Fails after Ibrox – Rangers board needs to up transfers game

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Fails after Ibrox – Rangers board needs to up transfers game
12/24/2023 Istanbul, Turkey. Ryan Kent of Fenerbahce seen before the match. Fenerbahce and Galatasaray faced each other in the Trendyol Super Lig (Turkish Super League), the match took place at Fenerbahce Sukru Saracoglu Stadium (Photo by Yagiz Gurtug / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP) (Photo by YAGIZ GURTUG/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

Aside the example of Calvin Bassey who has taken a fair old time to find some rhythm in his post-Rangers career, it has to be said our alumni have almost all universally failed after leaving Ibrox.

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Despite all the ‘potential’ and hype around the Morelos and Kents of this world, barely a single departed Rangers player has even come close to going onto ‘bigger and better’ with just the Nigerian international Shirley looking like he might be something in his career and Katic and Helander doing alright.

What does this say about Rangers?

A lot of things, and we’ll list them one-by-one:

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The trading model has been a shambles. Far too many average players acquired with only minimal selling value. Despite us loving him, Antonio Colak was sold for just £2M, having been signed for £3M. The trading model at Ibrox has been utterly dreadful and there’s a litany of players we’ve signed and failed to get any significant profit on. This has been going on many many years and it’s a sign of their poor post-Rangers careers as to how mediocre our scouting was that recruited them.

Zero bargaining power – the only time Rangers actually rejected a serious bid for a player was the only time we shouldn’t have – Alfredo Morelos’ infamous £16.5M bid from Lille. Rangers have been a mess when it comes to valuing our players, and selling them for profit. The only three successes in these terms are Aribo, Patterson and Bassey, and two of them have had horrible post-Rangers careers, which reflects badly on us.

The contract system, while not strictly related, definitely comes under fire here too. Losing the Kents and Morelos’ for nothing, players who could have netted us £35M combined. Letting these contracts wind down and the players leave for free, losing us out on millions. As it turned out, these among other players have been shockingly bad in the time since they moved on, but that’s not our problem here. The lack of cash for them is.

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But yes, how badly ex-Rangers players do after Ibrox is very important. Philippe Clement has addressed this – that if we bring in a cheap young player, make him into a star and sell him for big money and he then does well after Rangers, other clubs will look to Rangers as a source of quality players and it’ll rake in the cash. Celtic, we admit, are masters of this, all of their players go for big money and they all thrive after their Celtic careers. No wonder they keep on selling for huge profit. Rangers have a LOT of work to do to catch up in this area.

But as things stand, few-to-no one is shining after Rangers. Colak can’t get a game for Parma, Kent and Morelos’ nightmares are well-documented, Kamara is in the ignominy of the Championship, and Sakala is out in the low-credibility moneylands of Arabia. Scotty is always on the bench in the MLS. That’s only a few. At least Helander and Katic are doing well.

Two or three of how many?

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We definitely need to up this.

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