The big question, even beyond today’s CL draw live at 5PM UK time, spurred on by the story linking Rangers with an audacious move for the legendary Cristiano Ronaldo, is the reality of where we are now signings-wise.

Rangers have just pocketed around £60M for qualifying for the group phase (TV, base fee prize, coefficient and gate receipts) so it puts us into a new market for the next 6+ days as the transfer window winds down.

We informed you Rangers scored £5M for reaching the playoff, but that was incorrect, and we retract it – that money went to PSV as losers, it is the losers who get that £5M. The winners get a base fee of £15M prize.

But we do get the base level £60M for the four elements we expressed above, so what does it mean for the transfer window?

Rangers were already magnificently in profit thanks to the £90M secured in the past 9 months since Gerrard’s sale, which was on top of arbitrary revenue we’d normally get in a season (around £75M). We usually have overheads slightly greater than this, but Covid hurt us big time and we made huge losses (£24M) in the last accounts. Now that situation is entirely on its head.

And it means signings. Not a lot of time to make them mind you, but we have budget now for some real spending over the next week.

Do not be shocked if Rangers make a huge signing or two before the 1st of next month – the money is there now for Giovanni to invest extra in the squad and if we want to have a good chance of regaining the SPL title as well as maybe making a wee fist of it in the UCL then signings could well materialise.

Budget? We’re not just going to splurge £60M, this isn’t crazy times, but if there’s a real opportunity and a player or two or three can come in of the highest quality at a total of £20M or less, it might just happen over the next little while.

Ronaldo? Who knows. But Rangers’ squad, while not too bad, can always do with improving.

Football never stops, so let’s see what surprises are in store over the next week.