Rangers defender Leon Balogun has confirmed there’s no talks yet over his future, in an interesting contrast with John Lundstram who the manager has revealed has had talks but they’ve gone dark for now.
The 35-year-old German-born Nigerian, a firm fan favourite and who backs up his popularity with performances, is one of those Ibrox Noise quoted yesterday as being out of contract this summer, and we offered major uncertainly that he’d get a new deal.
But he certainly wants one and doesn’t want the situation to end up like it did last time around.
He said:
“Not yet (new contract talks), I hope so. I really don’t know. I think those decisions will be made within the club within the next few weeks. I hope I get a notification a bit more timely than the last time around! I would like to think I can be quite positive, and touching on what you said about the manager, choosing me today, but I can’t really tell you – I don’t know yet.”
Comparing that with John Lundstram who avoided talking about a new contract for a long time before finally stating many months ago that he wanted to stay but it was ‘private between me and the club’ does show a lot more candour on the Nigerian’s part.
How he was treated last time was poor – he was ‘told’ that it was actually former Sporting Director Ross Wilson who tried to persuade ex-manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst to keep him, but the Dutch boss apparently wasn’t having any of it, and this gave Leon a very late ‘notification’ that he was to be freed. We don’t know who told Balogun this though, but someone did clearly free him.
This time around doesn’t look a great deal better – there’s nothing on the table and his deal expires in 5 weeks – fans love him but we’re not sure Philippe Clement quite holds him in the same esteem.
Clement has been clear that he wants to keen Lundstram, but a lot less vocal about the other players out of contract, and that includes Balogun.
If the club hasn’t offered a new deal with just 5 weeks left of his current one, we’d be surprised if the boy gets one now.
But we hope he does.