As promised, the latest on Colombian winger Oscar Cortes, with Rangers boss Philippe Clement admitting he actually doesn’t have a clue what’s going to happen with the Lens attacker.
The manager finally broke his silence on the situation there and the only real admission he could make was that he wanted the ‘price to be right’ – he also touched on the briefness of Cortes’ playing time at Rangers, while slightly failing to take any responsibility for it.
He said:
“We are talking with Lens about what the situation is because in this situation it is a different situation from when he was fit. At the moment he was fit he was showing the right things, but it was really short term. Then it needs to be at the right price.”
Short term indeed…
Anyway, while we’ve offered our gripes about all that, it doesn’t change what ‘is’ and that is that Cortes is out for the season but is an option to buy this summer.
Do we want him permanently? Honestly, he showed more in a handful of matches than most players have all season, and he gave every indication he was a marquee signing. He had more impact than any signing for years, aside the first few months of Todd Cantwell.
The price was initially quoted as £4.5M, but Lens are obviously aware the lad hasn’t played due to injury, and that is more or less the price they paid themselves and they’ll want to make it back.
The idea of a loan was also suggested, and in all honesty, that may be the route Rangers go – the idea of keeping him for another 6 months then maybe an obligation to buy in January?
But we really don’t like loans, we don’t like having other clubs’ players on our payroll. It doesn’t sit well with us.
But Cortes was impressive and we’d definitely like him to stay.