Any interest Rangers had in Millwall’s Jake Cooper is officially over after the big stopper committed to another long-term deal at the Den, accompanied by an emotional statement exalting his love for the Championship side and his determination to take them to a better place.

Rangers offered a reported £3M bid to Millwall despite his being out of contract next summer, but Den bosses still considered him worth more and were desperate to secure him long term.

Now, Ibrox Noise is actually pretty glad about this.

Why?

We explained in previous Cooper content that a 28-year-old defender who still languished in the Championship after 5+ years of potentially taking that step up to a club the size of Rangers or a league like the Premier League probably had some reason for the top flight English clubs not to do so.

And we stand by that.

We honestly don’t want more Ben Davieses (more on that later) at Rangers – we want John Souttars, Leon Baloguns – top players with experience at top levels be that domestic or international, and we can’t help feeling at ‘The Noise’ that Cooper’s lack of ever playing at a level higher than the Championship (even Connor Goldson had a handful of PL appearances) was a big black mark against him at the age of 28.

Rumours are strong that we’re looking at Harry Souttar, and he’s an absolute class above Cooper, but hereby with his new deal at the Den ends definitively any interest in Cooper ever again.

It was a 5-year saga which ended with the player’s insistence his future lies at the Den.

Simply put he loves the club, and he wants to stay there. But that no PL sides made any overtures suggests he probably isn’t good enough to make that step up either to PL or Rangers and Europe.

So be it.

We move onto other targets and Cooper and Rangers are officially done.