We’re kind of reduxing an article we touched on some months ago, one heavily derided by a lot of fans at the time for sounding ridiculous to them, but recent weeks, sadly, have proven us entirely correct, and Michael Beale himself has effectively confirmed it.
Not only that, but a lot of Rangers fans themselves are discussing mass clear-outs at Ibrox, as if Ibrox Noise didn’t already suggest it was happening all those weeks in the past.
But yes, there is going to be, as we suggested, a colossal turnover this summer, and a lot of Rangers players will be exiting.
We posited possibly up to about 20 players – shockingly, it could be even more than that now.
The only players we think are, for right or wrong, genuinely safe in their positions at Ibrox, are James Tavernier, Connor Goldson, John Souttar, Nicolas Raskin and Todd Cantwell.
The rest are completely vulnerable to sale, mutual consent, and of course contracts expiring.
There is no way any fan, including ourselves here at Ibrox Noise, can accurately predict the numbers or who will go, but we know at least 20+ are absolutely vulnerable.
The out of contracts will all leave. They all know this now.
McGregor, Davis, Kieran Wright, Arfield, Jack, Helander, Kent, Morelos and Tillman will all be heading out. That’s 9 off the bat.
Then there’s the injured and/or surplus and/or want to leave: McLaughlin, McCrorie, Roofe, Kamara, Hagi, Lundstram, Lawrence, Wright, Sakala, Ofoborh, Lowry, Matondo, Yilmaz.
Then there’s Ben Davies who will just be sold for simply not being good enough, assuming we can find a buyer.
While a tonne of this is, we concede, guesswork, it’s clear we’ll see a turnover in squad the likes of which we’ve not seen since the end of the Walter Ally era in 2015 as Mark Warburton basically freed half the squad and signed a new one.
20 player exodus? Do not bet against it. Rangers need a change. We need to sever ties with the Steven Gerrard era now, ditto the Gio one, and begin anew, fresh, with a tonne of changes.
And the bulk of the new players coming in will be funded from sales and freed wages.
It’s badly needed and desperately anticipated.