With Rangers top of the league (in theory, game in hand) things are fairly strong with Philippe Clement’s squad, and Ibrox Noise wanted to do something we rarely offer, which is a best players and assets article.
Who are Rangers’ most valuable players on the pitch, and market-wise, and just how many assets does the club have at present?
We begin with probably the most currently-valuable player, and that’s star goalkeeper Jack Butland.
He’s been excellent, the 31-year-old excelling in Scotland and really SHOULD be England number one but for snobbiness from Gareth Southgate. He had a peak market value of £22M back in his Stoke days, and we think he’s creeping into that direction again. We’d say he’s worth around £20M at present, but the club is likely to sell for a bit less if say a £15M offer came in.
Next up is Todd Cantwell. Once upon a time he was a £40M player, no joke – it wasn’t even that long ago. It was when Villa sold Grealish to City and they sought to replace him, and bid £30M for Cantwell from Norwich which was rejected. City greedily wanted £50M, and that was that. These days? Nah, nowhere near that. He did great last season and probably regained some of his old value, maybe approaching the £20M zone but this season dipped well below and he’s only recaptured some of that form recently in 2024. We’d say Cantwell is currently between £5M-£10M but could get higher with a strong stretch of form.
Then there’s Ridvan. He cost us £6M back in the day, and we don’t think his value has actually changed much, especially given his injury issues. It’s only in the last 2+ months he’s finally become a regular under Clement, and regained his Turkey spot (then sent home with injury). So we reckon he’s gone up a little but not much. £7M.
James Tavernier is a controversial one. 32-years-old but still the most dangerous and important player the club has – it’s kind of like how Ibrahimovic remained clubs’ most potent player despite being approaching his 40s. It’s not ideal when the best player is that old and that indispensible. Value? There’s been a tabloid number from ‘transfer gurus’ of about £7M, but we think Rangers would command more – Tav has two and a half years left and despite his age, Rangers aren’t going to let the captain go cheap. Maybe £10M-£15M.
John Lundstram is another one – he’s the wrong side of 30 and while if he was a year into a new deal he might be able to fetch £5M+ and did peak around £10M in his Premier League days, at his age he’s not going to earn that. He’s been great under Clement but his age is against him. He’s a £3M-£5M player now.
Rabbi Matondo is an interesting one – he cost Schalke around £8M but his value completely crumbled as he struggled in Germany. He has shown recent signs of recovery and even got his Wales place back, but for now, he’s worth no more than about the same as we paid for the 23-year-old – £3M.
Dujon Sterling is where it starts getting very interesting. A free signing from Chelsea on precontract, he had little reputation except in his old club’s academy, and for a long time wasn’t going anywhere at Rangers. And yet many would argue he’s one of our key players now. Is he worth big money? He’s 24 and integral to Rangers now, but we don’t think his value is massive. Transfermarkt claims £3M and we’d say he needs to keep his form going to rise from that.
Nico Raskin is a strange one – in theory a Belgium U21 international should be big money, and in fairness his market value is estimated at about £7M. Even though he’s not shone for Rangers much since last season he’s only 23 and Rangers would expect a healthy chunk of change for a player of his theoretical quality.
And these are probably the most notable. We’re not really sure we can put too much interest/value on Danilo or Dessers, are they prize monetary assets? They cost a lot, but at best they’re worth what we paid – £6M each.
You will also have noticed we omitted Sima, Cortes, Diomande and Silva from this.
Yes, there’s a lot of potential market value in them but they’re not our players, and while two of them have option/obligation to buy, we’ll leave valuing players until they’re our own.
This is why Clement wants the better trading model. Not enough of Rangers’ own players have big values attached and we’ve got some potentially leaving for free.
We want to have a fair few of our players being in the £20M+ region of value, we’re not quite at that moment yet.