Touching on our earlier piece of Abdallah Sima and Oscar Cortes, if we bring Mohamed Diomande into the mix, Rangers surely are not going to spend £16M on all three as permanent signings, so how does Cortes and Diomande affect things going forward.

Here’s what we know about all three, one by one:

Sima:

There is no deal in place to sign the Senegalese permanently – manager Philippe Clement said about 10 weeks ago that he would like to keep the forward, but things have absolutely changed in the interim with the arrival of Cortes and the form of Dessers. Sima’s importance earlier in the season has reduced, and it’s well-documented that a deal on him would cost around £7M – Brighton’s trading system is universally-praised and they won’t want to lose money. He was a loan, with no option to buy, but the case to make it permanent increased when the goals flowed. We’re not sure the urgency is still the same, and certainly not at £7M.

Cortes:

Another loan, but this one does have an option to buy written in, and we just cannot see Rangers and Philippe Clement not wanting to take this one up permanently assuming the Colombian’s sparkling start continues. The reputed fee is £4.5M and he’s clearly worth it already. That cash has to be ring-fenced and would come out of any summer budget.

Diomande:

This one is an obligation – having started life impressively at Rangers, the Ivorian will become a permanent signing in the summer, also at £4.5M. There’s no ifs or buts, he becomes ours in June. Currently a loan we get 6 months of ‘free’ football from him then he’s a fully-fledged Ger.

So, it’s clear that Dio is 100% signing in the summer, save for something extraordinary. And Rangers are 99% likely to snap up Cortes as well. That’s £9M already out of the summer numbers. Sort of – these deals are paid yearly so it would likely be £2M up front for the pair and a £1M a year till the deals are paid in full.

But what of Sima? This is the issue of contention – if the outstanding Dio and Cortes are £9M combined, can we justify close to the same amount for the nowhere near as impressive Sima?

He’s around £7M+ and with all the better stuff we’ve now got, it’s really a big gamble to make him permanent at that cost.

But as always, it will rest with the manager.

Be interesting to see if all 3 remain.