If one thing did stand out clearly for Rangers in this window, it was that there was absolutely zero cash to spend.

Ibrox Noise’s information was the budget was an absolute roof £3M, but it didn’t necessarily mean Rangers wanted or indeed would spend that.

Indeed, now we know the board definitively didn’t want to spend a single thing this January, and we got three loans.

The most disappointing part in a sense is that we didn’t even bring in any free agents. There are many out there, many players not only currently completely out of contract, but those out of contract in the summer who could have been secured on a pre contract at least.

But in the end, not a soul came in on that basis, meaning Rangers made no immediately permanent signings.

Yes, Cortes and Diomande are options or obligations to buy in the summer, but for now they’re loan players – this does save cash and gives us £10M worth of footballer for free for 6 months. But it’s just buy-now-pay-later in all fairness, and means Rangers’ summer budget is already down by £10M should both players impress and stay in Govan permanently.

The ultimate conclusion, as said earlier, was that Mick Beale drained the resources last summer, spending well over £17M on players who either didn’t work out or who got injured for the season.

This left January threadbare in the coffers.

We did have around £3M we believe, but we were extremely loathe to spend it and preferred in every instance to go loan or spend nothing. This is why Jefte didn’t come – Rangers refused APOEL’s compensation fee to release the player now.

So, sadly, the only way to spin it really is Rangers had no money, and refused to spend the modest amount we did have.

Would manager Philippe Clement have known this?

Yes, we believe he would.

The fact he signed on knowing there would be little-to-no pennies to spend in January says a lot for his belief in the club and the project, and the club’s ability to secure thriftily in January.

But he will still be disappointed that no striker could be found in time. Even on loan or as a Bosman.

In the end we didn’t spend anything because we didn’t have anything to spend.

And yet in theory we still secured £45M worth of footballer!

You can spin it any old way really…