Rangers have confirmed a striker will be signed in January, with heavy speculation Lawrence Shankland is high on the list of priorities.

Philippe Clement was speaking pre-Dundee to the media covering a range of topics, but with Tom Lawrence and Danilo both likely out long term and even for the season potentially, a new striker will definitely come in, but Clement tried to distance himself from discussion on Shankland in particular, without expressly denying interest in the forward.

Rangers now have just one out-and-out striker in Cyriel Dessers, who sadly hasn’t impressed at all, and while Abdallah Sima is free-scoring, he remains, for now, on loan, and mostly used on the left wing with Sam Lammers struggling horrendously.

It means Rangers are seriously in the market to sort out the attack, with a proper centre-forward needed.

Clement said on Shankland:

“That’s a good question! You guys have written a lot about that already. I’m never going to speak about players we are interested or not in. I hear some people really watch me a lot. I knew it in the city from one time in a restaurant. I need to think really well about what in the future I do. I don’t want to be in the same situation as the German national coach, that I take something out of my nose or something. Clearly I must watch out really hard what I am doing but I greeted all the player of Hearts along the way – nothing really special there.”

In truth this is not true – he did shake their hands, but as Ibrox Noise explained previously, he saved a particularly warm embrace for the captain.

Could this have been in light of him BEING the captain? And offering a more respectful embrace for their ‘leader’? We couldn’t comment.

All we know is Rangers will sign a striker this January, and boy do we need a good one.