There’s no getting away from it, Mark Hateley and Steven Gerrard were correct, as we knew they were, when we look at what they both said in the past year.
When Gerrard was manager, having been dispatched by Malmo, he publicly bemoaned the lack of funds, and how you simply need money to beat teams at that level.
Now, of course, Gio overcame Dortmund and Red Star so he’s diluted the gravity of Gerrard’s claims a tad, but it didn’t make them wrong.
Then Hateley in recent days has slaughtered the board for not investing in new players – we’ve lived on frees and loans in the past two years and Rangers cannot improve from that.
And while the conditions and details of both claims may lack consistency, the overall picture is correct.
Rangers haven’t paid serious money for a player since summer 2020. Hagi, Roofe and Itten were the big investments and in 3 windows since, it’s all cheapos, Bosmans and loans.
Wright, Simpson, Ofoborh, Sakala, Lundstram, Bacuna, Sands, Diallo, Ramsey and Zukowski are all the additions since then, and just Lundstram of that lot has looked a truly good addition, and that took 6 months of being played out of position to get there.
The rest?
Not a penny spent and nothing in there that made Rangers stronger otherwise. And yes, we include Ramsey in this.
You need to buy players. You need to spend money, and whether Rangers won’t or can’t doesn’t matter.
The Patterson and Gerrard sales brought in £20M, but it all went on closing down the deficit, and it’s safe to say this summer is beyond critical.
If Rangers do not bring in new talent this summer, new quality talent having spent serious cash to get it, we fear to imagine the medium term future of the club.
We won 55, and did not capitalise on it with fresh talent. Not enough of it anyway, with just the former Sheffield man turning out a stellar signing. And he was a Bosman who wouldn’t have come if his hero Steven Gerrard wasn’t manager.
And that’s what Hateley is getting at. And Gerrard was too.
Yes, we need new talent, and yes, we need to spend.
It’s not rocket science.
I would like to see Zukowski given a chance now
Where are we going to find that sort of cash . Our so called assets are probably Morelos 15 to 20 Mill, Aribo 8 Mill, Kamara 6 Mill , Kent 12 Mill, Barasic 4 Mill …these are my rough estimates. If we sell then obviously we need to find replacements . Getting to future CL will not be easy either as the rotten mob will easily capitulate if they win the league probably allowing the Scottish coefficient to fall again. Its going to be hard .
It is possible to get good players for free but it doesn’t happen often and it shouldn’t be our only mode of operation. We need to buy better players, the ones that cost real money. We will probably need to sell 4 or 5 players to bring in £20m which would allow us to bring in 3 players in the £6-7m bracket. In other words players like Veerman and Olson who have hit the ground running at their new clubs. Just imagine the difference those 2 might have made. Maybe GVB can do his magic and find one or two Dutch gems for a few million. It’s also still worth keeping an eye on the Bosman market but I’m already worried that Souttar will be more of the same.
It’s time to give Lowry and King more game time especially in the league and get them bedded in for next season. IMO as many as 9 players could be away with McGregor and Davis retiring and others being sold or out of contract.Gio will known the Dutch market well and we have done well with Dutch players over the years and they don’t cost a fortune.
Comments are closed.