So today is the big day – Michael Beale has promised that today Rangers will make the big announcements of players definitely leaving, and it could be quite the cull at Ibrox today.
Comically, after all this hype, the only players to date to officially be announced as actually exiting stage left in Govan were Alfredo Morelos and Allan McGregor, and even both of those were vague and throwaway remarks by the manager rather than a formal club statement.
So when is the announcement?
It’ll be made on the social channels today, and it really is educated guesswork to know who’s moving on.
Ryan Jack is the only contract to get extended, with a year added on and an option for a further one – Jacko knows he needs to keep fit and in some form, and essentially has winged himself another 24 months. Not bad for someone who’s just not the player he was and gets injured a tonne.
But there’s a whole host of departures, and they look like being McGregor, McLaughlin, Helander, Davis, Morelos, Kent, Wright (both of them), Roofe, and of course the big one in the form of Arfield, everyone’s favourite non-Canadian.
It’s, as we say, really just Mystic Meg but with a better crystal ball – no one can know for sure who the exodus will definitely be, but today is said to be the big one, the day of announcements.
Michael Beale promised (for what that’s worth) the big news would be Tuesday, and we wouldn’t be overly shocked if a few surprise names were in there too.
The reality is Rangers desperately need a rebuild this summer. A ‘friendly’ Old Firm win, while both sides still did want to take the 3 points, does not answer squad deficits and shortfalls, and it didn’t suddenly make an underachieving and limited Rangers squad world beaters.
It just made us all feel better. We definitely took positives from it, but anyone who reckoned it proved Rangers are better than Celtic read way too much into it.
Wait till we’re at Parkhead next season, and they start their full-strength team. That’s where we will be judged on.
But in the here and now we await the big news, the big exits, the end of the road for a number of Rangers men, with contracts officially expiring in 7 days in most cases.
We’ve rarely needed a rebuild more than this.