The long-standing story linking Rangers with a move for Stoke’s Tom Ince is an interesting one if we’re honest.

Ince, son of an illustrious football legend in Paul, of course, has not come close to living up to his dad’s reputation – how could he, Ince Snr was a Man Utd legend who won an awful lot with the Red Devils.

Ince Jnr barely managed 3 goals and an assist in around 50 appearances in the PL – which for a winger isn’t really good enough regardless of who your father is.

But while it’s notably better in the Championship, with 77 goals and 54 assists in 287 outings, his last assist or goal in any competition was July 4th this year and he’s been out of favour this season.

Let’s face it, around 130 goals and assists in the Championship in nearly 300 appearances isn’t bad, it isn’t bad at all, but he’s still contracted to 2022 and he wouldn’t exactly be free.

The Championship, let’s not forget, is infinitely superior to the SPL – the SPL sits somewhere between League One and League Two for quality, with the two massive aberrations being Rangers and Celtic, who have the infrastructure in place to compete in the PL, although so do Newcastle and they’ve been relegated more than once.

The point is a player who’s been good in the Championship could theoretically sail the SPL, but we’ve seen better players than Ince struggle in the hammer throwers and hatchet men of WWE. Sorry, Scottish football.

He’s a signing we could make, but we’re just not sure if Stevie wants him in particular.

We certainly know we need another right winger, even though Ianis Hagi is recapturing some form and Jordan Jones has been restored to the first team, while Kemar Roofe waits to regain fitness.

And Ince is a right winger mainly by trade.

This is one we’d certainly defer to the boss – we just don’t know.