Rangers fans have tonight responded to Ibrox Noise’s Malik Tillman poll with a pretty definitive answer as to the potential signing of the USA international, and it’s not exactly supportive of potentially spending upwards of £5M on the Bayern kid.

In Ibrox Noise’s poll, where we asked if you were in favour of that amount of outlay, (regardless of it being ringfenced, incidentally), the results were pretty strong.

Only 23% were in favour of spending that much, while 76% said either no, ‘only on a loan’ or ‘only for less’.

While it’s not possible to ask every single Rangers fan what they think, and sample sizes will always be ‘representative’, this was pretty emphatic and clear.

Going by these results, it is less than a quarter of the support who think it’s a good use of £5M to sign Tillman, and if Beale does go ahead and spend that much, the American will already be on the back foot trying to prove himself value for that money.

Unlike most other signings, we’ve tried before we bought in this case, and while he didn’t completely fail, many supporters suggest he fell short of being worth the big fee Bayern appeared to be asking for him. His stats were pretty good but he lacked any presence in the big matches which fans judge our players on, namely v Celtic.

Ben Davies and Ridvan both cost this kind of money, and fans generally feel Davies was a real waste of that number, while the jury is out on Ridvan through his injuries.

But Tillman had a full season to prove himself, and while most fans would probably be ok with him signing for a lot less, it’s the fee that puts Rangers fans off in their droves.

To be even clearer though, 46% of all responses actually explicitly said they didn’t want to sign him at all, as opposed to ‘for a smaller fee’ so that’s a pretty categorical answer.

The lion’s share of fans don’t support Rangers signing Tillman permanently, and Michael Beale will make even less friends after Scotty Arfield was confirmed departing if he pushes ahead with the Bayern lad.

We’ll see.