Nicolas Raskin is set to quickly become Michael Beale’s second capture as Rangers manager after his medical went through and he closed in on a long-term contract at Ibrox, taking Rangers’ January spending to a reported £4M and set to go higher.
Todd Cantwell’s fee was logically above £1.5M, to beat Blackburn Rovers’ bid, while Raskin’s market value, in the region of £10M, nevertheless in the final 6 months of his deal and cast to Liege’s reserves would have set Rangers back around the same as for Cantwell.
And to secure Morgan Whittaker will take around the same amount, meaning January’s spending could, potentially, smash Rangers’ historical record of £2M in 2007 by three times into the region of £6M.
Time will tell how accurate that number is, our information was no more than £2.5M would be spent, given how frugal this window usually is and how weak Rangers’ financial situation was reported to be (by the club itself).
But the arrival of the Belgian is the big deal, the defensive midfielder, capable of filling in around the middle and is seen as a Glen Kamara ‘replacement’ and a first-team starter. Indeed, all the signings coming in this month are not filler or squad, they’re being secured as starters to give this team the levelling up it needs.
In defensive midfield Rangers have John Lundstram, Ryan Jack and Glen Kamara. Ryan Jack has evolved more into a central midfielder – for those who haven’t noticed, he no longer covers James Tavernier or defensive duties in the way he did, and as such he’s no longer viewed as a player in that area.
Lundstram is though, ditto Kamara, but with the latter’s departure intentions, new talent in that area was badly needed and that’s where Raskin comes in.
He’s a Belgium U21 international and he was a fixture for Liege till he and Deila fell out – now he wants a club who wants him, and Rangers have been monitoring him since before Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
With his having 6 months to go and the way his situation in Belgium changed, he’s ripe now for coming to Ibrox and it looks like Rangers are closing in on a very, very good signing indeed.
We’ll keep you posted.
Like what I’ve read and seen ,although limited , he looks another good acquisition young and keen to improve and coming from a better standard than the SPFL. Hopefully it gets done . We need a goalkeeper badly I hope there is a plan and maybe another striking option. Shankland would be great but not sure how much they would want . Ad I said it’s a pity he wasn’t signed when Ian Mcall told us to at Ayr.
how about Zander Clark Bill ?? his shot stopping and concentration are great.
You serious? He is a rank rotten keeper. We should be looking for way better than the Hearts back up keeper.
Think they are sending sands back. I think they are using the money that’s been “ring fenced” to get these signings over thee line.
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