If one man has been a tad forgotten this calendar year, it’s January signing Oscar Cortes. A brilliant start, the Colombian winger already set the SPL on fire with his pace, dribbling and a goal and two assists, in just 378 minutes of football.

He looked, instantly, like the calibre of player Rangers want to have on our flanks, and settled in so quickly as to make his selection a non-question.

He wasn’t even up to full speed yet and had already been sparkling.

But then that wretched call from Philippe Clement to play him at Killie, knowing full well the surface was a potential danger, one he was quite public about protecting Kemar Roofe from, and sadly the dodgy pitch killed Cortes’ season.

So where do things stand now?

Rangers 100% want to keep Cortes, but spending the £4.5M based on 378 minutes’ football seems very risky, albeit we saw for ourselves what the on-loan Lens man can offer.

Rangers’ terms with the Ligue 1 side are that it’s option to buy, it’s not obligation, and there may be scope to extend the loan instead into next season – this might not be ideal for the player or Lens, but Rangers do have to protect their own interests and investing almost £5M based on so little football is a gamble.

Ibrox Noise’s verdict?

We’d take the purchase gamble.

We hate having players on loan – it feels so impermanent and ‘cheap’, because this is someone else’s player and we’re ‘borrowing’ him. Then ‘hoping’ we can cut a deal to sign him permanently. And if he’s a great player and gets integrated but the selling price is too high, you’re held to ransom or you lose the player. Not ideal.

We’ve never been fond of doing that.

If we can get Cortes permanently, he’s already shown in brief glimpses how good he is, how forward-driven he is, how he can assist, score, and sparkle like a Rangers-quality winger does.

While money doesn’t grow on trees, we saw enough of the 21-year-old to convince us he’s more than good enough for our club and we’d absolutely say pay.

The question then are Rangers’ negotiators good enough to get the price down?

That would be very nice indeed.