Rangers have moved in on Nottingham Forest’s frozen-out centre half Scott McKenna as a permanent left-footed fixture in defence with the £10M-rated Scotland stopper likely to move on in this window along with fellow exiled team mate Joe Worrall.
McKenna, 27, is interesting a number of clubs this window, with Old Firm rivals Celtic naturally being one of them, and Sky Sports report that Rangers have very much joined the queue of interested parties in the ex-Aberdeen defender.
With 25 Premier League appearances, McKenna has a reasonable current CV in England’s top flight, but it would be fairly argued he’s not a massively-experienced PL player having made his majority of Forest outings in the Championship.
But he wants first-team football now with the Euros coming up with Scotland later this year and while very much part of Steve Clarke’s thinking for those, he will be a bit-part player if he’s not in a first team getting plenty of starts.
Of course, the big advantage for any pursuing club is he’s out of contract this summer, so would at least be a pre-contract this month, or indeed, at any point between now and the expiry of his deal, but with Rangers only having one left-sided CB (Ben Davies) McKenna is deemed as fitting that bill quite nicely.
And at a good price too.
Is this one we’d want?
He’s obviously evolved since his Aberdeen days, grown as a player, and 25 PL appearances is decent, but it’s not spectacular.
Rangers-level players usually have upwards of 50+ appearances in England’s top flight, and McKenna is quite a distance below that. But he is definitely a solid international-level defender with 30 caps for his country.
So will Rangers get their man?
It will boil down to McKenna choosing between both halves of the Old Firm really.
That’s if talks get more advanced, anyway…