Are Rangers set to pay Hearts for John Souttar now?

Rangers face Aberdeen on Tuesday and still the question of John Souttar and his arrival hangs in the air.

Hearts have made it pretty clear they’re open to him leaving now, but they want £500,000 and significant add ons.

We imagine the addons are the usual appearance payments and a potential sell on fee, but the point is Rangers desperately need defensive bolstering, and Souttar is himself extremely keen to arrive in Govan this month.

Rangers want him now too, and Hearts are willing to sell, so should Rangers match the price asked?

The phrase ‘needs must as the devil drives’ is appropriate here.

For whatever reason Niko Katic isn’t returning, Connor Goldson’s future is up in the air, Leon Balogun’s fitness is unreliable, Filip Helander isn’t due back for a few weeks and Calvin Bassey is only an ‘ok’ centre back and not spectacular.

As such, the question of Souttar’s arrival urgency looms larger, and we’d suspect it’s better to just give Hearts what they want, as we did with Bournemouth’s Jack Simpson and Aberdeen’s Scott Wright, in order to have that extra option in defence.

Of course the irony here is we’re signing an injury-prone player to cover other injury-prone players, but hey, them’s the way the cookie crumbles.

Pay? Yes, we’d say as long as it’s within our means, pay what they want.

We need him.