It is well understood now that Rangers manager Philippe Clement will have around £25M summer budget to spend, with Rangers’ squad desperately-needing a dramatic overhaul.

Plenty of players are leaving under freedom of contract, while a number will also be sold to accrue funds – what we’re not 100% clear on is whether the budget includes the sales, or whether that’s the ‘upfront’ cash Clement will have, with any sales a bonus on top.

What we do know is Rangers’ board has ringfenced a number in the £25M range, simply because they can’t afford not to.

What does this mean?

The fact is Steven Gerrard had around £11M every summer transfer window bar 2021 – and that was the no-spend Malmo exit nightmare summer that he complained about the lack of financial muscle.

He spent about £35M total at Rangers in 3 years, which is why Ibrox Noise has regularly argued he completely underperformed and took far too long to win one trophy given what he shelled out.

But his replacement, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, got more. He got £15M in his summer window, even if it went on some players not up to Rangers’ needs like Ben Davies (£4M) and Rabbi Matondo (£3M).

Then Michael Beale got yet more. £6M on Dessers, £6M on Danilo, £3M on Lammers, £1.5M on Cifuentes and £500,000 on Dujon Sterling to name just 5 players who came in that summer, which amounts to around £20M overall including other fees and sign-on numbers. That number has been confirmed by club sources.

So this summer, it is clear that with a massive exodus and plenty of players’ sell-by dates reached, as well as a number of sales being expected, the board has earmarked a leap again to the £25M region.

So what can Clement do with this?

Well, we can compare to the last time he spent around that number on a club who were expected to win the title – Brugge.

He spent around £30M on a glut of players in summer 2021 there, including some loans, and did indeed secure Belgium’s championship. £30M is about right for the biggest Belgian sides.

So his track record for spending that region of money on a club’s transfers when that club is hoping to win the title with it is actually positive.

We’ve also explained that he spent only £5M more the following summer for Monaco and collapsed with 7 matches to go, only for his successor to spend close to £100M the summer just gone. They secured second.

Long story short, Clement has a CV for getting a fair amount out of £25M-£30M for a club whose size (if not pressure levels) are on a par with Rangers.

Hopefully Rangers’ budget this summer will allow the boss to sculpt the squad that he wants and we reap the rewards.