Despite being three months away from being able to make any moves in the transfer market, we’re hearing reports that Rangers are scouting in earnest for the new season in the form of a Rapid Wien pair.

And before you ask, no, neither of them are strikers or wingers.

First we have 6ft 3 20-year-old defender Leopold Querfeld and secondly there’s Matthias Seidl, a 23-year-old attacking midfielder.

And with a combined market value of about £6M at present, these seem to be the kinds of players we move for these days, young, sell-on value, significant assets at their current teams.

We don’t know a whole hell of a lot about them, other than this curiosity that we appear to be targeting two Austrians playing for the same Bundesliga side in Rapid, but it does show that work for next season’s campaign is very much underway, whether this scouting does reap players we make a serious play for or not.

For what it’s worth, Seidl is an international at senior level with a few caps, while Querfeld is still pretty young and is only capped at youth level.

The good sign is us looking at defenders, and on that note, Querfeld is interesting. Right-footed, he’s certainly a promising talent, and he’s a big lad at those 6ft 3 inches of his, and it’s pretty clear Rangers do need a solid new stopper or two in there. He may be one such candidate.

As for Seidl, well Rangers do have a playmaker crisis now. Todd Cantwell remains unavailable, Tom Lawrence’s fitness isn’t reliable, and Alex Lowry is miles away from the first team. Ianis Hagi is surplus.

The Welshman is all we really have there at present, so Seidl would represent a new body in that position, something that would help us. At 23 and with a few caps, he can clearly play a bit.

We’ll see in time if the club follows up either of these stories with a legitimate bid, or they’re just two of dozens of players the club is looking at.

A striker or two would be nice though…