In a rare dip ‘into the past’, Ibrox Noise is going to have a look at the signing record of our ex-manager.
Over the near-four years the former boss was in charge, Rangers made a glut of signings. Only three regular players in our current setup weren’t in fact brought in by him, namely Ryan Jack, Alfredo Morelos and James Tavernier, so let’s take a trip down memory lane and look at the hits, misses and otherwise of the current Aston Villa boss.
In acquisition order, the new permanent recruits were thus:
Scott Arfield, Allan McGregor, Jamie Murphy, Nikola Katic, Connor Goldson, Jon Flanagan, Borna Barisic, Kyle Lafferty, Eros Grezda, Gareth McAuley, Andy Firth, Matt Polster, Glen Kamara, Jake Hastie, Jordan Jones, Steven Davis, Greg Stewart, George Edmundson, Joe Aribo, Filip Helander, Brandon Barker, Ryan Kent, Ianis Hagi, Calvin Bassey, Jon McLaughlin, Jermain Defoe, Leon Balogun, Kemar Roofe, Cedric Itten, Jack Simpson, Scott Wright, Nnamdi Ofoborh, Fashion Sakala, John Lundstram and Juninho Bacuna.
The loans were:
Ovie Ejaria, Umar Sadiq, Lassana Coulibaly, Ryan Kent, Joe Worrall, Jermain Defoe, Steven Davis, Sheyi Ojo, Andy King, Ianis Hagi, Florian Kamberi, and Bongani Zungu.
Let’s begin with the permanent additions. The absolute, 100% successes of these are surely:
Arfield (free), McGregor (free), Goldson (£3m), Barisic (£1.5M), Kamara (£50K), Steven Davis (free), Aribo (£300,000), Helander (£3M), Kent (£7.5M), Hagi (£3M), Bassey (£300,000), Balogun (free), and Roofe (£4M).
That’s around £22M pretty well spent, in truth. All of the above players are major players in the side today.
The middlings?
Murphy (£900,000), Katic (£2M), Jones (free) McLaughlin (free), Itten (£3M), Sakala (free), Lundstram (free).
These guys did modestly to well, but it’s hard to really judge any of them an overall success or indeed failure, especially given, in cases, limited minutes from the ex-boss.
The fails?
Every single loan bar Kent, Defoe, Davis and Hagi.
As for permanent fails:
Flanagan (free), Lafferty (£700,000), Grezda (£2M), McAuley (free), Firth (free), Polster (£300,000), Hastie (£300,000, Stewart (free), Edmundson (£300,000), Barker (£300,000), Simpson (£300,000), Nnambi Ofoborh (£300,000), Bacuna (£2M).
In a 3+ year reign, only really 13 permanent players can be genuinely called outright failures, and even then some of those are slightly unfair, such as Ofoborh with his health issues and Bacuna with his lack of minutes. McAuley too wasn’t half bad and got the best out of Goldson for a while.
Nevertheless, the ‘fails’ cost £7M and in truth compared with £22M of successful permanents, you’d have to say the record of the ex-boss in the transfer market really wasn’t that bad.
It’s why the squad is actually in decent shape today.
Unfair on Ofoborh and Bacuna as you say. We also made a profit on Edmundson and he didn’t perform that badly when he played. I wasn’t a big Flanagan fan but he was an honest professional who was an upgrade and a stepping stone from where we were at the time to where we are now.
I think Katic, Ofoborh(if ever given clear), and Bacuna, could still have futures at the club. Simpson is the biggest waste of a wage ever lol he just doesnt look interested even when he does get a chance.
I posted a valid comment about 3 players who could still hv a future, why do some posts get through and others dont ?
Mate, calm down, comments just hadn’t been moderated yet!
Im calm i was only asking
The biggest wage thief is Barker always injured and never ever be good enough. For him to get a 3 year contact was ridiculous.
Think it’s u fair for big Ofo and Bacuna to be on a fail list. One has a heart condition and the other isn’t getting game time yet under gio, and if that’s why he’s a fail then many others should be added to the fail list.
Bad for morale to call some players failures, get behind the team, there’s enough negativity from MSM.
“In a 3+ year reign, only really 13 permanent players can be genuinely called outright failures, and even then some of those are slightly unfair, such as Ofoborh with his health issues and Bacuna with his lack of minutes.” Evidently you can’t read, Ash.
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