Rangers fans face rivals for a signature after supposed signing target Ross Stewart became a strong target for Greek giants Olympiakos.
The 26-year old former Ross County hitman, with 28 in 82 for County, thrived rather impressively for new side Sunderland, with 26 in 53 last season, but that was League One, and the question of the step up to the Championship loomed as the Black Cats gained promotion.
And Stewart’s results in England’s second tier make for further admirable reading, 5 goals and 3 assists in just 7 outings, but of course he’s been out injured most of the season, having thrived those first 7 matches but injured since early September.
He’s due back soon, and there’s no denying that while his League One stats were great, we wouldn’t want to judge him on them, but instead on what he’s done in the tier above, and that makes for convincing reading.
But it’s that injury history that is now a concern – Rangers fans rage with the club over targeting so many players with injury troubles, and for having so many injuries on our books with the current squad, so attracting another player more unavailable than not isn’t ideal.
In fairness, this is only his second significant career injury, his first being three years ago, so it’s not like he has bad history for it long term unlike the likes of John Souttar who was plagued by injury blight for years before Rangers picked him up.
And his goalscoring is clearly good, having impressively made the grade with that step up to the best ‘second division’ in world football so evidently the SPL would be absolutely fine for a player of this standard.
Market value? Said to be currently around £5M at Sunderland but he’s out of contract next summer so he’d be another free, and with Olympiakos and other clubs monitoring him, he’s clearly a lucrative Bosman.
Time will tell if this is one Michael Beale and Ross Wilson really want at Rangers and most top clubs have around three viable strikers, meaning Antonio Colak, Alfredo Morelos and potentially now Ross Stewart in addition.
A reasonable selection.