Wait until we see how good the players actually are.
      Remember Rossitier was the new Stevie G , what happened there.
      Better to just watch the team, see how the new players gel with their teammates and what they are actually like in a Rangers Top. To many players go into their shell when they run out at ibrox

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