John Lundstram has backed down on his previous refusal to talk about a new deal, by admitting he’d love to stay at Rangers.

When asked about his contract expiry last, the former Sheffield man dismissed the question completely and would only say it was between himself and the club, and refused to elaborate any further.

When asked again more recently, with a mischievous caveat of the question being ‘carefully’ rephrased, he was a bit more forthcoming by saying he absolutely wanted to stay and loved the club, but did reiterate again that it was between him and the club.

So what does this mean?

We have heard absolutely nothing on a contract extension being offered to Lunny, aside some press conjecture that he was on the verge of such an offer, but in reality, we’re not aware of him being factually proposed any deal.

And in terms of his language, he was clearly making a public appeal this time that he wants one. He wants a new contract. He wants to stay.

John Lundstram is settled in Scotland, and he’s settled in his life here. He loves Rangers, and he loves the city.

He is quite happy to sign a new deal and indeed his performances have been notably better this season than last, with a further boost seen since Philippe Clement took over.

Of course, there’s ‘playing for a deal’ which we often see when players’ contracts are up for renewal, but we don’t really take Lunny for that kind of player, when they get the new deal and the form quickly fades.

His reported salary is about £20K a week, he’d obviously hope for a bit of an increase in that, not that we take him for being greedy, but the going rate for a player of his quality (highly experienced in the Premier League for one) is probably more than that.

So he would deserve an increase, and we guess it’s just a waiting game for him to negotiate a new contract that he’s happy with. Because he absolutely wants to remain in Govan and we think Rangers would be better off keeping him too.

Time will tell.