Rangers must not make huge summer contract mistake ever again

Rangers made a massive mistake last summer, and it’s one we’ve ended up paying for considerably. It’s also something we must learn from going into next year with eleven players out of contract in the summer, and that mistake is doling out new contracts to players that are past their sell-by date.

Allan McGregor and Steven Davis were two contracts which simply added no value to the squad, and ended up costing us a season’s wages where new talent would have been better placed – the one contract last summer which has vindicated itself was Scott Arfield.

But the other two? Finished, unfortunately the occasional decent performance aside, these two are done.

And next summer sees them as well as Ryan Jack, Filip Helander, Alfredo Morelos and Ryan Kent to name just four that find their deals expiring.

There is absolutely no value extending McGregor, Davis or Helander – the former two are just too old now, while the latter’s Rangers spell has been utterly ruined by injury. Of course, he’ll be injury-free the moment he leaves, but as long as he’s here, it will be one injury after another.

And that’s the mistake we must not repeat. Rangers cannot waste yet more wages on more deals for players who cannot repay that value. One player of three justifying their contract isn’t enough, it has to be the vast majority, and next summer we’d be very surprised if McGregor, Davis, Jack and Helander remained at Ibrox purely on value terms.

Morelos and Kent? Well they never signed their deals – clearly their plans are elsewhere, and neither of them has spoken to the press for a very long time to suggest otherwise, so we can’t see either signing the new contracts.

James Sands and Malik Tillman’s loan deals end too of course but both have option to buy and it’s possible that will be made permanent in both cases, but also it’s possible it won’t.

Which means it’s likely at least six-eight players will depart in the summer, and probably many more besides.

Rangers need a proper overhaul, some real money spent, and some real dead wood cleared out. We’d like to see the exits of a lot of players – Kemar Roofe another, Jon McLaughlin obviously another, and Kamara is yet one more name.

There’s a lot of chafe among Rangers’ squad, and with the out of contracts on the horizon for exits, we can see much changing in the summer.