As us Gers fans gear up for a summer of a revolving door at Ibrox, with major incomings & out going needed. We look at next summer, and importantly players who are out of contract, as this should have a bearing on what work needs to be done in terms of recruitment.
At the end of the 2023-2024 season we have four 1st team players on the books currently who will be out of contact.
They are Lundstrum, Barisic, Roofe & McLaughlin.
From those players it would be safe to say that the majority of Rangers fans want rid of Roofe, as he is never available enough, and McLaughlin as he’s simply not good enough.
That leaves Lundstrum & Barisic to deal with.
From what has been said so far, there is no mention of new contract talks forthcoming on these two players – despite noise from Lundstrum’s camp that he wants to stay. However this could change quickly with the new CEO now in place.
This will be the last big contract for these two players, who each will be on between £20K-£30K a week. So if they want to stay will they be happy with the same terms, or be looking for a bigger pay day? The fact is we need to make a decision on this NOW, so at least we can try and cash in and not have another two leave for nothing next season.
This allows the manager to plan accordingly and find replacements, and at the same time bring some money into the coffers for reinvestment.
The reason for this being highlighted is due to the farce we have seen in the past couple of seasons when it has come to contract renewals, we only have to look at the situation the club found it’s self in when it came to Goldson, Kent & Fred. These would have been three prime assets we could have got some money in for, but no we didn’t take the bull by the horn and deliver an ultimatum to them the SUMMER BEFORE their contracts were due to expire – either sign a new deal or look for another club, simple as that.
In the end Goldson renewed (mainly cause he didn’t get the move that he thought he would get to a top ten EPL club), whereas Kent & Fred have been allowed to run down their deals, which they are entitled to do – but the Club is not a charity, it needs to be run as a proper functioning business and if that means tough decisions have to be made for the better of the Club then so be it.
Rangers have been extremely poor for planning in this area, and we hope under James Bisgrove and John Bennett, better strategy will see much better results.